Psalms

I'm reading a book at the minute called Praying the Psalms by Walter Brueggemann, who is one of the foremost Old Testament scholars on the Psalms. I would recommend it for anybody interested in exploring the Psalms as an act of worship.  I came across this very meaty quote which reminded me of a conversation we had a few weeks ago about interpreting the Psalms. Read it slowly and if nothing else, savour the lovely use of language.

The Psalms, with a few exceptions, are not the voice of God addressing us. They are rather the voice of our own common humanity— gathered over a long period of time, but a voice that continues to have amazing authenticity and contemporaneity. It speaks about life the way it really is, for in those deeply human dimensions the same issues and possibilities persist. And so when we turn to the Psalms it means we enter into the middle of that voice of humanity and decide to take our stand with that voice. We are prepared to speak among them and with them and for them, to express our solidarity in this anguished, joyous human pilgrimage. We add a voice to the common elation, shared grief, and communal rage that besets us all

How about that for a bit of fun, ey?

I have a few things to say about the Psalms; think of this as a summary of my introduction talk combined with various comments made over the past few weeks.

Firstly, when reading any part of the Bible, but especially the Psalms, it is important to remember context.  If you take away nothing else, let it be this.

• What is happening?
• Praise, Thanksgiving, Lament
• Who is speaking
• Individual
• Community
• Either by a spokesperson for the community (e.g. King, Priest or Prophet) or by the people in general

Secondly, it is important to remember that the Psalms were written as ancient poems and songs, not as works of systematic theology.  You won't find organised thought-patterns or rational arguments, but rhetorical devices, imagery and metaphor.  Rather than trying to make the Psalms fit into the Christian understanding of faith and God, it is much better to look at them they were intended.  Certainly, the Psalms have something to say to the Christian world-view, but that was not their original intention.  Look at the context of the psalm: what was the intended audience? Is this a personal hymn of praise or the cries and wails of a community?  We need to look at a psalm holistically.  Does what is being said in this ancient Jewish poem resonate with my experiences as a Christian in 2011?  How can it inform my daily walk with God thousands of years after it was written?

Understanding the Psalms should be less about working through them verse-by-verse, trying to figure out what is going on, and more about joining with the "voice of our common humanity."  How do we do that? The devotion I wrote for our time in Romania used the structure: Read, Think, Pray, Live.  Try using this when studying the Psalms.

• Read
• Appreciate the rich use of language.
• Think
• What is this psalm about?
• Think about who it was written for.
• What is said? Is it relevant to your life?
• Pray
• Ask God to speak to you.
• Is there something that is troubling you that this Psalm has brought up?
• Maybe you need to thank God or praise him.
• Maybe you need to cry out to him.
• Live
• Take what you have learnt.  Use it in your daily walk.

I hope this is helpful to you.  If you have any questions or whatever, hit me up in the comments and we can try to have a discussion.  Alternatively, real life communication works too.

Rest

I love rest. I love sleep.

I know this because when I think of my favourite places in the world, they are places of rest. For a lot of people that means Castlewellan. Still waters. Clear air. Open sky. A forest to play in. Closeness to God. (My other one is more fake- “Castaway Creek” at Typhoon Lagoon in Disney World... just floating round all day with nothing to do.)

I love rest. So how is that sometimes when I am chilling out I feel bad about it? I can feel this vague guilt. I can feel like I should be doing something. Should be always on the move. Should be producing something, making, writing, studying working... And it stops me from truly resting.

According to the pros we should get 8 hours sleep every night. And falling asleep with the TV on stops us from getting the full benefits. Why is it that I never find time for eight hours sleep? When I can’t get to sleep because my head is racing, I put on TV as something to focus on. But then I live life tired.

I’m in a bit of bad health this week because last week I was working too hard and not sleeping enough. My work’s not as good, and I can’t go out and do the things I want to do.

What’s going on?

We already know the answer.

We live life too fast. Expect too much of ourselves. Push hard for results and work and money. And we suffer for it. Miss out on moments. We might ‘do’ more... but we lose out on the quality.

In Egypt, the Hebrews were in slavery. Working in the hot sun to make bricks without straw. Day in, day out.

So when God rescued them that changed. When God gave them a new set of laws for how they would live he included rest. “In our society, everybody gets a day off. No excuses.” It’s right up there with murder and adultery!

Because over-work is oppression. It’s a kind of slavery. And we’ve been set free from it. Led out of Egypt.

So, what does this mean? Doesn’t this just take all our tiredness and pile on a big pile of guilt for not following God’s law? Well... no.

It’s just that sometimes we need permission. Permission to have a nice sit down. Permission in exam season to make sure we also do some gaming/painting/music-making/talking to friends. Permission to say “Actually. I’ve done all my work for today. Now it’s time to rest.”

And if you can't sleep, just 'key down' for a while. Put issues to one side and just be. Just rest.

It is useless for you to work so hard from early morning until late at night, anxiously working for food to eat; for God gives rest to his loved ones.

Psalm 127: 2

Night night.

Videos

Gap Yah

Woop

Gap Yah Live

Brother Metal

I thought some of you might enjoy this.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7513571.stm


-Michael

360: The Adventure Begins!

This sunday night, after the phil-collins-alicious harvest service, we will be jumping straight into the 360 Adventure! Be there, punks!

check out the fun times ahead!

Power

Who do you consider powerful in your life?

Superman?
Barack Obama?
Gordon Brown?
Teachers?
Your friends?
You?


Who do you influence?
Think about who you have influence over.  Who do you have power over?  How do you deal with that power?


Human beings desire power.

The philosopher Nietzsche believed that the dominant motivation of mankind is the desire to have power and influence over others. 

Nietzsche did not believe that this was a bad thing, but that power, influence and control was both good and desirable.

This desire for power can be expressed in various ways:


Physical
Some believe that the more physically attractive we are, the more power we have over others.
Unfortunately, this view is furthered by much of our media and advertising.  Physically attractive people are seen as being happy and more successful than others.
People become convinced that if they are thinner, taller, stronger, more attractive in some way, they will be seen as more important than others.

Intellectual
Some people believe that if they are more intelligent than others, they will be able to have control over them.
This can be by being able to beat them in arguments, being able to come up with better ideas, or just knowing more stuff.
Some people believe that being intelligent means that they will be seen as more important than others.

Social
Humans have a natural desire to be in community with others, and this is often expressed in a need to be popular.
We see this often in school (and even more often in horrible cliched teen movies).
The popular people have power and control over others because other people want to be like them.
Some people believe that being popular means that they wil be seen as more important than others.


Spiritual
Unfortunately, in some churches, some people believe that being more holy, or appearing more holy means that they wil be seen as more important than others.


In all these ways there is one thing in common:  society dictates that to be powerful, we must value ourselves over others.

The world says power is good. The world says that power is so good that it is worth killing for.

What does the Bible say?
The apostle Paul, writing in the book of Philippians, says:

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves
- Philippians 2:2

This verse, I feel, gets to the root of how we as Jesus-followers are to act towards others.

While the world says that it is good to value the one (ourselves) at the expense the many (everyone else), the Bible tells us to value the many at the expense of the one. As Jesus-followers, it is not enough simply to say we believe in Jesus and his promises for us. We are to follow in the footsteps of Jesus. Paul writes in another of his letters:

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.

In the first passage we looked at, Paul tells us to consider others better than ourselves.

The word “others” in Greek literally translates to mean “others”. The simplicity is deceptive. The Bible tells us not to consider our peers, or the people we like as better than ourselves, but to consider those who are different to us as better than ourselves.

So why should we value others?

In the book of Daniel, 3 of Daniel’s friends were to be executed in a furnace. The king came down to see the execution and saw that they were not dying but were fine and there was not 3, but 4. Our God is not a god who sits idly by when we are struggling, but a god who stands with us in our need.  Essentially, I want to say that God values others, and therefore so should we; however, it is deeper than that... 


God is a community. God is one person and God is three people. Before time began and after time will end God is a community. God didn’t create us as some sort of narcissistic need for people to love him, or because he was lonely. What sort of god would create us for company? God lives in community. God invites us as his people to join him in his community.

As we follow God, we join him and others in Holy Community.  As human beings we are born with in innate desire for community.  I believe this stems from being created in God's image.  When we put ourselves first over the needs of others, we rebel against the Holy community that God created for us.

The German theologian Karl Barth, in his commentary on Philippians writes,

The 'one thing' that Barth is talking about here is the grace of God.  I think this quote is great.  The strange, the different, the unintelligible.  How many of us when we think of these words can think of someone straight away?  Who really rubs you the wrong way?  Who do you know who is strange? Who do you know who is different? Who do you know who is unintelligible?

The people we meet who really rub us the wrong way are perhaps how we encounter God.

As we encounter the strange, the different, the unintelligible in others, we discover how we God encounters the strange, the different, the unintelligible in us.

As Jesus-followers we are to follow in the footsteps of Jesus. The world values the pursuit of power. God calls us to live a different way, in holy communion with others and with him, each of us valuing others as better than ourselves.

Think about your lives.  Think about the people you meet every day.

Who do you influence?

How do you influence?

Wrestling

FIRST, CLICK HERE AND WATCH THIS
Batista, Shaun Michaels, Undertaker, John Cena. Wrestlers.

D.J. and Chris. Wrestlers.

The old people who sit at the back on Sunday. Wrestlers?


There’s a story in Genesis about two wrestlers.
One wrestler is Jacob.
That’s Isaac’s son (remember he tricked his father and brother by wearing a sheep skin.)

He’s also the father of Joseph (and Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Benjamin, Bilhah, Dan, Naphtali, Zilpah, Gad and Asher.)
The other wrestler is…

...Well, CLICK HERE AND READ THE STORY

So, Jacob wrestles with God.

He gets given a new name: “Israel”.

Israel’s sons become a nation.

There’s a country today that's called “Israel”, because Jacob wrestled with God.

In the Old Testament Israel are God’s chosen people.

A whole nation of God-Wrestlers.

A people who wrestle with God.

Sometimes we think that God expects unquestioning obedience, but the scriptures don’t show us that. The Bible is full of people who question God. God invites to engage with him, question him, wrestle with him, get to know him.


A real relationship with God, like any relationship, involves conversation, debate, opposing views, conflict, resolution…



I’m fairly convinced that God always knows best, but I am only convinced of that because God has invited me to wrestle with him, to get to know him, to find out for myself.



So God invites us…
Wrestle with the issues. Wrestle with the questions. Wrestle with doubt. Wrestle with prayer. Wrestle with God about the suffering in the world. Wrestle with injustice.



Become a wrestler.