Disciple Bible Study 14, Psalms Part II

Maybe it is, because remember we talked about joy, unlike happiness, is able to bear sorrow.

So in that sense, I do hope you enjoyed reading the Lament Psalms.

As always, terrible question.

Either the video or the readings.

What did you find doing for you as you as you thought about these Psalms of Lament?

Or in what ways did you touch base or resist what the presenter said today?

I went back in my head.

Right now, but it doesn't really bother me a lot.

And there's all times in your life.

It was like counseling.

Because I have a master's in counseling and I believe very strongly in counseling and sharing your deepest feelings with a stranger, basically, that you're paying to do that.

You've got a good counselor, you really, and if you're a trusty person and you really believe in the process.

So this was just that process being transferred to someone that's not there.

Yeah.

That makes intellectually that's kind of what it did for me.

Well, it seems like what the presenter was sort of saying, in some ways, this trust that actually God exists and that God is listening, even if you know you've got this cognitive dissonance between how faithful people should be treated and your own experience, you're able to voice that as you said to somebody who listens.

Yeah.

And it was just a in some ways, I guess it was maybe it was easy for me.

And I don't know that it would be easy for lots of people.

Yeah.

Yeah, you know, I I I don't want to say easy.

I trusted Father JJ in this.

And he kind of surprised me when he said that, but I trusted him.

Sorry for talking about time.

Can we engage Tommy?

Yeah, he'll be here.

Thank you.

So there was a level of a person that I had human trust in, and that had that also had to be transferred into the spiritual trust.

I'm not sure I'm in case.

No, you are, thank you.

I mean, again, I I feel like that's very parallel to what the presenter said.

Anyone else think about it?

I think the songs because they kind of different than what you need.

I I had uh first and my thyroid problem, and then I had thyroid eye disease, and it was in the fourth stage, and the fifth stage really factor of eye nerves, so I was kind of worried about that.

In the songs, there's about four different songs that have to do with eyes.

I just the one that uh resonated best with my eyes were tired of anything and things like that, and it wasn't like I was I never even thought of depth to it at all because we had moved a whole bunch of times and I was tired.

And when I closed my eyes at night, I had this sort of vision in my head of push that being ripped up like that with the green channel.

So I guess in a way I was but I used that and I used the uh that one and uh I also used the first one.

I used uh change of the value of depth value, and I just I guess in the same way it was a structure.

I didn't have a second structure, but just for me it was to be the best thing.

I didn't use a whole bunch of tapes and uh listen to it, so I used the same meditation to uh to me uh I write just so I wanna keep changing because even as a teenager, I really like the songs because they're the topic, you know the feelings, and and uh so that's that's why I put it in my teachings in this.

I like the songs, but I don't think they're better in any other translation when you have a day rating of the sound and keep translation.

But it's more than being one of the things I liked about the video that was for dancing.

For me, um physicality and being physically um at the time that I was really going, I wasn't doing one business like and I had to hang my bike because I lost all the charge for everything.

So I had I do other things, but I do aerobics, I do trip.

I really, if if I do physical and I study dance, I study modern for a while.

And what's wonderful about modernism, it's very free, and you can just really just um do it by yourself, just in the either without music, rather than allow your emotions to take you wherever.

Okay, maybe that can sound silly, but that movement, that physicality of uh I guess it's part of the just yelling out loud, and that kind of part of it.

Thanks.

Thanks.

Um, you know, there's really something interesting about the King James Version.

I remember we talked about this the very first week, and the King James was a great translation for its day, but did not rely on old manuscripts.

So if the language appeals and you want the rich manuscript tradition, the new King James Version is a fine translation.

Remember that the difference is the King James Version, the oldest manuscript was from the 1500s.

The New King James uses manuscripts from the 6th century before the Common Era, right?

So that's 2,100 years older manuscript tradition.

One of the neat things about the King James that we haven't maintained.

I don't know if you know this story about English.

Uh, English actually has a U personal, a U uh informal and a U formal.

German has this as well.

I think Spanish does too, right?

Um we're not used to this because we just say you for everything.

The reason we do that is about 170 years ago, um the the informal, that is the one you would use for your family, was the thou thy.

And the formal was you.

Uh the Quakers, who decided everybody's equal and there's no hierarchy, called everybody the thou thy.

Their professors, people they met on the street, and that was abhorrent to the rest of society.

So as a result, uh society dropped the the thou thy and called everybody you.

This is this interesting thing as we get it backward.

If you hear right one and you hear the Lord be with you, the Lord, we say the Lord be with you, and with thy spirit, we say, oh, that's formal.

It actually is not.

And with thy spirit is the informal.

And in the King James, right, in the Psalms, addressing God, it's the thou, thy.

So with that in mind, they actually are more intimate expressions than they are the formal ones.

Interesting in Spanish, you is commonly used and is a more formal respectful.

Hardly ever used.

Very rarely.

Yeah.

Uh, you know, yeah, I think I would talk to my grandmother since they were dead.

Uh and they're dead, although they're dead for a long, long time.

Hardly anyone uses that word in anything.

It would be more in Spain, like in Castilian, right?

Or in parts of Argentina where you use the Bosotros, right?

Yeah, yeah, yes, exactly.

But but I want you to know this interesting thing about English.

We just don't grow up with that context.

We think that's antiquated and formal when in fact it's intimate.

And this is one of the things that makes me like Right One language, is bearing that in mind.

Right one actually is inviting us into greater intimacy with one another and with God than we presume.

We kind of get it backward.

Um let me ask you this.

Uh when you read through these, now granted, we didn't read the whole Psalter, but let me tell you, we read a lot of lament.

Were there laments in your life that were missing?

Let me build on that question.

One of the things that the author said, I mean the presenter said, that I thought was really, really interesting.

We don't sing these.

We we don't have songs of lament really in our hymnal to our detriment.

And part of it, I think he said, is because, well, we're uncomfortable and we're supposed to be happy clappy people, you know.

But but you know, it's interesting that he's sort of saying we're missing out on the full expression.

And I think this is part of my church.

I don't want to talk about St.

Thomas, but because I I don't know, but I I I think part of my Christian experience, um certainly in in youth group, and again the churches that I grew up in, is that when things are bothersome for you, you're just supposed to kind of well get over it and be grateful to God anyway.

So we didn't come to God with our our whining and our disappointment because that's faithless of us.

And as a result, again, like I can't think of any contemporary Christian songs that really make room for pain to be painful.

There's one, I think there's, but I can't remember the name of it.

But there's one song that asks that I I stood with God, Jesus, I sit with Jesus, and he listens to my cries.

It's a lot more complicated than that, but it isn't.

That's what it is.

Now I will tell you.

The anthems might do it sometimes.

I'll tell you, there's a Fanny Crosby song called Pass Me Not.

Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior, hear my humble cry.

While on others you are calling, do not pass me by.

While on others you are calling, do not pass me by.

I actually think in church I felt like that was kind of an occupus.

I was a chaplain at a drug rehab facility for homeless black crack addicts in Atlanta, and that was their song.

And it was a song of lament.

But it had never been that in church, and if we sung it here, I don't think it would be like it was there.

Do you know what I'm saying?

Um, but that's one of the few, and I think it was so context-specific that in church I just thought it was like a like a country song.

You know, I I think we could say that song I'll Fly Away.

Um, one glad morning when this life is over, I'll fly away.

Um that could be a psalm of lament.

I usually hear it and I think that's just bad theology, you know, that's like escapism.

But but in the right context of Appalachia, that sort of saying life is really, really, really hard.

Um but I just don't know that there's a lot of hymns like that.

And certainly, I don't know that there's a lot of confessions of fa- I mean, you don't find an emphasis set on the creed unless we really dwell on the fact that he became flesh and suffered under Pontius Pilate.

I mean, maybe that's the phrase that we that we fix on.

That said, I'm wondering if if this if you might have had your interest piqued in in this a little bit and thought, you know, I hear these things about enemies and I hear these things about uh sickness, but I didn't hear a psalm that represents part of my everyday frustration and difficulties.

And I don't know if this makes sense, but I'm just saying.

I maybe I should tell you more what I have in mind as I read it.

And this happens to me all the time, um, and I'm just gonna be dead honest with you, maybe to a fall.

I have people come and ask me if I can help with their rent.

And I'm going to tell you, I always do, but I usually give them a really hard time first, and I'm not even sure why I do that, except I kind of have this mentality that God helps those who help themselves, and sometimes what I end up saying is, you know, I'm gonna do this for you one time.

And what are you going to do after that?

And in some ways I think that's a ministry of trying to invite them into thinking past this crisis into sustainability.

So that's probably why I continue to do it, but um, I will tell you, even though I always do something, I do.

Um I'm very skeptical 90% of the time.

And I didn't find the psalm of lament for that.

I didn't, and and you know, I I this is gonna sound crazy, like Mike, you just need to grow up, but maybe that's one of the ways I grow up, is I say, God, I don't trust these people.

You know?

How is it that they cannot pay$900 in rent and their electric bill is five times bigger than mine, and I live in a house?

Um again, I trust that I have to grow out of those feelings, but I do wonder about making space for them communally.

I hope that didn't sound too heretical.

Yeah, you know, again, I mean, I just mentioned that in the churches I grew up in would have been like, Mike, you're crazy.

You know, like these people need your help.

And again, I don't know if they do or not, and I think that's part of my lament.

You know?

I I certainly have family members.

You know, one of my dad's first principles was never do business with family members.

Now, we've all ended up doing business with family members because you sometimes have to.

Boy, I've got psalms of lament from doing business with family members, and in some ways I had to.

Now, look, you could say might grow up, but again, I think what this guy's trying to say is that lament is true to our lives and to our faith lives, and and there is something valuable maybe about having a corporate expression of that.

I've got laments about what my kids do with the investments of time and money and love I put into them.

I do.

If you have kids, you probably do too.

Because you think, good God, why are you doing that choice?

I've told you this nine million times.

I've shown you a better way.

I've got some real lament over that.

If you don't have that now, let me tell you, you will when they get to be 15.

Well, for me, it's grandkids, because I taught my daughters much better.

So why is that for doing this?

I'm gonna tell you, I didn't get a lament like that.

You know, I didn't hear the lament over what our kids do with their kids or what our kids do with our resources.

And again, maybe I'm just immature, but I feel like part of the lesson is inviting us to really consider these realities of life and how that intersects faith and God and how we can claim them corporately.

Well, maybe what we need to like.

That's what I'm asking.

I'm asking if, and I've I've named three business with family, raising my kids, and helping people who say they need help.

Are there any missing for you guys?

Those are broad brush.

You don't you don't have to be as detailed.

Grandkids, it's another one, yeah.

You really, if you think you with your grandkids, you're just out of your hand with my arms crossed like you can't do anything about that.

Except for watching go through stuff.

Yeah.

Well, you know, the songs were written over a long period of time by other people than David.

So some of them you don't know who so it's perfectly acceptable and wonderful if we choose to write some songs out of our experience.

Mine was that um, of course, most of you know Creator Woman Catholic.

I haven't been in that church any while.

But anyway, when I was growing up, not uh I never knew anything about songs or any kind of thing like that because uh thing to do at that time was to memorize questions and answers that were involved in the catechists.

Uh so um I'm an incest abuser, and my father was my abuser, and my mother did not protect me because he'd be to help me.

So anyway, uh I didn't have songs to fall back on when I was a kid.

But when I was about eight years old, living in the port, we were living in the port at that time, and uh on a farm.

I remember one day I was out there uh and I we had all one fence there.

We had few times.

So I remember standing beside a fence, and uh God came to me, but it wasn't necessarily it wasn't a vision or anything like that.

It was just awareness, feeling I felt that call, you know.

Um so that has always been with me all of my life, and as I have traversed during my journey about traveling, that is what has held me together and pulled in falling, you know.

But um anyway, something else I was going to say, but um but now oh but now I'm finding the psalms being in all of this actually for this discussion that we were having.

And I find there are those that I like and who that speak to me and that I thoroughly enjoy, and um so I'll really love it.

But and you did name one, you said right, and I don't know if you necessarily said this, but you know, if you if you have survived abuse, uh I I didn't read a specific one about that.

I mean, we talked about some of these talk about enemies, deliver me from my enemies.

But what about when your enemies are your aunts and your uncles or your grandparents?

You know what I mean?

Like I, you know, in some ways, more specificity becomes um well, I don't know if it becomes cathartic or helpful.

I don't know the answer.

That's kind of the question I guess I'm asking.

But I will issue a challenge that I will write a song for an Beach people.

How about y'all write one?

That would be a pretty interesting piece of homework, wouldn't it?

Yeah, for me, uh, I I would say a child would just, you know, you'd obviously vote, but I didn't experience anything like that.

When I was running inner city schools, and kids would come to me with really serious problems.

Or their parents would bring a child.

I remember the girl coming in, she was pregnant, and the mother was beside herself.

And I said to her, I can't do anything about it.

And and she just looked at me, and so I realized I was kind of like her.

I just knew she just knew that.

I said, we're gonna fix this thing.

She's a good principal.

And it was and nothing I could really do at all.

And that being in those kind of situations, because I at one time a kid said to me, Oh, yeah, you can go back to your comfortable house and your your nice house and your good car and all that, and you just leave our neighborhood.

And that was true.

Everything that was about to do.

Yeah, I mean thank God that they had you.

You came from the United States, yeah.

But then you you're then you're just saying, you're just saying, excuse me.

In fact, an interesting song of Lament is that the needs of the world are greater than our ability to give.

And I think that's a really interesting one.

Um I think it's a great question.

Um I mean I think what I think one of the feelings we all have to answer that ourselves.

I I think one of the things the presenter is inviting us is that the Psalms really present us with the ability to give honesty of experience, trusting that God listens.

Now, what God does with the listening, we probably all have different opinions upon, right?

And in that sense, we give, and I think we also receive.

Well, not right away, huh?

It might be no.

But the other thing is a lot of times it works itself.

The answer works itself out because we uh live with that or with it.

What I what I think it is very hard for us to accept the answer is no.

We always want the answer to be yes.

Well, I do think there's something interesting though.

I I'm not sure that we always I think sometimes we assume the answer to be no by default, but I do think there's sometimes where I don't I actually if God would just show up and say no, then I would have like clarity.

Right.

But to not hear is like why do I not get some sort of message?

But I I I I do think there's something really interesting about the expression, and one of the the books said this about Psalm 137.

Is it okay if I read this?

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion.

On the willows there we hung our harps, for there our captors asked us for songs, and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.

How could we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?

If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither, let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy.

Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites the day of Jerusalem's fall, how they said, Tear it down, tear it down, down to its foundations.

O daughter Babylon, you devastator, happy shall they be who pay you back what you have done to us.

Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock.

We didn't we don't read that in church, by the way.

It doesn't show up in the Sunday uh revised common lectionary.

It shows up in the daily.

Um listen, there's no answer.

And the end is kind of this thing that absolutely in church I was taught we don't do.

We say, like, hope you get what you did to us back.

That's because Jesus has turned the other cheek, you know, so there's this interesting bit here, right?

And um this is in some ways so old that it's easy, I think, for us to say that's just an old thing.

Um but you know, one of the interesting things about my my little priestly career is my last place was in Coronado, California, where the the major amphib base for the Navy is.

They trained the Navy SEALs there.

And um here in St.

Thomas, we've got tons of NASA people, which is really cool.

But there they had tons of top brass admirals.

They were eight in the parish.

Eight, um, including a four-star and a five-star.

And this interesting three-star, who, interestingly enough, in the Vietnam War, had been captured along with John McCain and tortured at the Hanoi Hilton.

And then out of that experience, he came became a three-star admiral.

Curiously enough, he didn't say much the whole imprisonment in Vietnam.

He was really quiet, but he'd grown up in Episcopalian, and his sort of short testimony that he didn't even give publicly was that he went through morning prayer and it sort of kept him sane.

Which is an interesting thing.

And I I think about Ed Martin and I and I wonder, I wonder if Ed Martin ever wanted to say, you know, by the path to the Ho Chi Minh Trail, there we sat down and we wept.

And I wonder if Ed Martin ever wanted revenge for what the Viet Cong had done to him.

I mean, he, like John McCain, especially the last 15 years of his life, couldn't lift their arms up above here because their arms had been broken and twisted during their um their imprisonment.

I I I don't know how Ed felt about God's revenge.

I don't know.

Um But I wonder if you know, I what's interesting is I think if Ed Martin had said something like, This was horrible and I prayed for justice every day, I think we'd understand.

So context-specific in a thing that we can't even imagine the brutality of.

So I I I I I wonder if there isn't some way in which we make room for an experience like that corporately.

You know, the interesting thing about this psalm is it's asked for revenge, but it doesn't say the psalmist takes revenge.

And there's another psalm that started out, right, vengeance is yours, O God.

So, um, you know, I I I had this teacher in seminary, and the book mentions this, that in some ways what's interesting is that the the the person is willing to say their naked, raw sense of justice to God, but that they leave God to take vengeance instead of them taking it themselves.

Well, sort of interesting.

You know, we you hear these stories in the news about how um, you know, uh in that Amish shooting that the Amish parents publicly forgave the shooter, and you may say, like, much faith, how could we do that?

And and I and I wonder if part of the process is saying, I can forgive these people as long as I'll leave my vengeance with you.

Yeah.

Do you do you know I I don't know if that makes sense what what I'm saying.

Well, the thing is about forgiveness is that forgiveness is really for the for you.

Yeah, because it why hang on to all that pain, let it go in a way.

Um see the person as the individual who did that, and okay, I can't have anything to do with that.

But so it frees us not to be carrying around negative emotions all the time.

Yeah.

And sometimes that's the only way we handle it because we aren't able to take vengeance.

So we have to turn it over to somebody else.

Yeah.

Seems like there's a difference between accountability and vengeance.

There's what?

A difference between accountability and vengeance.

Yeah, there is.

I'd like to hear a psalm about that.

Okay, wow.

I mean, I can really use it, you know?

Where frankly, where frankly I'm able to say I want vengeance, because I do.

Listen, I'm a petty person, and I and I really, I really want to get even with people who hurt me, especially if I know them well.

I'm just being honest here.

Uh, and and then I do.

I struggle with the difference sometimes.

I struggle with what accountability should look like.

And the same with forgiveness, right?

I mean, forgiveness and accountability, I think, are very different things, and they're both important.

Because I forgive you does not mean I refuse to hold you accountable for your actions.

But there's also a third thing.

You can either forgive or take vengeance, or you can just move on and be who you are because who you are.

You just have to rise above that, uh, which is what I felt like I've done some some of that the hard way, and I think many many people do.

It's harder, but at the end of the day, you go, wow, shit, I am really excited.

I'm really this, and we're all capable of that.

I really think we all are.

Yes, to rise above that intention.

It's really um, yeah.

And I'll just say it a lot.

I I was in a uh in Pasadena in a in a religious office, and a gentleman came up to me, an older Hispanic guy, and he said, You're you're Mrs.

Kabula was a principal in Jackson.

I said, Yeah, yes.

And she said he said, I know you, you, you did some stuff, and my son was a gangster.

He did that.

I have no memory of who this kid was.

She said, he said, you uh he got a job, he got married, he's got a family, he's so good.

And you, well, I really don't think I did that, but then I thought sometimes when you do stuff, you don't know, and I'll never forget the man's face, and I never saw him again, I have really no idea what exactly which came to.

So there's many things I think all of us have done.

Yes, yes, yeah.

But it was advanced.

Um I don't think it's anything to be ashamed of except unless we act on it.

But it's just a human choice.

And to hold the other person accountable, well, um I don't I don't know how to um they are responsible for the wrong that they did, but um I don't know that they would ever prove it to me.

I don't think it's a waste of energy.

Yeah, I I mean I think it's fair, and and this is what I want to say though about it, and maybe this is part of what I think the book is trying to consider about these Psalms, is that it's one thing to say, like, oh, I'm just gonna choose forgiveness.

I don't find that choice that easy.

No, I think it's a really long process.

I I'll tell you, it's very easy for me to forgive people that I don't have to see anymore.

Yeah.

But what's really difficult for me to do is forgive family members, even if I don't have to see them, I revisit them in my mind and in my photo albums and to think about.

I mean, how do I hold, and this is one of those fun, funny things, right?

Particularly, um, how do you hold family members accountable?

And sometimes they die.

And sometimes they die, or sometimes they get Alzheimer's.

Yeah, yeah.

And how are you gonna hold them accountable then?

And that sounds terrible, right?

Because you shouldn't you be praying for them while they have Alzheimer's.

I mean, this is what I think though is like part of the difficult journey of forgiveness, right?

And just frankly, how do you deal with very real disappointment?

Well, it takes time.

And then of course, forgiveness does not have more than that.

For most of my life, I I I could not forgive to my father or especially.

And but anyway, uh until after he died, because then I didn't have to do it.

But I stayed away from him as much as I possibly could.

We just come into Houston to check on him as he got older.

So but anyway, um, and then after he died, and I and I came, had my first thing I did was I put myself in therapy.

You know, and it was there when his therapist said to me, You called your baby cute, can I sit on it?

And then bam, it hit.

And I don't know how I ever go home safe with crying and cussing so far.

But it freed me.

And then I started working on this.

But it wasn't until about two or three years ago that I could even begin to pray for them.

But now I can.

You know, now I even feel like they probably have paid the penalty and are okay with God now.

But I still cuss him out periodically because I have to deal with the aftermath.

Well that's any, I mean, I think that's part of the, to me, the richness of including these is that, you know, I don't think I I think about my own journey from being, frankly, a fundamentalist Christian to being a little more open to the world.

And it didn't happen in one step.

Yeah.

It happened, frankly, in like thousands of micro steps.

And sometimes I look at folks that are still that I love that are still kind of bound up in in I think some of the trappings of where I've come from.

And I said, why don't you just come over here and I forget?

You took me lots and lots of micro steps to actually be open to God loving me.

Um, and I I I wonder, you know, um, when when he was talking, I wonder if lament isn't a way that we can turn from fear to to compassion, pathos, empathy.

So I if it's okay to say, I think a lot of relationships that bother me, it's because I'm afraid of my lack of control or being disrespected or what's gonna happen next, or I have anxiety, and that's where there's a lot of vengeance bound up in that.

And maybe part of the ability to express that is to go from being afraid to being sad.

Yes, sir.

Well, the way I I deal with like family members that stole from me years ago, is I just um say, Lord, you can let them keep what they stole, or would you give it back to me?

Sure.

Well, I think that I mean, I I think that's fantastic.

Again, I I think again, that's the kind of prayer that these are inviting us to pray, not just individually but corporately.

One of the things the guy said that was really interesting is that lament is when we um when we give those parts of like our disappointment, anger, vengeance, etc.

to God instead of keeping them just for ourselves.

And again, I wonder if that isn't part of like the missed opportunity of corporate expression.

You know, um, I'll tell you, we do this thing here uh and called the longest night.

We do this every year.

It's a small service where we just sort of say, I've got real grief, I'm not getting over it because everybody tells me to do it.

Um, it's a small group, like I said, it's it's intimate.

Some people, I remember the first year we did it, somebody said, Well, that just depressed me to say that stuff.

Um, and I think it's because we've been taught that if you say it, it means like you're creating it for yourself instead of admitting to it corporately, is actually a a road.

Now, different times in my life it probably would help to hurt me too, but I just want to say, like, I think that becomes one of those trying to engage in a missed opportunity of saying, God, it's not all rosy.

And um the last psalm we read, this is a real interesting one, Psalm 115.

Can I read a selection?

Our God is in the heaven.

God does whatever God pleases.

Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands.

They have mouths but do not speak, eyes but do not see, they have ears but do not hear, noses but do not smell, they have hands but do not feel, feet but do not walk, they make no sound in their throats.

Those who make them are like them, so are all who trust in them.

It's this interesting bit about saying that people who worship statues have created images of their own wish fulfillment.

And um I don't think it's just talking about statue makers.

I I I think this is an interesting psalm about how we usually envision God and God's justice and vengeance.

We often think that God is just a stricter, more powerful version of ourselves.

The church I grew up in said, you know, if you make God mad, God will send you to hell.

Well, I'm like that.

I'm like that.

But with less power.

You know, I mean, really, don't we hope God's bigger than that?

I mean, I think that's an interesting thing, is to be able to say, God, if it were up to me, this is exactly what I would do with the people who hurt me.

And I hope you're better than me.

And if we can hope that, if we can hope that God is better than us, then don't we have more hope for ourselves?

Do you know what I'm saying?

I I had a really powerful speaker tell me this a long time ago when I was a high schooler.

I still remember these bits of phrases.

Um you don't have to be willing to follow God's call all the time.

You just need to be willing to be made willing.

Now, if you're not willing to be made willing, the biblical phrase for that is Pharaoh hardened his heart.

If you're not willing to be made willing, there's not a lot that God can do with you until you say, No God, but if you convince me otherwise, I will.

I mean, I I wondered about that.

And so I I think one of these hard bits about learning about eternal hell, first of all, I was afraid of it, and second of all, I was sort of delighted that people might get what they deserve.

I saw somebody this morning get pulled over by police officer, and I'm gonna tell you my first reaction was got him.

And then I thought, what am I?

I often go over the speed limit.

Poor guy.

You know, I mean, it was interesting to think about that though.

Honestly, you know.

Again, I'm just being completely honest here so that you know the pettiness of the person behind this is pretty pink color.

Well, I wasn't even driving, so I couldn't think that, you know.

It was unlikely I was gonna get pulled over.

Um I got pulled over for running on the wrong side of the street in this neighborhood.

And I was like, I didn't I didn't get a ticket, but I thought, like, you're mad.

Like, don't you have something better to do?

I can't believe you pulled me over.

And what's interesting is I know, I mean, I read the I read the law, it's the law, you know, but I thought, like, God, I can't believe you're gonna do this to somebody who's jogging next to the curb.

Um and and I I've had that thought before too, uh, about various laws, and I and I do think instead of saying, oh man, just grow up, I think there's an intermediate step to growing up, which is making room for frustration and disappointment, and then I can grow up.

My biggest problem is forgiving myself.

Yeah.

That's hard to see.

Well, you know, it's it's interesting that you say that because last week we got to read this song.

I think that takes that on, and I think this is where it becomes really interesting to think about what the Psalter can do for us, either way.

Psalm 51, for I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me.

Against you alone have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so you're justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment.

Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner, when my mother conceived me.

I know that feeling, but I think it's wrong.

Is it okay if I say that?

I mean it's wrong.

And I think that's one of the interesting things about what we're talking about.

I know that feeling.

And I could say that feeling with integrity.

There is something wrong with me.

And even though I feel that, I'm going to struggle to choose to live against that feeling.

I was not born a sinner.

I was born a beautiful baby.

Do you know what I mean?

But I know what it feels like.

You know, if you haven't ever felt like there's something wrong with you, you know, then this is not for you.

But I do think this gives a expression of real feelings that we have so that we can move on.

Yeah, because that that at the end of the day, that's the only way you can really move on.

Otherwise, uh we need to be aware of that.

Yeah, we don't know exactly how whatever.

And the other piece of that is vengeance was not mine.

It was not mine.

Yeah.

Just to let it go for it.

Because there's one for every just about every occasion, and then the ones we write for the to add on to.

I mean, I think that's the interesting bit again to think about psalms.

Instead of saying the book is done, the book is a foundation for us to consider our own psalms to be used in worship.

I mean, I think so.

I will tell you, one of the things I love about the Episcopal Church is that the lyrics of our hymns tend to be a little deeper than the contemporary Christian music I grew up with.

Now I love the contemporary Christian music I grew up with.

Sounds like the Eagles, it's really pleasing.

Love the Eagles.

I do.

But um, it doesn't really have often the I think the depth, the depth of theology that I find in the in the Episcopal Hymnal.

I hope that's okay.

And there's room for both.

There's room for emotionality for certain.

You know, I I had somebody tell me after Fat Tuesday two years ago, um, you know, this is where we have the Zydeco Mass, and the person said, This was too much fun, I didn't feel like it was worshipful.

Which is an interesting thought, right?

Because in some ways, like, you know, um we're kind of taught that our faith is supposed to be dour to be reverent.

And well, I'm sure that's wrong.

Even though I sometimes feel it, and I think part of the reason I feel it is because we don't engage in the full expression that's in the Psalter.

Yeah.

Because I think the priest would dance.

Yeah.

You know, for a while, at least I'd see him dance.

Yeah, not a dancer.

At St.

Peace we did liturgical dance, the Catholics got us involved in the world.

And I was one of the dancers.

And then of course there were many, you know, and I wasn't a traditional Catholic.

I grew up, you know, born and raised.

They were just so upset.

That was sinful, that was barefoot.

Yeah.

I say, what the heck are we doing out there?

And but wow, but um there's joy and celebration.

You can be joyful and be having a hard time.

I I that that's I think again that's the difference between joy and happiness, right?

I didn't think you can be happy and do that.

Actually, being joyful when you're when you're really bad stuff is like the best way to do it.

Yeah, because that's why I like being with people because uh, you know, I I need no one warned to be left alone.

You know, yeah.

So one other comment I wanted to make about how you treat people who have hurt you or who you know that don't acknowledge their guilt and so forth, is uh the way I handle it is like uh nowadays is difficult in close family.

Yeah, that's very difficult.

But I got a bunch of cousins with the surrounding areas.

And um anyway, we there's no contact between us because when I left the convent and then I told them Charlie didn't, uh he was always wonderful, and so then so they won't nobody have anything to do with me.

Okay, but when I do run into them, I'm hospitable, I'm you know, friendly, I you know, and other people give like me.

Um the thing is to be courteous because that's who I want to be.

Not yeah, and who wants to be, not who they are.

So the important thing is how does each one of us choose to handle this situation?

What kind of person do we want to be?

Perfect.

Yeah.

Can I highlight a few bits and we have to cut out early because I got the symphony here today?

Um, when we read Psalm 82, isn't this an interesting thing?

God has taken God's place in the divine counsel in the midst of the gods, God holds judgment and says, How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked?

Remember, this is an interesting thing because it identifies that there's other superhuman realities called gods with the later case G.

That's interesting.

We can we can figure that out.

I I I, by the way, I'm convinced that's true.

There are superhuman realities like ageism and racism and sexism and Nazism and fascism.

Those are bigger than any one human being.

And perhaps this is saying, look, God sits with those principalities, that's the word Paul uses in the New Testament for this, and says, be just.

There's only one God.

We sort of, that's our essence of faith.

But the Psalter says God sits among other gods.

So we have to reckon with that.

Um, I don't know if you notice, there's a few phrases here that Jesus ends up saying, like this one from Psalm 31, into your hand I commit my spirit.

Remember this one, words on the cross, and then he gives this breath.

Um My God, my God, why have you forsaken me from Psalm 22?

Um, a lot of scholarship will tell you that if you quote a line from the Psalm, it's like you're quoting the whole psalm.

So if you read Psalm 22, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

They cast lots from my clothes, it ends with a cry for the poor.

So a lot of scholars would tell you when Jesus says that, he's not really just saying himself.

He's saying in this middle of his own situation, God deliver all people who are poor or in unjust punishment.

I sure think there's probably some truth to that, but I love imagining Jesus felt God forsaken.

I hope that's okay.

Same with this one, into your hands I commit my spirit.

The rest of the verse is, You have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.

Now, now I think that's really interesting because when I hear Jesus say it, I hear Jesus in the middle of an unjust punishment, suffering immensely, saying, Despite my cognitive dissonance, into you I commend my spirit.

And then at the same time, maybe he's saying the rest of it too, that um he he ultimately is trusting God's reign for redemption on account of, and not only for himself, but for other people.

I mean, sort of interesting.

I don't know if you notice we read in here that um the angels uh will prevent your foot from dashing a stone.

That comes right out of Psalm 91.

You know who quotes that psalm?

The accuser.

When Jesus is out in the desert, right, uh, the accuser says, Jump off the temple, because it's written, God will command God's angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways, and their hands they'll bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against the stone.

You will tread on the lion and the adder, the young lion and the serpent, you will trample underfoot.

Um, in some ways, it's sort of interesting to think in the New Testament that the Psalms can guide us to holiness or they can take us away from it.

I mean, that's exactly how Satan, the accuser, uses the Psalms incorrectly.

It's a sort of an interesting thing to think about.

And we have those opportunities before us when we read laments, when we read praise, when we read whatever, to use or misuse uh the this treasure.

Okay, I have to quit because the symphony.

Next week we get to do something happy.

We're gonna read Songs of Joy, and then we'll be done, you see, with our portion of the Hebrew Bible, and we'll start with the Gospel of John the week after that.

So next week is lesson 16 Songs of Joy.

Thanks for being here.