Lent Reflection #12

Lent is a good time for confession, so I'll go ahead and admit to something: for much of my life, I never really paid much attention to the Psalms. I read them, prayed them, and listened to them. But I never gave them the same amount of attention as the letters of Paul or the Gospels. And if you assume that I'm one of those "New Testament only" Christians, I've given much more attention to Judges, the minor prophets, and Ecclesiastes than the Psalms. There are a couple of reasons for this:

1. I'm drawn to Paul's theological arguments and narratives (like the Gospels and Judges, for example) that I am to poetry. This has been consistent since my teenage years: I enjoyed George Orwell and John Steinbeck far more than Emily Dickinson or John Keats (or any other poet that we were forced to read in high school). 
2. 'Getting into' the Psalms, like any form of poetry, requires patience. You've got to read slowly, deliberately, prayerfully. That's a good strategy for reading Scripture in general, but it's especially true of the Psalms.

All of that has changed in the last few years as I've experienced the power of meditative prayer and contemplative ways of encountering Scripture. And while I'm far more likely to turn to Paul or Old Testament narratives and prophets when it comes to sermons and Bible studies, my appreciation of Psalms has grown exponentially over the last 10 years. What I have learned is that when it comes to Psalms (and poetry in general), experience makes them come alive in surprising ways. Pretty much the whole range of human emotion is on display in the Psalms and when I was approaching them from a purely intellectual frame of reference, I was quickly losing patience.

Then stuff happened: love, marriage, children, ministry, successes/failures, the deaths of loved ones, various struggles, etc. Life happened and the Psalms began to resonate in ways they had not before. I find myself still drawn to Paul and the Gospels and the narrative stuff, but when I'm praying or when I feel my faith slouching just a little, I turn to Psalms.

I'm too long-winded, because all of that was supposed to be an intro to what I read in Psalm 115 today that got the wheels turning. I guess I'll use that verse as a way of demonstrating how my appreciation of Psalms has grown.  Here's Psalm 115:3-8:

Our God is in the heavens;

   he does whatever he pleases.

Their idols are silver and gold,

   the work of human hands.

They have mouths, but do not speak;

   eyes, but do not see.

They have ears, but do not hear;

   noses, but do not smell.

They have hands, but do not feel;

   feet, but do not walk;

   they make no sound in their throats.

Those who make them are like them;

   so are all who trust in them.

Ten years ago, I would have flown right past this little section in order to get to the reading from Luke. This morning, verse 8 stopped me cold. I've been chewing on this verse ever since. The Psalmist is throwing down a hard truth: we become like our idols. We become like the things we worship. We are progressively defined (and confined, as is always the case with idolatry) by those things in which we put our ultimate trust.

This seems so simple as to be completely self-evident, but here's some things I'm thinking about:

You can't put all your trust in money and become like Jesus.

You can't worship your pastor, your church, or your denomination (or your 'non-denomination') and become like Jesus.

You can't put all your trust in your theology, your intellect, or your understanding and become like Jesus.

You can't worship comfort and convenience and become like Jesus.

You can't worship your kids (and their sports/activities) and become like Jesus.

You can't worship yourself and become like Jesus.

We become like Jesus by following Jesus, trusting in God's grace given through Jesus, worshiping and trusting God and God alone, the way Jesus Christ taught us.