Psalm Reading: Psalm 85
For Sunday, July 25, 2010: Year C - Ordinary 17
This Psalm is filled with the tension of faith, or the tension that is faith. The first part, to be sung by a chorus in worship, affirms God’s past mercy to God’s people and asks for the return of that mercy in the present, a time of hardship—perhaps a time of drought, based on the imagery. In the second part, beginning with verse 9, a prophet steps forward to deliver God’s response: “Let me hear what God, the Lord, will speak…” The prophet listens and pronounces a promise of blessing and abundance, concluding, “The Lord will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase. Righteousness will go before him, and will make a path for his steps.” In the past God blessed us, delivered us, things were good. Now things are not so good. In fact, they are hard. We must have done something. Will God forgive us and restore things, bring back the crops, and bless us once again? We can ask, and we do so with a certain amount of confidence based on the relationship we have with our God. This sort of tension looks like faith to me.
The Midrash
The Midrash finds another point of tension in this Psalm. Verse 11, “Faithfulness and truth meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other,” contains two oppositional statements. When faithfulness and truth meet, the word “meet” has the sense of confrontation. They confront each other. Righteousness and peace, like wise face up to each other—they meet face to face. When the Rabbis quote the Psalm 85, they do so in the context of the creation story:
Rabbi Simon said, "When the Holy One was about to create Adam, the ministering angels formed themselves into groups and companies, some of them saying, 'Let him be created,' while others urged, 'Let him not be created.'
"Thus it is written, 'Love and truth fought together, righteousness and peace combated each other.'. Love said, 'Let him be created, because he will perform acts of love.'
"Truth said, 'Let him not be created, because all of him will be falsehood.'
"Righteousness said, 'Let him be created, because he will do righteous deeds.'
"Peace said, 'Let him not be created, because he will be all strife.'
"What did the Holy One do?
"He took truth and cast it to the ground, as is said, 'Thou cast down truth to the ground' (Daniel 8:12). The ministering angels dared say to the Holy One, 'Master of the universe, why do You humiliate Your seal? Let truth arise from the earth.'
"Hence it is written, 'Let truth spring up from the earth.'"
The elder Rabbi Huna of Sepphoris said, "While the ministering angels were arguing with one another and disputing with one another, the Holy One created Adam and then said, 'What are you arguing about? Man is already made.'"
God does not deny, the inherent tensions in the nature of humanity, the capacity for great love and great deceit, but God does not consider these tensions reason to alter God’s plan for our creation.
The Hardest Question
The greatest tension is that we are created with the capacity for love and faithlessness. If this is how we are hardwired by our creator, is faith that which exists along that dialectical line?
Russell Rathbun is a preacher at House of Mercy in St. Paul, Minnesota, the author of Midrash on the Juanitos (Cathedral Hill Press 2010) and the curator of The Hardest Question. Watch his live videocast about the week’s lectionary texts every week at 11:30am Eastern Time right here at THQ.
