Sermon: October 16, 2022
Preacher: Rev Foster Freed
Scriptures: Psalm 119:97-104
Today’s guest preacher was the Rev. Foster Freed, retired United Church Minister.
I will start by acknowledging...by acknowledging that I took at least some small measure of comfort over the past few weeks—having agreed to participate with Ryan in this small series of services based on readings from the Psalms....
….I took a wee bit of comfort when I realized that Psalm 119 is so long, that the worst-case scenario—in the event that I could not come up with a sermon—would simply be to arrive here and then, at the appointed time for the sermon, to stand at this pulpit with head raised high, recite this lengthy Psalm’s entire 176 verses with neither explanation nor apology, and then just sit back down as if that were the most perfectly normal thing in the world. Mind you: I would not recite the psalm by heart! Of that you may rest assured although I have it on reasonably good authority that the great William Wilberforce (who did so much to rouse England’s awareness of the horror of slavery)...apparently Wilberforce would recite the entire Psalm, by heart, when he walked home from sessions of Parliament. That’s a remarkable achievement given that this is not only the longest Psalm—but the longest chapter—in the entire Bible. I think I’m a big shot because I have the Magnificat memorized; I’m a rank amateur compared to Wilberforce although—in truth—I'm told that there are young adherents of Islam who have the entire Q’ran memorized. Yikes. But I digress.
Beyond it’s great length Psalm 119 is notable because it is an alphabetical acrostic: not the only acrostic in scripture but certainly the most remarkable. In the case of the other acrostics, each verse begins with one of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, in alphabetical order. But here, in Psalm 119, there is an entire stanza devoted to each letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and each of the 8 verses in each of those 22 stanzas begins with that same letter. It’s quite the tour-de-force. But perhaps, when we consider the theme of the psalm, we ought not to be surprised at the lengths to which the psalmist was prepared to go....because its theme is central to Jewish self-understanding: namely, devotion to...dedication to...the law. And not just any old law...but quite specifically, the Torah, the teachings, the sacred ordinances, the holy word given to ancient Israel through the advocacy and mediation of Moses. It is undoubtedly the case that Psalm 119 ranks as scripture’s most passionate account of Torah devotion: devotion that continues to animate the life of observant Jews right down to our own day. All and all, it is a most formidable piece of sacred poetry....but also, for yours truly: a piece of sacred poetry that cannot help but raise some highly personal questions, personal questions which I have no choice but to inflict upon you this morning.
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I should begin by noting that I have, these past three years, been making use of a devotional resource that makes heavy use of the Psalms. During that time, I have become far more intimately connected to the Psalms but also, during that time I have come to realize that my affection for the psalms is far from uniform. I say that without any embarrassment. The Psalms, I believe, have a unique role to play in the overall shape of scripture: providing us with a human response to the word of God. That explains, incidentally, why liturgically traditionalist churches don’t conclude a reading from one of the Psalms with the solemn invocation: “The Word of the Lord/Thanks be to God”, but rather append the Gloria Patri: “Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit”...as a way of making certain that the Psalm, despite its grounding in the human experience of God, is ultimately offered to glorify God rather than the poet. And yes! Given the rich humanity of the psalms, it is hardly surprising that we will respond in a variety of ways to the variety of the psalms housed in that great 150 psalm volume. In truth, there are psalms I deeply love...in truth there are psalms with which I am very uncomfortable...and in truth there are many that produce in me a mixed response. Psalm 119, I’m afraid, falls into that middle category. And it does so both for what I would describe as a minor reason...but also for a very big reason. The minor reason...
The minor reason having to do with the Psalm’s tendency to celebrate not just God, but the wondrous piety of the poet:
Your commandment makes me wiser
than all my enemies!
I have more understanding
than all my teachers!
I understand more than the aged!
And yes: I realize full well that the poet’s point is that his wisdom and understanding are the result of his having listened to God’s commandments. I get that. But frankly, 176 verses of that sort of thing starts to get a little tired. That, however, is a small issue when placed side with the issue that really nags at me...an issue having to do....
Having to do with something I said to Ryan way back when I first realized that I was going to be preaching on an excerpt from Psalm 119. What I said to Ryan was: “you know, the danger here is that I am going to end up preaching a sermon on Galatians. “ And yeah: to some extent...to some extent I’m afraid that’s precisely what is about to happen.
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I’m sure most of you are familiar with that little saying: the one about there being some things that once you’ve seen them, it’s impossible to unsee them. Something like that happened to me about a decade ago, when I picked up the Anchor Bible commentary on Galatians: written by a brilliant scholar by the name of J. Louis Martyn. To be honest: commentaries are things I tend to consult rather than devour. I rarely read a commentary from cover to cover; they can be pretty dry. And I can only think of one commentary I have read twice from cover to cover: namely this commentary on Galatians. The bottom line of Martyn’s approach to Paul’s most controversial letter is his insistence that Paul is really and truly saying what many of us (in this era of interfaith dialogue) are kind of hoping he isn’t saying, namely that the Law—which is to say the Mosaic Law housed within the Torah—had its day...but that its day is at an end. Needless to say: them--thar are fighting words! Indeed!
My own New Testament prof at the Vancouver School of Theology, Lloyd Gaston, was a terrific scholar and in some ways a saintly man; to his credit, Lloyd was deeply involved in Christian-Jewish dialogue and he sought ways of interpreting Galatians and also Romans so as to soften and qualify Paul’s radical edges. God bless Lloyd for that! My own, perhaps somewhat more cynical take, however: is that a document such as Galatians will always prove a sore-point with thoughtful Jewish readers, meaning that more of our energy ought to go into living together peaceably despite our differences rather than seeking to smooth out those differences. That having been said: where I certainly do agree with Lloyd is his conviction that Paul never attempts to proscribe the role of the Mosaic Law within the Jewish world (including, I think, the world of those Jews who had become disciples of Messiah Jesus), That does not change the rather stark fact that Paul was determined to oppose any normalization of the Mosaic Law within the largely gentile Churches he was founding. And frankly...
Frankly...that leaves me no choice, as someone who came into the mainly Gentile Church from a Jewish background... leaves me no choice but to ask some fairly weighty questions in response to the place of the 119th Psalm within the Church of Jesus Christ. And so permit me...permit me in the time remaining to me this morning....permit me to ponder those questions under two broad headings. On one hand: the question of the practical significance of the law, in other words: the law as a locus of discernment in the daily shaping of our lives. On the other hand: the question of the spiritual significance of the law: in other words the law as a focus for devotion in the daily shaping of our spirituality. Let me begin with the question of discernment by which I mean the practical question with which we all find ourselves wrestling from time to time, namely: “As followers of Jesus, how then should we live?”
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As the poet who crafted the 119th Psalm knew in his bones....and as observant Jewish communities have demonstrated for nearly 3 millennia, the Torah—the sacred law—has provided a strong foundation, a firm practical foundation for the day-to-day life of individual Jews, and the Jewish community as a whole: guiding and governing pretty much every facet of life, right down to even the most minute details. Paul, of all people....Paul who described himself in another one of his letters as someone whose righteousness under the law could be described as “blameless”...Paul, of all people must surely have understood the profound implications of withholding that foundation from the mainly Gentile Churches he was establishing throughout the Greco-Roman world. But here....
...here it’s crucial to clear away some misconceptions that can prove very misleading. On the one hand, we often reach for a distinction between “faith” and “works”: and claim that Paul was promoting “faith”--trust in Jesus, rather than the accomplishment of “good works”. That is a problematic distinction—deeply problematic--because Paul’s letters are chock-full of words of encouragement urging the members of his faith-communities to outdo one another in concrete acts of love and compassion. On the other hand, we often reach for a distinction between “Law” and “Gospel”: and claim that Paul was replacing the “Law” with the “Gospel”. While that may well be true in some way—although it would be more accurate to say that the Gospel, for Paul, is now the larger story that has incorporated into itself the story-elements of Torah—that juxtaposition of Law and Gospel doesn’t actually get at the question of how you and I go about living the life of discipleship. Where Paul does answer those practical questions, the real distinction isn’t between Law and Gospel, but between Law and Spirit—the Holy Spirit--sent to direct and guide and govern. Not a written code...but (taking a page from Jeremiah) God’s own Word written through the power of the Holy Spirit, on the hearts of those who have come to know and who seek to follow the risen Christ. And yes, in truth:
In truth: thoughtful Jews and thoughtful Christians have been debating this one for a long time and will, no doubt, keep right on debating it until God chooses to bring the curtain down on all our debates and disputations. As Christians we may well point our finger—as Jesus in the Gospels at times appears to point his finger—at a tradition that may strike us as exceedingly legalistic. Indeed, the reason Judaism has produced the massive mainly legal commentary known as the Talmud—and the reason the Talmud is a mere fraction of all the legal commentary that is part and parcel of observant Jewish life—is because laws will always need to be adapted to changing circumstances. That’s true of Canadian law...how could it not be true of the laws that govern Jewish life: even if much of the commentary, and many of the closely reasoned legal arguments, will strike many of us as arcane. That having been said...
...thoughtful Jewish response to Christianity will tend to worry that we have been handed an impossibly expansive and terrifyingly vague canvas on which to paint our lives. As Paul insists: “For freedom Christ has set us free”...although I hasten to add that freedom can prove to be not only exhilarating, but a wee bit frightening. To switch focus, for a moment, from Paul to Jesus: go no further than that terrifying parable some of us preachers wrestled with earlier in the year, the Good Samaritan. The lawyer who sets that parable in motion asks a perfectly legitimate question! He wants Jesus to help him understand the parameters of a life of love; are there degrees of responsibility that can help me to navigate the tricky waters in which I seek to “love” my family, my friends, my neighbors, the stranger I encounter on the road. By way of response Jesus tells a story which makes it abundantly clear that it’s up to me! I get to decide! I get to answer the question: “Who is my neighbor?” by setting up (or choosing to refrain from setting up) boundaries to help define neighborly love and responsibilities. And surely...surely there is something a wee bit unsettling in that! Surely...surely we can have the honesty to acknowledge that Jesus—in telling such a parable—or that Paul, in dismissing the law and yet calling us to lead lives of radical, open-ended virtue—lives thoroughly shaped by kindness, gentleness, self-control, and generous self-giving—they have handed us Gospel people a very tall order. Which, of course...is why Paul keeps speaking about the Spirit...keeps reminding us, as those for whom the law will no longer be central...keeps reminding us that we are not alone...that we live in God’s world...and that God’s Spirit will guide...will govern...will direct. It is a tall order: discerning what it means to be a faithful people, learning to make use of our God given freedom in ways that do not embarrass the God who gifted us with that freedom. Discernment...the challenge, the inescapably practical challenge, of learning to live rightly and well on the far side of the Law of Moses.
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Side by side...side by side with the very practical role Psalm 119 envisions for the Torah, envisions for the Mosaic law, stands a second inescapable fact: namely, that the Psalm itself is a piece of devotional writing. This is poetry...not prose. This is celebration, not dispassionate analysis. This is a Psalm of devotion: a psalm that celebrates and invites us to join in the celebration, invites us to place God’s gift of the Torah at the very centre of our hearts as those who seek to be friends of God. But is that something we ought to be doing with full-throated enthusiasm as members of the Church?: as members of the mainly Gentile Church that cherishes and honors its roots in the piety of the Hebrew scriptures, but that may need—at the end of the day—to recognize that its life is grounded on a different foundation....and that its life of devotion marches to the beat of a very different drum! And here...here, as I bring these thoughts to a close...bear with me as I draw attention to Jewish festivities that just happen to be taking place right now (you can’t script this kind of thing!)—as well as Jewish festivities that are about to take place over the coming two days: festivities that could not be more relevant to the very real challenge posed for us by the 119th Psalm....festivities which, I think, get to the very heart of the devotional question raised for us by this Psalm...this psalm that invites us to lives of Torah devotion. You see....
Right now, observant Jews throughout the world are celebrating the Fall harvest festival, known as Sukkoth, the Feast of Booths. That festival will come to an end on Monday at sundown...and then a one-day festival will be celebrated: a joyous festival known as Simchat Torah, meaning “rejoicing with the Torah”. Worship services on that day will include a reading from the final verses of Deuteronomy (the fifth and final book of the Torah) and then immediately move to the opening verses of Genesis (starting the yearly cycle of Torah reading right back at the beginning). And it really and truly is a joyous occasion: often marked by dancing and singing for hours, with the Torah honored not as a mere sacred scroll—not as a mere object--but as a living presence: anchoring and animating the community, serving as the living Word of God for the Jewish people and—in a very real sense—the living Word of God promised for all people. That sense of Torah not as a mere book...but as the living Word of God stands at the very heart of Jewish devotion. But here’s the real kicker.
That festival—Simchat Torah/the rejoicing in the Torah—begins at sundown tomorrow. But what starts at sundown tonight and runs throughout the day tomorrow, is the final day, the 8th day, of Sukkoth, the fall harvest festival, the Feast of Booths, to which I alluded earlier. And those of you who know your New Testament—those of you who have a particular familiarity with John’s Gospel—may be thinking that something here rings a bell. If so, you’re quite correct: because it is in the 7th chapter of John’s Gospel that we hear Jesus—standing in the midst of the Jerusalem Temple on the final day of this very festival—we hear Jesus proclaim (on the very day of the festival that traditionally highlights the blessings of water)...we hear Christ proclaim: “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me; let the one who believes in me drink.” An assertion which—from the perspective of normative Judaism—is absolutely over the top...but from the perspective of a Gospel people...from the perspective of those who have come to see the living Word of God not in the Torah...but in the face of Jesus...
...an invitation which may well be experienced as irresistible: as well it should be. Helping also to explain why—at the end of the day--I can give two hearty cheers...but not quite a full-throated three cheers—to the 119th Psalm: with its summons to devotion...devotion which I, for one, have chosen to offer not to the Torah but to the One in whose name you and I have gathered this day: the Word who was made flesh for us, the One who lived and loved, who suffered and died for us...the One who lives again for us all! This One who perfectly embodies the light and life and love...the overflowing wisdom...of the God who graced and still graces the lives of a Torah devoted people for He is nothing if not faithful and all His promises are sure and true...but yes, the God who graces and will always grace the lives of this very differently formed people, a Gospel people who in fear and trembling seek to live out their salvation in the Spirit of the One who came to us in Jesus Christ, the God whose fiercely relentless love has promised—at the end of time—to gather all creation into the heart of His love.
And glory be to God: whose power working in us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. Glory to God from generation to generation: in the Church and in Christ Jesus. This day...and forever more! Amen.