De Psalmis

I recently shared a testimony on my reflections on the nature of personal relationship, inspired by the time that I've spent over the last few months meditating on the psalms during my quiet times. As one might expect with this process, planning out a sermon in a clear and systematic manner yields further insight, hence this post.

Most interestingly, the psalms have helped me to rediscover what the rest of the bible truly is. I was reluctant to read through the volume of the hundred and fifty songs embedded in them middle of the Bible. But I reached a point where I had read through just about everything else- the prophets, major and minor, the torah, the gospels and epistles. Thus, I began with 'How blessed is the man who...', and proceeded with one psalm a day. I took them each as a poem, since their musical settings were unknown to me; something for David to explain to us all when we do meet him I suppose. Who knew that my IBDP English would help with my quiet times? God does use everything. As someone who devours stories and appreciates good characterisation, now reading through the psalms, I had the realisation that I had been reading the Bible as though it was fiction, another novel, another fantasy. Beginning with the most prolific, David, was not just a king who reigned some two thousand seven hundred years ago, who committed adultery and inspired 'Hallelujah'. He was a person, a fully realised human being, who had his deep struggles with reconciling the idea and character of God to the circumstances which he encountered in his life, as all of us do. Extend this to every other psalmist, Solomon, Korahites, exilic Jews, Moses, the other unknowns; and further, to every 'character' in the Bible, to every prophet, apostle, king or shepherd. going further, to each name mentioned only once or twice, names in the genealogies, and note that each is a person, an object of the love of God, and He knows them more than just by name. We are not stars, we are far more complex. Biblical sonder if you will. I find it amusing that sonder is listed as an obscure sorrow. Why should it be? Yes, you are not the most interesting and multifaceted person out there, but should we not be excited that everyone is? Each person represents a whole new world, a fractal in a set of fractals, developing and dreaming in their own capacity. Each life is another that I can get to know, that God can redeem for His glorious purpose.

Going off that previous point, why do we use the misleading phrase 'bible character'? The lives we read about in the Bible are people, not characters. We may not have a lot of details about some of them, but by calling them characters, we sink into the trap of thinking of them as characters. Characters are great constructs, from Heathcliff and Daisy, to Arwen and Daneel. But as flat or round as they may be, they are not people. They can only have as much significance as we grant them, and once we have read through their story, they never surprise us with anything new again. A person however, does surprise, does change and develop in unexpected ways, and has a naturally imbued significance that comes from the Creator, as a certain declaration would affirm in addition to the Bible. We may know more about certain characters than we do people, but that has nothing to do with how much more significant a single human life is than a whole slew of characters in an epic like the romance of the three kingdoms. It would be a lot better to call the names in the Bible something like 'people in the Bible', or 'Biblical people'.

Far more than the people in the Bible, there is a tendency for us to view God as another, or perhaps the main character in the Biblical narrative. He creates, he loves and nurtures, he judges and destroys. Some may even view God as the most mutable of the characters, going from a wrathful, immature being to one of benevolence and agape. Far from it. The psalms more than show how God has always been a relational and personal God, who is not after sacrifices and legalism but after obedience and trust in His character and plan. The revelation of Trinity shows us that God is inherently relational between His three persons, even before any interaction with His creation.

God is in fact, the source of our understanding of what it means to be truly personal. On our own, we so quickly sink into classifying people as their professions, their ages, their family relationships, their past experiences, or their interests, and so on. Only as we come to know God as a person and develop our relationship with Him do we get a better and better glimpse of how people ought to relate in a way that is truly mature, loving and thoughtful. Every positive aspect that you have known in a relationship is a pale reflection of the kind of relationship that God has within Himself, and desires to extend to you, and desires for you to demonstrate to others.

One final point- Why do we ask 'What would Jesus do?' The same way that we might ask 'What would Darcy do?' Jesus is alive and active, and He'll surprise us from time to time with something unexpected. A character is not alive, and cannot help but respond to something in the same classic way. Of course you could ask what a character would do and get a simple response. Jesus, in contrast, is alive and responds dynamically to situations. Yes, He does have a consistent character, but the way that He wants to act might be completely unexpected. Let's not ask 'What would Jesus do?' but just ask God directly, 'What would You want to do?' and listen out for His response.