Psalm Reading: Psalm 148
For Sunday, December 30, 2012—Christmas 1
I love the over the top feeling in this psalm. It seems like the writer is hyperventilating or tweaking or screaming along some glorious three chord punk rock anthem—praise the Lord, praise the Lord, praise the Lord—yaaaaah.
This is orgasmic praise. In the NRSV translation of this psalm there are eleven exclamation points in fourteen verses. I don’t think I used that many exclamation points in all of this year (I know there is exclamation point creep, due to text and tweets, but that is just not how I was raised).
You Had to be There
It is like the translators where aware of their inability to communicate the ecstasy, the exuberance, exactly how much this writer was freaking’ praising the Lord—praise the Lord, praise the Lord, praise the Lord—yaaaaah.
As many times as I have pointed out the Psalms dubious position in our contemporary liturgy due to, among other things, their violent nationalism, one thing they do really well, is, well, actually do something. This is clearly not a didactic text. This is meditation on the nature of God, this is not law—this is praise. It is not about something, it is something.
The writer is not trying to describe to the reader how praiseworthy the Lord is, the writer is praising the Lord.
Exegeting Orgasm?
It seems a little silly to try and exegete this text. Like, what does the Psalmist really mean by: Praise the Lord from the earth, you sea monsters and all deeps, fire and hail, snow and frost, stormy wind fulfilling his command! Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars! Wild animals and all cattle, creeping things and flying birds!
What is meant? It is pretty clear—it is wild, crazy, passionate, visceral fruit tree and sea monster praise! There, I used one. But only to make this exclamatory point—I don’t know if you can gain anything from a line by line or an allusion-by-allusion interpretation of this psalm. Not if you want any chance at getting caught up in that kind of praise yourself. Can you make love while simultaneously reflecting on every moment of it? I don’t think you can and be very satisfied.
The Hardest Question
Can you interpret an experience in the midst of it or do you have to choose one or the other—experience or interpretation, being or meaning?
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.
