Disciple Bible Study 13, Psalms

What did you think about Psalms um week one?

One of the first things you said before we sort of started was that you were um surprised by how many times you read like what's going on.

What does that do for you?

Well I it reinforces the fact that I'm not the only one who is thinking from time to time.

I need an answer, where are you?

You know.

So apparently it's a common human condition to feel that way.

Thank you.

That struck me.

I was I was bringing this when it was commentary by Walter Bugelman.

How often the songs are used in other parts of the Bible.

That's what that's I I guess I never thought about it like that.

You know what's what struck me is I again I'm not that's just my own personal experience.

I really never pay much attention to the Psalms, or really I I just thought they were beautiful and poetic, and I was I did poetry reading in high school, and sometimes you would use things from from the psalms.

Um but um Tim and I went through a separation and a really difficult time.

I had there were some issues around my work, and Father JJ said to me, open up the Psalms and read, and he gave me numbers, and he said, Before you go to sleep, shake your fist at God and get angry with him and scream at him and read these things out loud.

I thought at first that's weird, but anyway, I went home and I really tossed trust in him and I did that.

This may sound hokey, but I learned it was it was I don't want to say magical, but it was I I still have that vision, and when I read this, I thought, oh yeah, I've done that, and it works.

Um and it's not often that anyone would say such an odd thing to you, scream at him and be angry, yeah.

Say, how dare you?

I don't deserve this.

And I guess these people, and actually June, the ancient Greeks did that.

So and and and and the the the early the Jews did it.

He said, and we just in the in the you know, in the present or modern times, we have not uh openly talked about that.

Yeah.

Thank you.

I think what the what you see when you read the songs which I would differentiate differentiate to them from the other parts of the Bible is you're having a conversation with God.

I mean you are you are you are speaking to him and he's speaking back to you, which you you don't find in or at least I don't find in other parts of the Old Testament.

Thank you.

And uh sounds are not very hard of my uh once in a while I have you know sound that uh desperation or whatever and I use that.

But uh I'm at a stage now like where um I use translation of the song I call brain the song every day by Dan Merrow and uh it's the language is inclusive and the language is more personal with God and more intimate with God.

Um the problem I have with our modern day song is I don't feel like we need to be praying for Israel or Jerusalem.

But if we brought change those names to things that affected us here in this country, people would think more when we read about applying it to another country about any energy, not you know really hear much about it or care about, it it's a difference, and so I'm choosing about what I I prayed a divine office in the morning when I remember in the evening, unless I get caught in solitary game.

But anyway, it's funny, but uh anyway, uh so I'll do street processes, and uh for me God is uh male and female, so I don't like the his pronouns and sounds and things that that's our and I change all of that when I write songs in the Bible, but then maybe we don't have any of that.

We have this beautiful and uh everything is inclusive.

So but that's just where I am it's not uh I think I appreciate that very much.

Um is it okay to chase the threads you laid out and see which other ones open up just a little bit?

Yeah, and one thing I think that's really important is about why these are so present, and um it's maybe helpful to remember that um at the time of Jesus, anyway, not all Jewish people interacted with the Psalms.

So there's that group who run the temple called the Sadducees.

They were completely unfamiliar with the Psalms, they had no interest in them whatsoever.

In fact, the Sadducees would not have read any of the scriptures we're reading.

The Sadducees read Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, period.

And probably have those books memorized by the time they were 13 for their bar mitzvah.

That would have been required.

The Pharisees, which is this other group, um, the Sadducees were really about how do we worship correctly.

The Pharisees said, okay, how also do we live correctly?

And they were really interested in their worship informing their everyday practices.

And the Pharisees read not only these five books, but read what we were reading as well, along with 1st and 2 Kings, Joshua Judges, Ruth, etc.

And they would have kept his scripture or been opening themselves to making the Psalms we have scripture.

So you know Jesus was a Pharisee or raised by Pharisees because he quotes Isaiah, he quotes the Psalms.

Um, in one sense, um, our New Testament writers, Paul even says he's a Pharisee of Pharisees.

That's part of why he uses these quotations.

But one of the things that is so easy to forget, that the title is really helpful, is this isn't poetry.

These are songs.

This is the hymnal.

And uh pedagogically, there is nothing easier to remember than songs.

They have meter, they have beat, they have uh melody as well.

We don't have those things in translation, so we often think like, oh, this is a book of poetry, but it isn't.

But poetry has all that too.

Poetry has that too, but what poetry doesn't have that makes it easier to remember is melody.

I I can remember in high school when I had and I wrestled, I didn't run, but we had to do these warmup runs, and I remember as I was going around the track, which I absolutely hated at the time, um, I would run with songs in my head.

This was before iPods, you know?

And because I was like very religiously geeky, many of them were not just secular songs, they were hymns because I'd heard the same hymns over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over.

And one of those, for example, is Nothing but the Blood of Jesus.

Now, if you didn't grow up evangelical, you may not even have heard this song.

What can wash away my sin?

Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

What can make me whole again, nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Oh precious is the flow, that makes me white as snow.

No other fountain know, nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Now see, I've had that memorized since I was about six years old, much more than I memorized any Bible passage.

No, I memorized Bible passages too, but say they didn't have the tune to it.

So uh these hymns that I grew up singing, pass me not, O gentle savior.

Um what's that other one?

Um hail the power of Jesus' name, let angels prostrate fall, bring forth the royal diadem and crown him, Lord of all.

Do you know anybody know these goodies?

Yeah, I don't.

Well, good you because you probably know different hymns from the Catholic hymn book.

So what's important to remember is the Psalms are just songs.

And what's really interesting historically is that some of the most important theological uh decisions have been made when people used hymns.

So maybe you know a mighty fortress is our god.

That's a Martin Luther song.

That's a beer singing, that's a beer chant from a from a beer hall, and Luther changed the words.

And people memorized the new words because they knew the music.

They knew the music because they sang it every day of their lives.

So then they just got new words.

It turns out that when they were making the Nicene Creed, uh they were two positions.

One was Arius, this tall, eloquent, totally black African who said that Jesus was not co-eternal with God.

Jesus was created the first of all things.

We decided that's heresy, but Arius was very effective because he took his theology and set it to music, to popular tunes.

That's what the psalms, no doubt, do.

Which I think is probably why the New Testament authors quote it so often, is it was down in their bones, like the songs we learned in church as children.

So uh what I think is really interesting about that is I don't think I know any church songs that say, Where are you God?

Why is this happening?

We've totally left that out of our music tradition.

There's just not many of those.

Now, interestingly enough, looking at the modern hymnal, there are a few tricky ones that if you know the history of, um, it sort of augments the message.

Just for example, there's a song in the hymnal, it's a Lakota hymn, the only one, called Minnie and Great.

Minnie and Great, Works of God, Maker of Heaven and Earth.

It sounds like a creation song, and it's it's nice.

It's got a Lakota beat to it.

It turns out that I think in 1865, after Lincoln had been assassinated, a group of Lakota were essentially lynched by the government.

And they sang that hymn, Mimmy and Great, at the gallows.

So if you're a Lakota person, this is a song of protest.

So, protest for inequity and injustice.

The words don't say that, but that's the context of the hymn, which would put it in the tradition of the ones we read, like, Where are you, God?

Why do the righteous suffer?

Many and great.

You know, and what's interesting about the ones that we read in general that are that are like, How is this happening to me?

They almost always end with, but I will choose to praise you, you will deliver me.

And in that sense, the Lakota hymn fits.

You know, uh, you you can read a really interesting.

I don't It Is Well With My Soul.

You know that hymn?

Yeah, yes.

I don't know if that's in the Episcopal hymnal, but you know, um the author wrote that hymn after sending his wife and children to the New World and discovering the boat sank and everybody died.

It is well with my soul was written as a reaction to that.

Once again, if you know that context, it's almost a hymn of protest.

God, how can this happen?

But it will be well with my soul because you will deliver.

You know, you you you kind of need both pieces.

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound.

We all know that hymn that saved a wretch like me was written by a former slave trader who saw the error of his ways and became an abolitionist.

And that's why he said he was a wretch, not you were, he was, because he'd been part of the slave trade.

So in some ways, Amazing Grace is his personal confession set to music.

And we found that compelling without realizing we're not slave traders in the context of an abolition movement.

So often in our own hymnal, we don't have the context that might make some of our hymns sound a little more complaining or a little more reacting to adverse circumstances.

Um I think that may be to our detriment, if that's okay to say.

Because again, it brings out the richness of protest theology and how is this happening to me?

Um, interestingly enough, there's a few songs on the radio that have been like theological protest songs.

There's a group called Bad Religion, which, well, okay, fine.

But uh but this made it on the top 20 Billboard charts, this song uh called There'll Be No More Sorrow, and it's really like, in some ways, like a critique of religion, just like Imagine by John Lennon was.

You know, I mean Imagine actually could fit into this altar if you really think about it, because it talks about greed and hypocrisy.

Um I I'm not saying it belongs in the Psalms, but it certainly could be in the modern hymnal, and many religious types didn't like that psalm because it sounds like it's questioning God, but that puts it right into the hymnal.

That's the interesting bit.

So helpful, helpful, I think, to remember people sang their complaints about God, and because the I think the tunes were so formative, I think that's probably why psalms are quoted more than any other book.

In terms of why we use them, and again, we've totally lost the musical setting.

Totally lost it.

You know, if you're a monk, you're going to pray the entire Psalter every week.

Because you've got seven services a day.

If you're a Roman Catholic monk, including things like Vespers and Matins and noontime, etc., right?

You have seven.

You do all 150 psalms a week.

Um, the way it's set up in the Episcopal Church is there's four services a day morning, noontime, evening, and compand or nighttime.

Every lay person is invited to do these.

You do the whole Psalter every month compared to you do the Gospel of Luke once a year.

So the Psalms become these frequent rhythms, frequent rhythms, much more so than the others.

It's interesting that you talked about could you pray them as a community?

The psalms were the bedrock of the monasteries and the convent as well.

I mean, that's sort of how it worked.

So after a while, quite honestly, monks and nuns have these things memorized because they're doing them every single week.

Uh, lay folks who follow the Daily Office start to get there after a while, too.

And and then again, they're memorizing hymns.

And it's interesting to think.

Do you think that all of the hymns we know have good theology in them?

I would tell you, for me, nothing but the blood of Jesus is terrible.

Like it's it's vile and gross, and I don't like it, but I know it really well.

And I want to say that's this interesting thing that I still find the music kind of emotionally compelling, I think because I was raised with it.

That was one of the songs I sang going around the track.

Um and I would tell you that I also really don't like Psalm 51.

Against you alone have I sinned.

Well, you raped a woman and killed her husband, so I think you sinned against those people.

I was guilty in the womb.

I don't think so.

I really don't think you were.

I think you were guilty when you raped that woman and killed her husband.

Um so so I think there's pieces in the Psalms that I can push against, just like there's pieces in the hymns I was raised in that we push against.

And one other interesting bit is about the context, right?

Um what about inclusive language and what about um the change of circumstances, right?

And and I'll tell you what's interesting is in our hymnal, all the pronouns are masculine.

In the Episcopal Hymnal, they're all masculine.

But they're in hymnals.

They are in most hymnals.

Now I would tell you, in the United Church of Christ, they're not.

The hymnal is is extremely gender inclusive.

Um so it's an interesting thing that we um Except we have to say to Mary.

Um, they're still gendered female.

Yeah, yeah, they're still gendered female because that would be that would be appropriate, right?

In in recognition of her personhood as feminine.

Um but we haven't made this shift yet.

I will tell you personally, I changed the lyrics.

And I don't really ever say blood, I say love.

Nothing but the love of Jesus.

That's sort of my thing, because I just blah, I was just gross, I can't do it.

Um we're gonna do one this Sunday that talks about the king being just.

Now, in my head, I know what that means is that the government should be just.

And it's a really interesting thing to think about praying for our president, especially our current president, to pursue justice and uh equity for the poor.

That's an interesting song.

And it would be maybe even all the more effective if we sometimes change the wording to say raise up the president with justice, oh Lord.

Raise up the Congress with justice, O Lord, raise up the Supreme Court.

That would be really interesting to think about.

Um, we rarely do it, and I think part of the reason why is we say that scripture is pinned the way it is, so we honor that by not changing it.

Um I'll tell you here, I make the Psalms gender inclusive because we pray them.

If we read them, I wouldn't.

But if we pray them, I try to.

Um the Eucharistic prayer, I change the words of because I'm the one praying it.

I don't change them in print, but I change what I say.

And every priest and every bishop in the church, I think, is struggling around.

How do we do that?

I don't make them feminine, I make them neutral.

Neutral.

But I yeah, I don't make them feminine.

What I do is I make them inclusive.

In other words, when it says sons, I can't put sons and daughters.

Yes.

Or children is how I would probably do it.

Yeah.

Um and there's all different choices.

Um, but you know, um I I don't know that it would be a mistake for us to do, um for us to do competing genders sometimes and to bounce.

I I don't know if you've heard um there's there's a feminist uh Lord's Prayer.

I don't know if you've heard this before.

And the first line says, instead of our father who art in heaven, it says, our mother who art on earth, which is a really, really interesting change.

Um I was hoping I could pull it up real fast and I didn't see it.

Um I don't think it trumps the Lord's Prayer.

I think it Is robust because after all, isn't God both in heaven and on earth?

And in Revelation, at the end, heaven comes down through.

We don't go up, heaven comes down.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, we're gonna read that together, which is great.

Um, so and maybe one last thing to pursue is something he said in the video, is this idea that the Psalms talk about God's eminence and God's transcendence.

So eminence means alongside with, transcendence means above beyond.

And I read this great Jesuit theologian who sort of says, and this is a great image of the cross, the cross is this display of God's eminence with us and God's transcendence above us.

Now, the Jesuit theologian, and only Jesuits talk like this, um, say, God is more present in me than I am in myself.

God is more present in me than I am in myself.

I think the Buddha would agree.

The portion of God's presence that I understand is God's eminence.

God's presence that I neither understand nor recognize is God's transcendence.

Now that's a really interesting image for me.

And maybe, maybe the Psalms could lead us there when we think about God being present in our anger, our outrage, our disappointment, and our disgust, especially religiously, because we're usually not comfortable with those, I don't even want to say feelings, but those reactions to life.

I am less present in myself than God, and all different.

That's that's yeah, that's that's true.

I mean, it seems like it has to be true.

And even there's this little pithy phrase, Charles Schultz.

I don't like peanuts, I have to tell you.

I don't like it.

But um, I do like this pithy phrase, which is um yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift from God, which is why we call it the present.

It's sort of this sweet thing.

And um what maybe one last statement about these hymns and what they maybe do, there's it's a very, very famous book in the Episcopal Church.

Almost all priests have to read it to be priested.

It's called Praying Shapes Believing.

And you can figure out what the book is about already.

The words we pray are the things we believe.

And uh, by extension, I think singing shapes believing.

And so does psalming.

And I would tell you, as a little boy, I grew up hearing when we sin, we only really sin against God because Psalm 51 says, against you alone have I sinned.

So sin is about us and God, right and wrong, moral actions involves other people.

And I think that's completely wrong.

But I grew up hearing it, and I heard it because it came right out of here.

And some of the other bits, right, are those like happy are those who don't walk in the paths of the w of the wicked.

Well, I know upright people who are not happy.

So there's some cognitive dissonance there, and and I think that's where it's interesting to like have a conversation with the psalms, which might which might mean push back, and maybe nothing changes in the end, but it's more robust than it is just okay, the psalm says it, I believe it.

It makes a difference when we and when we interact with uh the psalms and uh person, but uh even when uh we need to question sometimes the doctors and talk to us.

Um they don't have to use our mind, we check our brain at the door.

Um that we're supposed to be just oh we're all just falling into what we don't really think.

And the mind that God is a very active interaction, in other words, I saw a sentence yesterday to say if we're so busy and following the end of the world, when do we have time to give it into God?

You know, when do we even have time to think about that?

And Joan Chester is Benedictine none, who is a prolific writer of dream in front of John Katie too about women in the church.

But anyway, she has this calendar that says what you put into your pursuit of God is what you will get out of here.

So the thing is when I mean I grew up in a church that said uh, you know, you listen to the church, you pay attention to the church.

But the relationship with God is not developed and the average lay person still is not, and maybe it's changed, so I don't know.

But uh God is part of everyday life.

Yeah, that's what came out for me.

Because I was raised reading all of these together, I was raised up in the Methodist church, and it was interesting as I read several of them each day, that it was an interaction with God because what and what I had been taught was um or believed or whatever, I don't know how I got this message actually.

Um you you didn't criticize God, you didn't question God.

Yeah, you didn't say, God, why have you done this to me?

You just didn't do it.

You said, Oh, thank you for everything.

And you know, and what am I supposed to learn from this awful situation I'm in?

And really, I didn't start thinking about that until I had a friend who used to, she was Italian and quite feisty, and um a former Catholic, and she would get mad at God when something bad happened, and she would say, Get down here now, you sit next to me, and I want to talk about this.

Yeah, and that was just oh my god.

But and and she came back to me as I read the Psalms, because I just you were always thankful.

You never said, Oh God, you have forsaken me.

Oh no, he's always sinful.

Because you're a sinful person, that's right.

And how on earth would you bear questions about?

Because you don't have the big picture, and in some ways that's that's what I think like echoes what we got in Job.

Yes, we did.

This reminded me a whole lot of what we got in Job.

What's funny though is that at the end of the job, God says the friends are all wrong.

And Job was right in all he didn't, he Job did not sin in anything he said.

And he said a lot of really awful things about God not caring.

Um you know, I think it it what's interesting too in the Bible, if you know the story, God tells Abraham, I'm gonna destroy Sodom and Gomorrah.

And Abraham says, Will you kill the innocent with the wicked?

And God says, Well, I guess that's not a good idea.

And Abraham says, What if there's 50 good people?

Would you save the city for 50?

God says, sure.

And then Abraham has like a reverse Middle Eastern bazaar.

He goes high and argues low.

Now you shouldn't do that.

You've got to start low and you meet in the middle.

But Abraham, God meets Abraham's price, and then Abraham cuts, cuts, cuts, cuts, right down to 10.

And one way to think of that story is how strange.

Another way to think of it is that's the first, one of the first prayers in the Bible, is Abraham saying, God, it's unjust for the righteous to suffer with the wicked.

There's another story on top of Mount Horeb or Mount Sinai where the people have the golden calf.

And God says, I'm really mad, I'm gonna kill all those people, and I'll start over with you, Moses.

And Moses says, Look, that would hurt your reputation.

So why don't you not do that?

Let me take care of those people.

And God says, That's fine, go take care of your children.

And then Moses ends up being pretty harsh, it turns out.

But another way to hear that story is that's Moses praying and saying, God, you cannot do this.

Now, in the Methodist Church and in the Southern Baptist Church, we would never have done that.

We would have said, God, um it's funny, your will be done.

That's right.

Which is an interesting thing that we'll pray for justice and then we'll say, But your will be done.

Wait a minute, justice is always God's will.

So why do we add that phrase?

Well, because maybe maybe then God's doing it for some other reason.

So we're getting God off the hook.

It becomes interesting to think about these.

God, it's really right for starving children to have food, but your will be done.

Well, that's because we're not supposed to tell God what to do.

But some of these are totally not afraid to do it.

That's right.

As long as I think we're willing to be disappointed.

And I think the truth is we don't like to be disappointed, so we add phrase, but your will be done.

When we know good and well, God's will is for hungry people to have food.

We know that.

It seems that we are negotiating with God.

Aren't these doing that too?

I mean, consider some of the complaints.

Woe is me, but you saved my ancestors, so I know you'll do it, and then you'll be exalted.

I mean, it's sort of like saying, God, I didn't study for this test, but if I pass it, I'll become a nun when I grow up.

Yeah, yeah.

But you know, you talk about negotiating with God.

We are partners with God.

In other words, God created the world and gave us the responsibility for it.

So the thing is this, uh, nothing, you know, um a little while back on uh you could hear the phrase, what's the good of praying if you don't do anything about it?

In other words, it's like, yeah, we pray, but then what's our responsibility in helping that prayer come to fruition?

Maybe we can't do anything, but so we keep on praying.

But but it's a partnership with God.

And um, because God depends on us to do the things you know, the things that we need to do.

I'm feeling a little lost in that um God, I I think God gave us the will to select, to choose.

Therefore, at the end of the day, it's really our choice, and he just is there, but but we have the choice of going one way or the other.

Um I I I guess the the he doesn't I think he doesn't interfere except that we we got we we have we have that will to decide what we're gonna do.

Um because but look here last week or the week before there was a tsunami that killed 400.

Yeah, okay, and I and I think why did he allow that to happen?

Yeah, I and I guess I'm thinking uh maybe just of my own of my own personal life because that's the only thing that I'm that I can really be truly responsible for.

I can't be responsible for you, although there are many things with partners and all that for other obvious reasons.

But the tsunamis thing, that that to me, but it but I don't say something they did, it's it's their fault.

I I don't know why.

Yeah.

Yeah, well, yeah, I don't know why I I know why did God allow that to happen?

Well, and I think there's another counter question is why did the German people allow that to happen?

So it's I think some both in, you know, I think we talked about with tsunamis.

I mean you know, tsunamis relieve the atmosphere in that sense they're very helpful.

Why didn't God create a self-sustaining atmosphere that doesn't need earthquakes?

I don't know.

But that's what we got.

But then then we then somebody else could say, but look at what we've done to the earth, look at the shit we've put laid out in the sky, and we've been taught scientists have said this is wrong, this shouldn't be doing this, but you're doing it anyway, and as long as it hurts somebody up there in the Philippines or I don't know in China and it's not kidding, it's here in Houston, I'm not gonna worry about that.

Yeah.

Um so um There's the songs also it brings us down to the um the eminence?

Yes.

I think it can, and I think it can also recognize God's transcendence.

I mean honestly, I think they do both things.

Because because I think about back in the 1960s, it was the what they call the the death of God.

Death of God?

Yes, yeah, which was to which was to to bring him down here up on earth as opposed to always being up there somewhere.

Um and so does the Holmes, I think, helps to bring that down to Earth.

Well that's an interesting thought.

Yes.

It's an interesting thought.

So and then of course, you know, there's that famous Martin Luther King phrase Pray as if everything depended on God and act like it all depends upon you.

Right?

Which is which is an interesting bit.

Um it's interesting, yes.

But he lived that way to prove it, and he put his life on the water.

Well, and I and I think what's interesting is even though we do have all this freedom, I in my own experience, I don't God is not predictable or in a sense reliable as to when God's going to intervene and save me from either um the consequences of my own bad choices, which happens sometimes, or um consequences of other people's bad choices, which happens sometimes, or even consequences of things like things that aren't even right or wrong, like cancer, um, like people get miraculously healed.

I I mean I sort of believe that, even though it's confusing because I can't understand when and why and how.

Um so I think all of that goes on, but again, unpredictably.

So I I think there's sort of like this desire for us to understand.

Oh, it's because I prayed the right prayer.

So what was that prayer?

So I can make that happen again and sort of get God to do what I want.

And I think some of that's in the Psalms, with the reminder that I think is really important is doesn't always work.

No, it doesn't, you know, and you know, I'm thinking I'm still remembering Father Vincent.

My mother was diagnosed with cancer, and she and this was this was back in when when did that happen?

1970s.

1970s.

And she was we were all called and we written all the living all over the country, raced down to corpus because the doctor said he has she has about three months.

You know, she lived to be 94 years old.

Yeah, yeah, and and and then you know I look at Father Vincent, he does he doesn't know.

He could live to be 94.

But what what why?

Um so I had to yeah, why does it happen?

Why did and and so I at the time I I think about my mom, it was everything we did, I mean there was nothing we could do.

But she believed, now she believed that she was gonna be okay.

She had this thing, and we're like, you know, the cancers get into her head, you know, but she just like and then she she had these women come and pray, and my dad would have a fit because he'd leave the house because they're like, oh, they were doing.

She did everything.

She ate stuff she was told to eat rattlesnake pills.

I'm like, I'm serious.

She'd hear all this crazy stuff, and she would do all of it.

And my brother would call me one day at the rattlesnake.

Mother's eating eating this thing called rattlesnake pills.

I said, What are they?

He said, I think they're just high in protein.

You know, that sure.

But um but we all let her do that.

Yeah, but you know, now uh I have an interesting book on my shelf.

It says, um uh change your change your mind, change your brain.

Because how we think forms our brain, too.

So when she had that gut feeling and she believed it, and she acted on it, yeah, she got well.

And the thing is, it's you know, is that uh if if things are not going right, then stop and think about how am I thinking.

In other words, am I looking for the dark side all the time, or uh am I uh trying to get someone to do what I should be doing?

I mean, uh and uh I have to watch myself at this age.

I'm 82.

And you know, I ain't what I used to be physically in lots of ways.

And I just get so angry with myself sometimes because because oh I mean I forgot this or I made some stupid mistake, or uh I mean uh something I I can't even know my peripheral vision is not what it used to be.

I did, you know, stuff like that.

And uh I have to stop myself because nobody reacts to that, you know.

So I have to do a turnaround and say, okay, this is the way we're gonna do it now, and it's in a positive vein, you know.

So uh and it really does how we think change does form our yeah, and I I think you're right about that.

Well these poems helped uh help us to change the paradigm of how we think about things.

Yeah, no, I I I think that's yeah, that would help you.

My my mom would these late these women came and sang with her, and they were doing song, I'm sure, in Spanish, they were doing songs.

I was not there, but my brother said, Oh my god, my dad and my dad would leave the house.

He said, These women drive me, they make me nervous.

I just can't, you know, it's too creepy.

Like well, she didn't bring in all that positive energy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I but it was it was they were praying, I I, you know, and they would all hold hands or whatever it is that they did.

And my dad would leave the house and said, because they wail and they touch it.

Yes, yeah but you know, I don't know if you remember this when we read Daniel, which was a bit ago, yeah, right?

Um Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are brought before King Nebuchadnezzar, and he says, Won't you bow down or I'll throw you into the fire?

And they say, our God is able to save us from this.

But even if God doesn't, we will not bow down to your gods.

And I I think that's an interesting thing that sort of belies some fundamental hope or trust in God that sort of says, even in the midst of calamity, pain, unjust suffering, I choose to think it's going to be okay.

Not okay in the sense that everything's good and fine, but I just sort of choose to believe that that God is somehow present.

And I think that's an interesting bit.

You know, there there is this interesting other side, right?

That um small doses of hope can keep a drowning rat drowning a lot longer.

This is this is true, right?

Small doses of hope keep it drowning a lot longer when if the sparrow set in it would just drown and and die, you know?

And I do think that there's some interesting thing.

I mean, Victor Frankel, who came out of the Holocaust, sort of said that's one of the differences between people who made and who didn't, is that they had this fundamental belief that there would be another chapter.

No, we know that doesn't always work out.

We know there's people who are very positive and who think great thoughts and they die.

Terrible deaths from things like cancer, or they get hit by cars, or whatever it is.

Um, I do think these lament Psalms, though, most of them, there's maybe one or two that don't end in a positive note at all, that sort of say these awful bits and have some fundamental hope in God.

Psalm 22 is one of them, right?

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

And then at the end, God's gonna take care of the poor.

Now, some people say when Jesus is on the cross, by saying the beginning, he's quoting the whole psalm.

So that even in this moment of his unjust suffering, he's thinking about poor people who don't have food or justice, um, and that God is going to offer deliverance for them.

And so his story matches theirs.

And I think that's where maybe psalms for me are the most helpful is when I find moments in which my they represent my story uh maybe more boldly or more honestly than I can.

I used to work at a fundamentalist Christian school, and we were told to start every class with prayer.

I'll tell you, most of my evangelical peers did not even do it, because when you're teaching, you just do it.

I took that very seriously, and I printed 40 prayers and put them in the syllabus, and many of the students had a freak out moment because written prayers aren't real.

They're not honest, uh, you know, they're just going through the motions.

And like maybe sometimes, and maybe at other times, they give voice to our feelings with bolder, more accurate expression than we could think of in the moment.

And that's where I think it's interesting to think about phrases like, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Yea, that I walk to the valley of the shadow of death.

I will not be afraid.

You know, I mean, those I think those kinds of phrases actually are imprinted in the American conscience.

Um, you know, uh maybe for the better.

Sometimes, of course, uh we're not afraid.

Uh we don't fear any evil even though we die.

I mean, I think that's an interesting thing to think about.

Um, but obviously, words like that have been comforting to people not only when their loved ones have been lost, but when they were doing things like storming Iwo Jima, right?

Yea, that I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

I will fear no evil.

Um we turn to some of the ones we read and see if you had specific thoughts or resonance or pushback.

Is that fit to do?

I I just want to say one more thing.

Sometimes you don't even have to have particular ones.

But but it's just a time when you stop.

Yeah.

Uh-oh.

And we came.

I had one.

Oh, I have I've got some Bibles in here if you want to know the Bible.

Yeah, Tim has a good one.

Tim has well, yes.

I'll look with Tim.

We have a small book.

I have oh my gracious.

You want a Bible?

Yeah.

You're in a church.

Well, you're in a Protestant church.

That makes you alone with my mind, but we should.

Yeah.

We should.

Well, I I you're just untouched.

Well, yeah.

I kind of like to get my heckles up a little bit as a Catholic because it's gotten much better.

It's gotten a great deal better.

And I'm just silly.

We're just teasing.

We're just being silly.

I know.

Um think about the first one that we read.

There's two ways, right?

Happy are those who delight in the law of the Lord.

They're like trees planted by streams of water.

And think about what a beginning for the whole hymnal that is.

That's your first hymn, which is trying to tell you that these this hymnal is to help you meditate in and delight in the law of the Lord.

That's a great turn of phrase, though, isn't it?

It doesn't say obey, it says delight in.

Would you like to hear the message translation?

Yeah, yeah.

Says, this is Psalm 1.

Yeah.

It says how well God must like you.

You don't hang out at sin song, you don't slink along the dead-end road, you don't go to smart mouth college.

Instead, you thrill to God's word.

You chew on scripture day and night.

You're a tree replanted in Eden, bearing fit, fresh fruit every month, never dropping a leaf, always in blossom.

You're not at all like the wicked.

You are mere you are mere wind-blown dust without defensing or unfit company for innocent people.

God trots the road you take, and the road they take is good road.

I have to tell you, I like this the one thing that stands out to me the most, that's really interesting, is the very end of the psalm.

God watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

It's an interesting thought to think when we turn on lights, they always stay on, and there's no such thing as a dark switch.

So even people like Haman and Hitler and Idi Amin cannot actually darken the world.

They can just do parts of the world.

They can just not turn on light.

But they can't put light out.

This is sort of an interesting thing, because the way of the wicked will perish.

And every day we do things, some of which are righteous and some of which are amoral, honestly, and some of which are wicked, and the things that live forever are only the righteous things.

The way of the wicked does not live forever.

It's an interesting thought, right?

Our sins die.

Yeah.

But our righteousness lives on.

I mean, I I think that's very hopeful.

Yeah, yeah, that is, but and from and also because even uh when something wicked like Hitler, each person that was living under him, so so to speak, under him, really made a heart decision as to whether they would act upon what he was doing or not.

And there are stories and real resisting.

People that resisted and uh maybe eventually were found and killed.

But they resisted, you know, out they did it out there where they weren't hiding from it.

Right.

Um they maybe took Jews into their house and hid them and those kinds of things.

But yeah.

Well, you know what?

The NIV says at the end of this Psalm 1.

Yeah it uses a different word, but uh but which uh for the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.

Um in other words, that's an active thing that goes on.

In other words, what is your saying?

The way of the wicked will perish.

But the way it leads to destruction means that it actually becomes an ongoing process that will make a person perish.

Yeah.

It's interesting to think about all those differences.

It is.

Psalm 2 is really interesting, right?

Because it says God makes fun of the nations who think they're going to take over Israel.

By the way, Israel got taken over.

So it's an interesting thing, right?

And God says, You're my son.

Today I have begotten you.

Talking about the king, not Jesus, talking about the king of Israel, right?

Interesting, isn't it?

We could misread that as American patriots and say America is God's chosen people, and how dare people think it'll overtake us, and the president is God's anointed one.

And I do think we sometimes buy into that so I think we do.

Even me, I mean, I grew up to be extremely patriotic.

My dad was a Vietnam vet, but let me tell you, if I moved during the Pledge of Allegiance, the first time I moved, maybe it was even the Star Stangled Banner, I think I was moving at a swim meet, I was playing tag.

I got grabbed by the hair.

Because we don't move during those things.

I mean, that's an interesting thing.

I I'm not saying my dad was like awful.

I mean, like that, I remember that, and since that day I have not moved during the national anthem.

Now, maybe that's not good pedagogy, but I learned that lesson.

And in some ways, that's in Psalm 2.

Because there's something transcendent about the pledge and the national anthem.

The answer is there's not.

Not in the sense of those aren't godly things, but they do transcend our normal everyday bit.

And if and if there was if there was a family that did not, I guess I'm thinking about someone that would not feel that way.

Um where do they stand?

They stand down as enemies.

I mean, that's the interesting thing, right?

I mean, I and I came here from a parish uh that was all top brass Navy.

The same place the Navy SEALs are trained, right?

And we had no problem saying sexism was sinful and racism and ageism.

But if you said patriotism could be sinful, people lost their minds.

Because patriotism was inherently good, because America, frankly, was a Christian nation and preferred by God.

And of course, I think we have to challenge that latter claim, right?

I mean, I think Lincoln said it very well.

Let's not ever hope that God is on our side, let's hope we're on God's side.

And really that's what I was trying to reference.

And if we think that God is behind us when we do things like Abu Garib, then our religion is in vain.

I mean, I sort of think, but that's a hard message to hold on to.

I made this bad mistake of preaching something like that.

We had a three-star admiral who was tortured at the Hanway Hilton with John McCain for years, and he finally died.

Uh he was in pain terribly, like John McCain was most of his adult life from the injuries he'd sustained.

And I said that what happened to him was sinful, and that what was happening at Guantanamo Bay was sinful, and people lost their minds because I had compared an American hero to Americans imprisoning people without an accusation.

I just they couldn't say, oh, they're both wrong.

Um, they are both wrong.

And this is, I think, where uh Psalm 2 can get in the way is if we say we're the new Israel, we're God's chosen people, the president is somehow favored by God.

And in some ways, I think those kernels exist in most American people.

And that helps us have devotion and loyalty to our nation, which are important things, but sometimes they can get in the way.

Right?

I mean, that's what I think.

That's interesting.

I'll I'll just say this real fast.

During the Vietnam War, when it first broke, I I have four brothers, but three of them at the time were eligible for serving.

And I said to my dad something, I don't know, I I guess I've been watching too many John McLean movies or said, I said to my dad, Oh, you know, the boys need to be, regardless of age, he he would be a great pilot.

And he said, Absolutely not.

I will not have him go be a pilot and be killed.

They'll kill him.

And as it turned out, two of the two of the three did serve Vietnam, but it was on a ship, so he was in Australian.

He he he was pretty much in a safe in a safe place.

But but another one was was actually he was wounded, at least was wounded in Vietnam.

But anyway, my the response of my father saying, they're not gonna they're not gonna take my voice.

Yeah was I just um I I don't know why that I that stuck with you a little bit.

But because he he was patriotic, but not won't put my my blood my blood I also that war was not a war.

We thought as in World War II we were attacked, or you know, or after that was uh I I want to say the word unpopular war, but it was an unjustified war in any way.

And I I would just throw this out.

I I think being raised a minority in South Texas, and my father having suffered, well, when I say suffered, discrimination and work all that kind of stuff, there was a place somewhere in his heart was that uh uh these are mine.

This is what got he was very Catholic.

Um I think that makes a lot of sense.

Yeah, so you know, another thing about uh when we were talking about government president, I know I'll watch him talk to you.

Yeah, well we got lots of time.

But uh, oh gosh, yeah.

I'm sorry.

No, you're fine.

Listen, this is what we're here to do is talk to each other.

This is not about you.

No, I yeah, thank you.

Okay, anyway, whether or not president is God's chosen.

Yeah.

I think there are two things, two levels we need to be aware of.

You know, one is God's level where God oversees everything and so forth.

But another is what happens on the individual, on the people's level, on the culture.

In other words, whether or not God chose Trump, I don't know.

Uh but the thing is this, I know that by our loss of standards over a period of time and the self-centeredness that most Americans had, we brought Trump on ourselves.

You know, because we didn't, first of all, people didn't get out and vote.

Yeah.

Secondly, um they didn't really learn about who he was.

Yeah, and they did not go into uh they really they were they just didn't do what they were.

So I if anything, Trump is our fault.

I'm not gonna blame Trump on God.

Now if God did it, well we'll deal with that later.

But also what Yeah, I think there's this important thing when that that I think is really helpful, hard to remember, right?

Is um especially in politics, right?

I remember people saying that Barack Obama was a liar or whatever, but none of them knew him.

I don't know Donald Trump, I've never met him.

So how can I talk about his character?

I have no real experiences with the man.

I've heard what he said, which I don't like the phraseology that he uses.

But you know, there's somebody called Madonna, and she changes her image every time she makes an album.

I don't know if she does that of her choice or if that's her producers and stylists.

And you know, I I am sort of convinced that um political figures like celebrities sometimes have to play up things because it it works for people.

So how much of what he says is him and how much of it is whatever, and beyond that, I don't know what he's like.

I mean, these are interesting things, right?

I in general, I don't think there are evil people.

I think in general people are doing the best they can with what they have, or I want to believe that, even if it's really, really awful.

Um these are, I mean, I think those are hard things to hold on to.

Um, and I've got really smart, nice people at this church who really like Donald Trump.

And um, if I say they're dumb, then I think I've actually made the same mistake I think they're making, right?

Which is flattening people out.

So this is this is all hard stuff to do, and I think Psalm two represents some of that tension about who's anointed by God and what's how does the government work and what do we do?

And I think you know, there's times where we say, God bless America.

I like that song.

But we also need a song that says America bless God.

Yes, Lord, that we love.

You know, I mean, so I think it's sort of this both and, and it's not that Psalm 2 is always wrong, it's just that if it stands alone, it could be.

Good news, there's 149 other ones, right?

I mean, we we read this Psalm like 74 that says, God, people have come in and burned your holy hill down, they've sacked and looted the temple, they're scoffing at you.

Plead your case.

Take care of this, right?

So that shows that that is a much newer psalm because the temple we know wasn't burned down until 586, right?

So there's these sort of uh bits like God take care of your reputation, God's gonna take care of the king's reputation.

I mean, it all is sort of like robust.

I don't know.

I think it's robust.

If there were authors, we have no idea.

And in the the book did a good job saying that song by David could mean about, attributed to, concerning.

So we don't know if David wrote a single one of them.

Or he could have written 90 of them.

I mean, we really we really don't know.

Um in in some ways that makes us so I like I like that because this could have been people like you and I that just sat down and because we all have the capability to have some deep thoughts in our most private moments, and if somehow that that that got put down, and some I you know, I don't know how it all was gathered or where it was found or any of that.

Uh but but I I'd like to I like the idea that it didn't come just from one important person and I think it's really helpful, and then I think the question is what psalms would we add?

In some ways that's an invitation.

If there's a lot of people wrote these, what are our own psalms?

This one I just one last one I um and then we get to do these two more weeks, two more weeks of Psalms.

We we we I I I memorized this song as Loki.

We sing this, Why so downcast, O my soul, put your hope in God?

That comes out of Psalm 42, which interestingly enough is also as the deer panteth for the water, so my soul longs for you.

Remember, your soul is not like your spiritual part, that's your whole body.

Why so depressed would be a great translation.

Why so utterly depressed?

And then the answer is put your hope in God.

And that's a really hard transition for somebody who's depressed to say, I won't be depressed anymore.

But it is sort of interesting to think that often what helps people who are depressed get out of depression at least periodically or especially long term, is a fundamental hope and something greater than themselves.

Absolutely.

So I don't know that the psalm says it's easy, but I think the psalm actually has a pretty tried and true remedy for it.

And I can't ever blame somebody who can't make that move, but it's an interesting thought that it's right there.

And uh to me, I I may have already said this, but that I mean priest probably thank you when I was going through really Tim and I have separated, and and I was so in trouble with work.

I mean, it was awful stuff happening.

And he said, just be go to sleep, go get in bed, grassy island, and he gave me songs specific, and he said, Scream 'em and shake your fist at God and be angry at him.

How dare he do this to you?

Because it only works if you think God's gonna listen.

Yeah, well, yeah, and and and I guess he believed that I would believe that if I did it, and you know what?

I started doing that, and at first I thought this is a foolish father JJ, but I'll do it.

And I and then I thought, oh wow.

Well, because when you when if you didn't think anyone was gonna listen, yeah, you wouldn't say anything.

Yeah, you know, I mean, I have relationships that are so dead, I don't talk to the person anymore.

But even when I've got just yucky things to say to somebody, in some ways that says, I believe in the relationship.

Yeah, because if I didn't, I would just you would be dead to me.

Right.

Um so I it's interesting that way, isn't it?

No, there's that's true in marriages, and I'm sure I'll be with relationships that that I feel open enough.

I mean, I'm not gonna be mean or cruel, neither he but you say when you say, I mean, that really drives me up the wall.

Would you just you know, and we have that honesty.

Um, and and then I then I you know then you feel guilty.

No, I actually think I mean it's interesting you said that.

One of the like the most connecting things I've ever told my wife is I'm not sure I want to be married to you anymore.

And being able to say that was so connecting.

Because I've been thinking it.

Yeah, and being able to say it, yeah, well, I didn't think it anymore much of that, actually.

I thought, oh, okay, like thanks for listening to that.

It's really interesting.

We're still married.

Um spoiler alert, next week, lots of lament.

Lots of lament, mourning, accusation, grief, and some of them don't have happy endings.

So that'd be fun.

No, that would be fun.

Lamenting in here is a very safe space with a lot.

I believe so.

I'm having fun doing it with you.

So I I uh I hope you have.

Thanks for starting the new year with the songs.