Psalms for Today

 

Read Psalms 1-3

 

We leap and launch into the world of the Psalms, the Hebrew Hymnal this week.  In these pages you will encounter the passionate pleas and praise and painful prayers to God.  Remember, you are welcome to go at the pace that works best for you, if three Psalms are too many, slow down to the pace of your soul.  Remember, to read the psalms aloud ~ this helps you hear your own voice and let the words sink/settle/sing to your soul in these days in a different way than we normally engage things we read.  We read Scripture aloud every Sunday for this exact reason.  Finally, notice which words cause you to feel lost in wonder, love and praise ~ and which words feel like sandpaper to your soul?  It is okay if you read a Psalm in the coming weeks and think, “Meh.  I could take or leave that one.”  Not every psalm is going to cause your heart to pitter patter and your soul to shout, “Alleluia”! 

 

Read slowly, saving the syllables of the first three psalms.

 

This coming Sunday, May 18^th, I will preach on Psalm 1 ~ this is a Psalm of orientation.  Psalm 1 lays out a promise ~ that if you plant yourself in the soil of the sacred then you will be like a tree sipping on a cool stream every day.  Psalm 1 encourages us not to be trapped or tripped up by the voices of the so-called experts or those who write with eloquence dripping from every word.  Rather, “chew” or “meditate” or “root” yourself in Scripture.  That is what we are doing in the coming weeks.  We want to feast on the Word, sing these hymns together, and talk about what is happening within us as we do.  Now, I know you’d like to yell, “Objection, Wes!  I do my best and bad things still happen.”   Life is not a mathematical equation where good behavior plus reading your Bible daily plus avoiding jerks equals your best life ever.”  Exactly, which is why we turn the page to Psalm 2, where (according to the Message translation) the Psalmist sings “Earth-leaders push for positions, demagogues and delegates meet for summit talks, the God-deniers, the Messiah-defiers (say): “Let get free from God!”  The Psalmist goes on to say at first God is amused and then angry our human show of thinking we got this all planned out God.  The juxtaposition of Psalms 1 and 2 creates poetic and powerful tension.  We hear in Psalm 1 how we are to chew on the word and all will be well.  Well, then Psalm 2, interrupts and sings, except when leaders fail and falter to be adults in the room and remember who God is.  These words ring true in my soul today.  I sit with both these chapters as if the Psalmist just read the headlines with me.  Finally, Psalm 3 sounds like me when my anxiety takes the wheel of my brain.  “Um, God, a little help here?  Please!!”  Moments we are overwhelmed.  Did you catch that in verse 5, the Psalmist relaxes?  Not because all enemies are evaporated or eviscerated ~ indeed even in Genesis 1, there is a hint that chaos persists even after the seventh day.  God rests on that day and we are called to do the same.  Not because the to-do list has become a to-done list, but because rest is holy and healing, especially in the face of feeling overwhelmed.  May your soul find moments to chew on these words and close your eyes resting in God who isn’t going to quiz you on this, but longs for you to listen to the wisdom of these words.  Amen.