I was about to reflect on Isaiah 53.4-12 today, since that is our Old Testament reading for this upcoming Sunday - and it's a good one. But then I saw that the appointed Psalm for Sunday came from part of Psalm 91, and felt I had to talk about this one. I'll tell you why shortly, but first here is the section of the Psalm for Sunday:
9 Because you have made the Lord your refuge, the Most High your dwelling place, 10 no evil shall befall you, no scourge come near your tent. 11 For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. 12 On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.13 You will tread on the lion and the adder, the young lion and the serpent you will trample under foot. 14 Those who love me, I will deliver; I will protect those who know my name. 15 When they call to me, I will answer them; I will be with them in trouble, I will rescue them and honor them. 16 With long life I will satisfy them, and show them my salvation.
This Psalm is one of the most memorable to me for several reasons. One of them is that this Psalm was the inspiration to the song "Eagles Wings" which I have very conflicted feelings about. Don't get me wrong, it is quite pretty and all and pretty straightforward. But it does not belong in hymnals, which has become a popular thing with it, because it is not really all that singable by a congregation. Unless one actually knows how the verses go, they are different enough to make it sound quite ridiculous every verse with the congregation finally syncing up during the choruses. Leave this one to the soloists and choirs people! But also because Eagles Wings has this uncanny way of appearing in both weddings and funerals. I noticed this when I was a young acolyte at my church who would help out on Saturdays for such services. Both weddings and funerals tend to employ this song, an odd combination indeed.
Another reason I remember this Psalm is because of an African woman in seminary who told us that her family prayed this psalm each evening, particularly because of a line that comes earlier than this Sunday's reading which states one need not fear the terror of the night, where she lived the night was when people were murdered and children kidnapped. And each night before going to sleep they "made the Lord their refuge". That is using the Psalm! It is quite an instructive word on living off of the promises and words of scripture in the most intense and fearful situations our lives could face. "Those who love me, I will deliver; I will protect those who know my name." Do we believe the Lord protects us? Do we feel delivered?
What really makes this psalm memorable though is we selected it as one of the readings at my mother's funeral (even though it would have finally been appropriate given this reading, we did not sing Eagle's Wings due to how that song was ruined for me personally as a funeral song). The reason we chose it was verse 11 "For he will command his angels concerning you, to guard you in all of your ways." Anyone who knew my mother long enough knew how that was relevant. She was a bit of an angel nut. Perhaps even at times in a way that was unhealthy faith wise (that is, getting lured by the title angels into books that essentially profess non-Christian practices), but at the same time there was something deeply admirable about her faith in relation to angels as well. Namely, she did believe that God did this, that he commanded his angels for our sake. She believed that God was still active, and angels were but one of his means. Would that we all believed that God regularly kept watch of us, regularly sought our care. Then we could perhaps even recover then the old meaning of angel as "messenger" and see that the Word of God, its messages, its promises are active still. That when God delivers this message, as he did through angels, it is to guards us in our ways, to deliver us still, to as the Psalm says, show us the Lord's salvation. Sometimes the angels are presented as God's hosts, God's armies. Other times they come as preachers, messengers. In both instances, they come bearing God's power for our lives.
Protestants have moved far away from a spirituality that has much room for angels. I think it largely left with the saints. But even Luther's daily prayers employed this, "Let Your holy angel be with me, that the evil foe may have no power over me." This line in fact appears in both his morning and evening prayer. We should perhaps recover God's heavenly intervention, God's angelic actions on our behalf. There is a difference from invoking angels in prayer and invoking God to send his angels in prayer.
In relation to this Sunday's Gospel (Mark 10.35-45), this text is kind of obscure. It's relevance is much more obvious on the Sunday of the Temptation of Jesus, when the Devil actually tries to get Jesus to employ the promises of verses 11-12 for himself. My hunch is that this Psalm relates to our Gospel reading by verse 15 "I will rescue and honor them" since trying to take a place of honor, desiring one is a theme in the Gospel. If it is that, it is honestly quite a weak relation. And if it is not that, I'm having a hard time seeing it. Not one of the moments where the lectionary shines with inter-biblical reflection. At least not in regards to the Psalm reading. But I'm going to relate them anyways. James and John in Sunday's Gospel are concerned with where they will be in Jesus' glory. Even if we assume here that they mean earthly glory (restoration of the Davidic Throne and boundaries with liberation from Roman imperialism) or heavenly glory, the implication is simple, we want that. What we don't want Christianity to be is living in a world where we have to pray Psalm 91 because our children are in danger of kidnapping, or our lives need the protection of angels or their message of comfort. The inclination is for religion to be the quest for glory, and especially in our world - the quick fix one stop shop to glory. But it is not. Faith entails God as our Dwelling Place in the midst of the slums of the city. God our dwelling place wherever our feet be planted. It means being a people of God in a world where we genuinely see that each day is lived by God's protection, and the threat of death is so real that anything short of deliverance from death will ultimately fail.
When we see our lives bound up in Christ, it is not simply a quest for the glory seat, it is instead a baptism that promises within it death as much as resurrection. It is the incarnational promise that here, among the heathen and unholy, in our putrid lives and dangerous places, in a world where evil and threat can touch us and our sin is a real thing, here does Christ so trod. The cross is not the escape from suffering, it is the entrance of God into suffering. It is him making our suffering HIS dwelling place. The relation I see between Psalm 91 and Mark 10 is that our tendency is to be like James and John, and our deepest desire is to never have to pray Psalm 91. Yet when Christ comes as a servant, giving his life as a ransom for many, then in fact even to the places where we need psalm 91, we can see the dwelling place of God is not unreachable or outside of the dangers we face but is our dwelling, our Temple and High Priest (as our Hebrews reading puts it) has stepped right into the danger and died, promising that all who meet their death there, who drink that cup and receive that baptism, will see their salvation. Making camp (a dwelling place) in God, happens right here. Right now.
We have more than angels and messengers, we have the one they serve and proclaim. Christ came not to be served but to serve. And we who have him, can in the fiercest of places be free to serve. Christianity is not devoid of a promise of future glory, but is likewise not devoid of a promise for the inglorious days as well.
I think again of Luther's morning and evening prayers, along with the directions that follow them:
In the morning when you get up, make the sign of the holy cross and say:
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Then, kneeling or standing, repeat the Creed and the Lord's Prayer. If you choose, you may also say this little prayer:
I thank You, my heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, Your dear Son, that You have kept me this night from all harm and danger; and I pray that You would keep me this day also from sin and every evil, that all my doings and life may please You. For into Your hands I commends myself, my body and soul, and all things. Let Your holy angel be with me, that the evil foe may have no power over me. Amen.
Then go joyfully to your work, singing a hymn, like that of the Ten Commandments, or whatever your devotion may suggest.
In the evening, when you go to bed, make the sign of the holy cross and say:
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Then kneeling or standing, repeat the Creed and the Lord's Prayer. If you choose, you may also say this little prayer:
I thank You, my heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, Your dear Son, that You have graciously kept me this day; and I pray that You would forgive me all my sins where I have done wrong, and graciously keep me this night. For into Your hands I commend myself, my body and soul, and all things. Let Your holy angel be with me, that the evil foe may have no power over me. Amen.
Then go to sleep at once and in good cheer.
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