Psalm 134 brings a conclusion to the Psalms of Ascent. Recall, these were the suite of songs that pilgrims sang as they journeyed to Jerusalem and the temple. Psalm 134 is very short, and scholars believe it functions as a concluding doxology and benediction. There also seems to be a call-and-response structure. Verses 1–2 appear to be imperatives directed to the priests and Levites tending the temple during the night watch:
Now bless the Lord,
all you servants of the Lord
who stand in the Lord’s house at night!
Lift up your hands in the holy place
and bless the Lord!
In response, the priests and Levites offer back a blessing upon the people:
May the Lord,
Maker of heaven and earth,
bless you from Zion.
Back in September, I joined Chris Green on his Speakeasy Theology podcast, where I used the phrase “the difference is doxological.” In that conversation, I was describing how God has gifted the world an intrinsic logic and rationality and has made that logic transparent, to a certain degree, to the human mind. The logos of the human mind can attune itself to the Logos upholding and sustaining the cosmos. The rationalities, human and divine, can synchronize. And this is grace, a grace available to every human person.
In my conversation with Chris, the point I was making concerned behavioral and psychopharmacological technologies related to our mental health. Such technologies can appear to be “secular,” “medical,” and “scientific.” But that is wrong. These technologies are spiritual and supernatural grace. The only difference between the “sacred” and the “secular,” when it comes to the technologies of human flourishing, is doxological. There are those who recognize these technologies as gifts and give praise, and those who do not.
I bring up my conversation with Chris to connect back to Psalm 134 and the doxological coda of the Psalms of Ascent to make this point. In so much of life, the difference is doxological. Growing up, I had a very narrow definition of “worship.” Worship was singing on Sunday morning. Everything else in life was “not worship.” Today, by contrast, this has completely flipped. I now see that everything is doxological.
Spiritual practice is being alert to grace, an alertness that flows over into gratitude, thankfulness, and praise. If all is grace, then doxology is everything.
And that makes all the difference.
