"You have rejected us"

Psalm 60 is one of those psalms that seems far removed from our modern imaginations. And while it can be difficult to bridge that gap, I frequently try. If you're a regular reader you've seen me do this time and time again, defending some vision or perspective from Scripture that we find implausible or distasteful. I did this two weeks ago with the imprecatory petitions of Psalm 58.

Psalm 60 is a lament over a military defeat and an expression of confidence that God will respond by bringing victory again to Israel. The historical note attached to the psalm places the military defeat during the reign of David, but it is easy to see how the poem would also have given voice to Israel's life as she faced and experienced invasion and exile. The lament "you have rejected us" was voiced many times in Israel's life.

The imaginative gap between our time and Psalm 60 concerns how God relates to history. Once upon a time, the notion that God was providentially guiding the trajectory of history was taken as commonplace, a cultural given. Today, we find that notion, God as Lord of History, as either implausible or problematic. Implausible because our default is to view humans as the agents of history, determining through our actions what happens next rather than God dictating which nations rise or fall according to His purposes and designs. Relatedly, we find this view problematic as it would name God as the cause for much of the violence and chaos of the world. If not directly then passively as God "turns his back" upon certain peoples.

To be sure, this view of history has not wholly evaporated. Among certain groups of evangelicals there is still the notion that God becomes angry at wayward nations and punishes them. Such arguments are used to call a nation back to repentance and defend, here in the US, some vision of Christian nationalism. The problematic assumption with this political use of Scripture is the quick and easy identification of America with ancient Israel, that God's designs and plans for Israel in the Old Testament can be straight-forwardly and literally applied to America. But I deem this easy one-for-one, America-for-Israel mapping in reading the Old Testament to be fundamentally illegitimate. The Bible is the story of Israel, not America. 

Returning, though, to the issue of God's relation to history, I've always been struck by a fragment of Abraham Lincoln's reflections entitled "The Meditation on the Divine Will," a scrap of Lincoln's writing that was preserved by White House secretary John Hay. Parts of the "Meditation" informed Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, considered to be one of the greatest speeches in American political history. Here is the "The Meditation on the Divine Will"

Washington, D.C.
September, 1862

The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party -- and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect His purpose. I am almost ready to say that this is probably true -- that God wills this contest, and wills that it shall not end yet. By his mere great power, on the minds of the now contestants, He could have either saved or destroyed the Union without a human contest. Yet the contest began. And, having begun He could give the final victory to either side any day. Yet the contest proceeds.

I don't know if Lincoln was right or wrong about any of this, speculating that God willed the Civil War and willed it to continue for some providential purpose that we, as humans, cannot fathom or see. But I will say this: Lincoln's theological speculations steadied him in the face of setback and defeat. As Hay would later comment on the "Meditation":

"Mr. Lincoln admits us into the most secret recesses of his soul .... Perplexed and afflicted beyond the power of human help, by the disasters of war, the wrangling of parties, and the inexorable and constraining logic of his own mind, he shut out the world one day, and tried to put into form his double sense of responsibility to human duty and Divine Power; and this was the result. It shows -- as has been said in another place -- the awful sincerity of a perfectly honest soul, trying to bring itself into closer communion with its Maker."

As I said above, such was often the case. For generations, the providence of God, as mysterious and perplexing as it was, created capacities for emotional resignation, humility, and patience. And I wonder if the reason our politics has become so emotionally reactive is due to the fact that we've lost some of this perspective, that God moves in mysterious ways. To be sure, we need to practice Lincoln's humility when reading history. We need to stand quietly before the inscrutability of God rather than pridefully proclaiming what is or is not "God's will" in any given historical event. Our posture is patience and trust rather than redpilling ourselves into conspiracy theories. 

I feel all this in my own heart. For some reason I find hard to describe, I possess a peaceful non-anxiousness during this very vexed political moment and election season. And I have tried to understand just why I experience American politics with so much equanimity. Do I not care? Is something wrong with me? Is it a symptom of privilege? Perhaps. But a bit of it, I'm convinced, is theological. I trust that God is at work in history, even in the disasters. How, I don't know. To what purpose, I cannot say. Maybe God is rejecting America, and if so God has his reasons. We are not Israel after all. The hope of the world never depended upon us. But like Lincoln, I really don't know what is going on. So I act with what light has been given me and wait in humility, patience, and trust. And this trust gives me just enough emotional distance from today's news and future election results that I experience a peace that seems increasingly rare. 

I've recently started reading the Philokalia, one of the central texts in the Orthodox monastic and spiritual tradition. 

I'm not too far into the first volume, but something that has immediately jumped out at me is how the Orthodox monastic writers in the Philokalia deploy a psychological reading of Scripture. You may have heard about how many of the church fathers used an allegorical method of reading the Bible, especially the Old Testament. In this way of reading, events in the Old Testament aren't read literally, but are, rather, read as allegories about the spiritual life or as prefigurements of Christ. Few modern readers of Scripture would dare to read the Bible in this way, but it was quite common among the church fathers. 

But when I say that the Philokalia employs a psychological reading of the Bible, I don't mean allegorical. I do mean psychological. Specifically, in the Philokalia many Biblical texts are read as applying to our mental life. A frequent example is reading references to the "enemy" in the book of Psalms as referring to mental temptations (typically associated with demonic attacks). Our "enemies" are seductive or disturbing thoughts. Relatedly, the violence of the imprecatory Psalms is understood to be directed at mental temptations and the demons who are causing them. 

Here's an example from Evagrios the Solitary. He writes:

To quote the Psalm again, 'I have seen violence and strife in the city' (Ps. 55:9). So seek out places that are free from distraction, and solitary. 

The "city" here is your mind. And in our minds there is "violence" and "strife." Thus, the recommendation is to seek out solitary places free from distraction. 

Here's another example from Isaiah the Solitary:

If you cleave to God you will not be shaken by the passions; for it is written: 'They that trust the Lord shall be as Mount Zion; he that dwells in Jerusalem shall never be shaken' (Ps. 125:1).

Dwelling on "Mount Zion" and in "Jerusalem" is taken to mean not being shaken by the passions. The mind is a secure mountain, steady and free from mental perturbations. 

This psychological approach to reading Scripture, understanding the physical and historical images of the Bible as referring to the mind and mental events, may also be common in the Western monastic tradition. But reading the Philokalia has introduced this approach to me.

Reflecting on yesterday's post, about the witness of Daniel Berrigan and the protest of the Catonsville Nine, I was reminded of a series I did many years ago about the ethics of Jesus' temple action.

One of the controversies of the Catonsville protest concerned the destruction of property, the burning of draft files. Some felt, even committed pacifists like Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton, that this destruction of property violated Christian principles of nonviolence. In response, the Berrigans argued that "some property has no right to exist" and that people seemed more upset over the burning of paper than the burning of children in Vietnam.

As I've pondered this debate, I've wondered about the ethical implications, if any, of Jesus' temple action. 

Here's the curiosity I'd like us to notice.

To start, Christian commitments to nonviolence are rooted in Jesus' teachings in the Sermon on the Mount. You know the familiar text:

"You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I tell you, don’t resist an evildoer. On the contrary, if anyone slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. As for the one who wants to sue you and take away your shirt, let him have your coat as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two. Give to the one who asks you, and don’t turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you."

“You have heard that it was said, Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven. For he causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous."

Christian nonviolence has always taken these teachings literally. Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on your right check, turn the other.

Wanting to push back on this vision of nonviolence in the Sermon on the Mount, I have often encountered Christians who have defended just war, along with other forms of justified violence, by pointing to Jesus' temple action. Jesus flipping tables and driving people from the temple area with a whip is declared to be evidence that Jesus' words in the Sermon on the Mount must not be taken literally. The argument is basically this: If Jesus violated his own teachings in the Sermon on the Mount, by acting violently, then might not we?

I've always found this appeal to Jesus' temple action to justify lethal violence a huge stretch. The point is obvious: Jesus didn't kill anyone in the temple. True, Jesus' actions could be construed as "violent," but that violence did not involve the shedding of blood. Consequently, it is problematic to use the purported violence of the temple action to justify killing. 

And yet, and here's the point where the Berrigans come back into view, Jesus' actions at the temple were a protest, and that protest involved some violence against property. I don't know if Jesus destroyed property in the temple, but the Gospel accounts describe him flipping tables, chairs, pouring people's money out onto the ground, and driving all humans and animals from the area. To my eye, these actions seem more similar to the actions of the Catonsville Nine than as a justification for killing.

For my part, I see a great irony here. There is widespread consternation among Christians when nonviolent protests affect private property. But many of these same Christians will point to Jesus' temple action to justify war and the use of lethal violence. Which seems to me both hypocritical and Biblically illegitimate.

Now, does this mean I think you can use Jesus' temple action to justify a protest like that of the Catonsville Nine? I'll leave that question up to you. But what I am saying is that if you point to Jesus' temple actions in an argument to justify war or lethal violence I don't see how you could object to the actions of the Catonsville Nine given that their protest seems closer to Jesus' actions in both motive (that is, as a protest) and method (that is, aimed at property and no one was killed).

More simply, it seems strange to me how the Bible is frequently used to justify killing by some Christians but rarely used to defend protest when protest seems much closer to Jesus' teachings and example. 

I've been reading some of the selected writings of Daniel Berrigan, the Jesuit priest and peace activist. It's been a bracing and introspective experience, reencountering Berrigan's life and witness for peace as wars rage around the world. 

Sadly, my students have no idea who Daniel Berrigan was. I expect many readers don't as well. For a time, in the late 60s and early 70s, Daniel Berrigan and his brother Phillip were front page news and household names. For a season they were outlaw priests, hunted by the FBI for their protest against Vietnam at Catonsville, Maryland. 

If you don't know this history, let me recommend Shawn Peters' book The Catonsville Nine: A Story of Faith and Resistance in the Vietnam Era. 

The Catonsville Nine protest was one of the more iconic anti-war protests against the war in Vietnam because two Catholic priests were involved, the brothers Daniel and Philip Berrigan. Along with the Berrigan brothers were David Darst, John Hogan, Tom Lewis, Marjorie Melville, Thomas Melville , George Mische, and Mary Moylan. All were Catholics.

On May 17, 1968 the Nine entered the building of the draft board in Catonsville, removed the A-1 draft files (along with some others), took them outside and set them on fire with homemade napalm. Upon burning the files, Daniel Berrigan read a statement, a part of which read:

Our apologies, good friends, for the fracture of good order, the burning of paper instead of children, the angering of the orderlies in the front parlor of the charnel house. We could not, so help us God, do otherwise.

For we are sick at heart, our hearts give us no rest for thinking of the Land of Burning Children. And for thinking of that other Child, of whom the poet Luke speaks...

We say: killing is disorder, life and gentleness and community and unselfishness is the only order we recognize. For the sake of that order, we risk our liberty, our good name.

The time is past when good men can remain silent, when obedience can segregate men from public risk, when the poor can die without defense. We ask our fellow Christians to consider in their hearts a question which has tortured us, night and day, since the war began. How many must die before our voices are heard, how many must be tortured, dislocated, starved, maddened? How long must the world's resources be raped in the service of legalized murder? When, at what point, will you say no to this war? We have chosen to say, with the gift of our liberty, if necessary our lives: the violence stops here, the death stops here, the suppression of the truth stops here, this war stops here.

Defending the actions of the Nine to reporters on the scene David Darst said, "I wanted to make it more difficult for men to kill each other."

At the time of the Catonsville action Philip Berrigan and Tom Lewis had already been convicted for their actions as a part of the The Baltimore Four protest, where they had entered a Selective Service facility and poured blood over draft files.

The Nine were arrested and but on trial. Daniel Berrigan famously turned the trial transcripts into a widely produced play The Trial of the Catonsville Nine. After their conviction, both Philip and Daniel refused to turn themselves in to start their prison sentences. Philip was captured quickly, but Daniel remained at large for four months, kicking off a very public and widely publicized cat and mouse game with FBI, much to the agency's embarrassment. During these months, the "holy outlaw," as one documentary described Berrigan, would suddenly appear to speak at anti-war protests, preach in a Sunday morning pulpit, or sit down for interviews, often slipping away minutes before the FBI arrived to capture him. Berrigan was eventually arrested at the house of William Stringfellow and served two years in prison. 

After he was released from prison, Berrigan went on the found the Plowshares movement to protest nuclear proliferation. Throughout his life he continued to participate in peace protests and was arrested many more times. 

But Berrigan was more than a peace activist. He was also an acclaimed poet, author, and Bible scholar.

In short, Daniel Berrigan lived a singular life. He passed way in 2016, and I've found it invigorating and inspiring to revisit his life and witness. 

They don't make many Christians like Daniel Berrigan anymore. 

In preparing for a DMin class on discipleship and spiritual formation I was teaching this summer I was doodling in my notebook, pondering the question "How does a follower of Jesus relate to...?" Below was the list I created:

money

power

politics

polarization

time

work

the poor

the marginalized, the vulnerable, the oppressed

war and peace

the lost

the world

enemies

the church

migrants and refugees

citizenship

the Bible

the Old Testament

the New Testament

our body

health care

mental health care

gender relations

social media

the natural world

doctrine

church tradition

science

family

singleness

marriage

strangers

world religions

technology

God the Father

God the Son

God the Holy Spirit

nationality

death and dying

life

capitalism

ethnicity

erotic desire and sexual relations

friendship

the future

food

alcohol and drug use

my neighborhood

my city

my past, present, and future

What would you add?

"Our shield"

In Hunting Magic Eels I describe the lorica prayers from the Celtic Christian tradition. Lorica is Latin for “armor” or “breastplate.” As Psalm 59 declares, the Lord is our shield.

Lorica prayers were “protection prayers,” and the Celtic tradition is full of these breastplate prayers, each requesting divine protection from misfortune, illness, injury, and malevolent attack, from both natural and supernatural enemies. 

The most famous lorica prayer is Saint Patrick’s Breastplate:

I rise today
with the power of God to pilot me,
God’s strength to sustain me,
God’s wisdom to guide me,
God’s eye to look ahead for me,
God’s ear to hear me,
God’s word to speak for me,
God’s hand to protect me,
God’s way before me,
God’s shield to defend me,
God’s host to deliver me,
from snares of devils,
from evil temptations,
from nature’s failings,
from all who wish to harm me,
far or near,
alone and in a crowd.

Around me I gather today all these powers
against every cruel and merciless force
to attack my body and soul,
against the charms of false prophets,
the black laws of paganism,
the false laws of heretics,
the deceptions of idolatry,
against spells cast by witches, smiths, and druids,
and all unlawful knowledge that harms the body and soul.

May Christ protect me today
against poison and burning,
against drowning and wounding,
so that I may have abundant reward.

Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me;
Christ within me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me;
Christ to the right of me, Christ to the left of me;
Christ in my lying, Christ in my sitting, Christ in my rising;
Christ in the heart of all who think of me,
Christ on the tongue of all who speak to me,
Christ in the eye of all who see me,
Christ in the ear of all who hear me.

As Psalm 59 beseeches, "Lord, be our shield."

The Biblical teaching that our deeds "echo in eternity" isn't just found in a single line in Revelation. The most extended treatment of this idea comes from Paul in 1 Corinthians 3.11-15

According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.

First, the theme of Christ's centrality is nailed down: "No one can lay a foundation other that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ." The notion that our deeds could replace or supplement that foundation is ruled out. 

However, Paul goes on to describe how we can build upon this foundation. Some of us build with precious things, good works and righteous deeds, while others build with worthless things. 

Then comes the curious vision. At Judgment Day we're not just ushered into heaven as the forgiven and blessed. We are, rather, tested by fire. On Judgment Day "fire will test what sort of work each one has done." That notion, that even the "saved" will be tested by fire, is probably surprising to some readers of Scripture who have never pondered such a thing. But there it is in 1 Corinthians 3: the fire of Judgment scorches everyone. As Jesus says in the gospel of Mark, "everyone will be salted by fire."

The curiosity continues. During the fiery test of Judgment Day those whose deeds on earth were worthless will find their works "burned up" and will "suffer loss." By contrast, those whose deeds were precious will find that their good works "survive" the test and will, as consequence, "receive a reward."

The text goes on to say that the one who suffers "loss" will still be saved. Again, the foundation they are standing upon is Jesus Christ. And due to Jesus Christ, there is no risk of being wholly lost. It's just that the works of your life are burned up and don't "echo in eternity." You've been saved, "but only as through fire."

As I've noted, there's a lot of curious stuff in this passage. 1 Corinthians 3 paints a vision of Judgment and heavenly reward that few have ever heard of or have attempted to contemplate. Most Christians, I expect, envision Judgment Day as the lost going off to hell and the saved walking through the Pearly Gates. Few envision Judgement Day as an ordeal of fire that everyone faces. Fewer imagine that some enter heaven suffering loss while others receive a reward. 

For my own part, I have no idea what any of this might look like. Are we to imagine something like the proverbial "getting a jewel in your crown" in heaven whenever we do a good deed on earth? Are the mansions in heaven different sizes? I don't know what "receive a reward" or "suffers loss" looks like in heaven. But I do feel confident in this: Whatever 1 Corinthians 3 is talking about, our deeds echo in eternity.

Out at the prison, when we were in our study of Revelation, we paused to discuss Revelation 14.13:

Then I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Write: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.”

“Yes,” says the Spirit, “so they will rest from their labors, since their works follow them.”

As I've mentioned before, Revelation is very keen to depict the victory of the Christian martyrs. In fact, I would argue that Revelation isn't really about the end times at all. The purpose of Revelation is to galvanize courage in the face of persecution and to offer hope to a church being thrown to the lions. Revelation's concerns are very psychological. Bravery and hope are its central preoccupations.

You see that concern in 14.13. After death, the martyrs are blessed and they can rest from their labors. But also this: "their works follow them."

There's a line from the movie Gladiator: "What we do in life echos in eternity." That's the idea in Revelation 14.13, that the deeds of the martyrs "echo in eternity," that their works follow them into heaven.

We paused out at the prison to discuss this line because it tends to rub up against a lot of Protestant soteriology, especially in the Reformed world. Specifically, sermons are often preached that our good deeds on earth don't really matter when it comes to heaven. All our righteous acts are "dirty rags." The point of such declarations is to proclaim that "all is grace." And yet, as true as that sermon may be, it can undercut our motivations and evacuate our actions of cosmic and moral significance. Revelation brings this concern to the front. Standing firm in the face of persecution, to the point of death, does matter. True, all is grace, but courage and faithfulness also matter. All is grace, but the deeds of the martyrs will echo in eternity. What we do on earth will follow us into heaven. 

Catholic theology, given its view of merit and purgatory, is better positioned than a lot of Protestant theology in declaring that our righteous acts, or lack thereof, matter, that what you do in this life will affect you in the next. But in Protestant spaces, there tends to be a void here. The "all is grace" sermons, while true and important, don't have a lot to say about how our deeds echo in eternity, what it means to say that our deeds will follow us into heaven.

That's the theological tension. All is grace. And what you do matters.

I've mentioned before my enjoyment of The Valley of Vision, a collection of Puritan prayers. Given that these are Puritan prayers, I wouldn't recommend The Valley of Vision for everyone. Progressive Christians might want to steer clear. 

Today, here's a prayer from The Valley of Vision I've grown fond of. It's entitled "Morning Dedication":

Almighty God,
As I cross the threshold of this day
I commit myself, soul, body,
affairs, friends, to thy care;
Watch over, keep, guide, direct, sanctify, and bless me.
Incline my heart to thy ways;
Mould me wholly into the image of Jesus,
     as a potter forms clay;
May my lips be a well-tuned harp
     to sound thy praise;
Let those around see me living by thy Spirit,
     trampling the world underfoot,
     unconformed to lying vanities,
     transformed by a renewed mind,
     clad in the entire armor of God,
     shining as a never-dimmed light,
     showing holiness in all my doings.
Let no evil this day soil my thoughts, words, or hands.
May I travel miry paths with a life pure from spot
     or stain.
In needful transactions let my affection
     be in heaven,
     and my love soar upwards in flames of fire,
     my gaze fixed on unseen things,
     my eyes open to the emptiness, fragility,
     and mockery of earth with its vanities.
May I view all things in the mirror of eternity,
     waiting for the coming of my Lord,
     listening for the last trumpet call,
     hastening unto the new heaven and earth.
Order this day all my communications
     according to thy wisdom,
     and to the gain of mutual good.
Forbid that I should not be profited
     or made profitable.
May I speak each word as if my last word,
     and walk each step as my final one.
If my life should end today,
     let this be my best day.

Out at the prison, when we were in our study of the book of Revelation, we spent a lot time discussing the martyrological theme of the book.

Throughout Revelation, we gets visions of the martyrs in heaven. For example:

When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slaughtered because of the word of God and the testimony they had given. They cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, the one who is holy and true, how long until you judge those who live on the earth and avenge our blood?” So they were each given a white robe, and they were told to rest a little while longer until the number would be completed of their fellow servants and their brothers and sisters, who were going to be killed just as they had been. (Rev. 6.9-11)

Given the persecutions and trials the seven churches in Asia were facing or were about to face, such visions would have provided consolation and instilled courage. They might be killed, but Revelation assured them that they would be safe.

It struck me during this conversation about how the news of Jesus' resurrection would have electrified first-century audiences. That was a world bullied by imperial terror. A world where crosses littered the landscape. Routine and public torture was used to enforce submission and compliance. 

And then, in the middle of this terrorized world, news of a crucified man who had come back to life. 

Goodness, if that were true, then everything changes. And most crucially, a psychological change. An eschatological fearlessness becomes a moral capacity. 

With news of the resurrection, the fog of fear begins to dissipate and the bullying power of empire starts to fail.

"they will bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked"

Psalm 58 is typically included in the list of the imprecatory psalms. The word "imprecatory" comes from the Latin word imprecari, which means "to call down evil, to curse." Psalm 58, like the other imprecatory psalms, are prayers invoking judgment, calamity, or curses upon the enemies of God. The line above from Psalm 58, in context, illustrates:

The righteous will rejoice when they see vengeance done;
they will bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked.
People will say, “Surely there is a reward for the righteous;
surely there is a God who judges on earth.”

How are we to read such prayers, especially in light of the One who said "Love your enemies"?

Approaching the imprecatory psalms is well trod territory, so my observations here are not new. But a few observations.

First, the Bible goes there. Deep into the hatreds of the human heart. There is an honesty here that is often missing in Christian contexts. This lack of honesty is one reason people find recovery communities, like AA, better spiritual company than sitting in pews on a Sunday morning. 

Relatedly, this lack of honesty is a reason why Christian art struggles to be good art. Unwilling to explore or portray the darkness of the human experience, Christian art tends to be superficial, shallow, sentimental, and kitschy. Precious Moments and Thomas Kinkade. You can't say that about the Bible. 

Second, do we really want to concern-troll and tone-police victims? The poet cries out for vengeance in Psalm 58 because of oppression, injustice, and violence. These are deeply human emotions. Consequently, do you really want to cluck cluck and tut tut at the rage being expressed by a rape victim? Or from the family of a murdered child? From a people who have suffered generations of slavery, terror, and lynching? 

On this point, I find it deeply ironic how progressive Christians, who tend to be the most triggered by the imprecatory psalms, are the most sympathetic when victimized groups resort to violence. Consider, as a recent example, the progressive response to Hamas' attack on Israel: While what Hamas did was not good it was at least understandable given the oppressions the Palestinians have suffered. 

And lest any pro-Israeli readers feel left off the hook here, consider how after the Hamas attack any violence committed by Israel, even the killing of children, was defended as tragic but morally justifiable. On both sides of the Hamas/Israeli conflict we've seen how violence coming from a victimized group is legitimized.

My point here is that while we might not like Psalm 58, nor take ethical guidance from it, everyone understands Psalm 58. Victims understand Psalm 58. Easily triggered readers of the Bible would do well to remember this. 

Third, I have a post coming out in a few weeks about how the contemplative tradition has read the Psalms. Specifically, the enemies and the bloodshed of the imprecatory psalms are taken to be describing spiritual warfare. The enemies in view are the demons. To be sure, I doubt this take will please many, or be widely adopted as the main hermeneutical lens on these psalms, but there is a path here toward a venerable and non-violent reading of the imprecatory psalms. Instead of expressions of hate these psalms become prayers against hate (in the form of demonic temptation).

Fourth, concerning spiritual warfare, the oppressors named at the start of the Psalm are not human beings, they are gods: 

Do you indeed decree what is right, you gods?
Do you judge people fairly?
No, in your hearts you devise wrongs;
your hands deal out violence on earth.

Here, as in other places in the Psalms, we encounter the strange cosmology and angelology of the Bible. The source of violence and oppression on the earth is due to divine archons who "rule" and "steward" the nations. These are the "principalities and powers" of the New Testament. Satan is the chief of these dark powers, the "god of this world" and the "prince of the power of the air."

Given this cosmology, we can legitimately read Psalm 58 as being directed at these spiritual archons, and Satan principally so. In fact, I would confidently argue that this is exactly how Jesus read these psalms. Throughout the gospels Jesus directs violence and hatred away from human beings to focus it upon his battle with the devil. This is one of the big points I make in Reviving Old Scratch, how when we moderns dismiss the devil from our spiritual and moral considerations our violence has nowhere to go but toward other human beings. Without the demons we will demonize each other. By shifting our vengeance away from "flesh and blood" toward the "principalities and powers in the heavenly realm" dark human emotions can be safely redirected and deflected away from human persons. 

Finally, another way Jesus reads these psalms is eschatologically. We cry out for vengeance, but judgement is deferred and left to God. Oppressors and evildoers will face a reckoning, and the victims of history will be vindicated. But this is not our job. We pray Psalm 58 as an eschatological lament. We leave the judgment of history to God. 

I was recently reminded of how C.S. Lewis, in The Weight of Glory, describes our re-enchantment as a sort of counter-enchantment, a spell to break the spell of our pervasive disenchantment.

Before making that observation, however, Lewis famously describes our desire for home, our longing for a "far off country," as an ache we've been familiar with and have felt our entire lives:

In speaking of this desire for our own far off country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you—the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name. Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter. Wordsworth’s expedient was to identify it with certain moments in his own past. But all this is a cheat. If Wordsworth had gone back to those moments in the past, he would not have found the thing itself, but only the reminder of it; what he remembered would turn out to be itself a remembering. The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.

I love that line, "what came through them was longing." 

In offering us this vey evocative description, words that evoke our longing, Lewis knows that a critic will charge that he is trying to trick us, trying to cast a spell over us. And in response, Lewis makes his comment about needing to weave a spell to break a spell:

Do you think I am trying to weave a spell? Perhaps I am; but remember your fairy tales. Spells are used for breaking enchantments as well as for inducing them. And you and I have need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness which has been laid upon us for nearly a hundred years. Almost our whole education has been directed to silencing this shy, persistent, inner voice; almost all our modem philosophies have been devised to convince us that the good of man is to be found on this earth.

The disenchanted among us, those who think their deepest longings are reducible to brain chemistry or Darwinian evolution, are bewitched by a dark and evil enchantment. And so, one must weave spell to break the spell, the strongest spell that can be found. 

I have written a great deal about God's transcendence over the last few years, describing how God exists differently from objects within the world. 

In his book Christ on Trial Rowan Williams reflects upon how transcendence affects our visions of salvation. Just like we can't imagine how God exists given God's difference, in a similar way there is an element of surprise in how God saves us. If God exists differently from creatures then God saves differently from creatures as well. For example, we might have a notion about what rescue, peace, and security look like in our lives and therefore expect that God's saving must be of the same sort. But if God is transcendent, the rescue, peace, and security he provides will be other and radically different. 

Our vision of salvation gets distorted, according to Williams, when we posit some creaturely vision of salvation and then demand that God give us that. Such a salvation inevitably keeps us trapped in the patterns of this world. God's salvation becomes substituted for my own wants, desires, dreams and wishes. Salvation becomes my vision of winning the lottery. But that is not what we encounter in Christ, especially when we encounter him on the cross. 

Even more importantly, this view of transcendence keeps us from instrumentalizing faith and God. When faith becomes a tool for bringing about some reward I envision for myself, God becomes a means rather than the end of salvation. A truly transcendent vision of salvation pursues God for God's own sake, in God's radical otherness, and not as some tool to obtain some other good or reward.  

Williams describing these points:

[T]he challenge remains, to re-imagine what it is for God to speak to us as God--not as a version of whatever makes us feel secure and appears more attractive than other familiar kinds of security. For if our talk about God is a religious version about human safety, the paradox is that it will fail to say anything at all about salvation. It will not have anything to do with what is decisively and absolutely not the way of this world.

Religious speculation talks a good deal about transcendence...[But] we cannot properly think of transcendence merely by projecting what we know and what seems to help and reassure us to the highest point imaginable. Transcendence meets us, and surprises us, when we are shown simply that the way of the world is not the final and exclusive truth...[What we sense as] good, holy and merciful just is what it is, for its own sake; it has its substance in itself, not in its dependence on any outcome. It is not a strategy for attaining something other than itself; it needs nothing else. When the vanquished and tortured man in the Gospel story says 'I am' to his tormentors, he claims exactly that character of independence--he is something that is for its own sake and needs no justification.

Last fall in our adult Bible class at church, we were during a study on the minor prophets. To introduce that series, I shared some reflections from Walter Brueggemann's book Reality, Grief and Hope.

When you look at the poetry of the prophets, you see three different sorts of poetry, each with a different emotional tone. The prophets sing three different songs.

The first song is prophetic rage and indignation. This is the cry, "Let justice roll down like a river!" The is the song of the social justice warrior.

The second song is grief and lamentation, an expression of sorrow in the face of suffering and loss. These are the sad songs, full of tears.

The third song is a song of hope. This is the prophetic turn we see in Isaiah 40 where, after all seems broken and lost, a song of hope breaks out: "Comfort, comfort my people." This is the poetry of Ezekiel's vision in the Valley of Dry Bones. This is the song of Tolkien's eucatastrophe. 

The first point I made about these three songs is that we all have a natural tune we like to sing. Some songs we find easier to sing than others. As I mentioned, the social justice warriors among us are wonderful at the poetry of rage and rebuke. Some of us, myself among them, gravitate toward the sad songs and embrace lament. And finally, there are those who are good at finding hope where others cannot.

The second point I made was an encouragement to the class to sing, in addition to their natural poetry, all of the songs, even the songs that come most unnaturally. If you only sings songs of hope your faith will become trivial and superficial, disconnected from the injustice and suffering in the world. And if you only sing songs of anger or sorrow you'll burn yourself out, or fail to offer encouragement to those who most need to hear it. I learned that lesson out at the prison. When I first starting working in the prison I came singing my natural song--sorrow--but what the men in the study most needed was encouragement and hope. Consequently, I have learned to sing songs of hope. 

So, sing your natural song. Embrace it and sing it out loud. 

But also learn to sing all of the songs. Immature Christians tend to sing only one song. Anger, over and over. Lament, over and over. Or praise, over and over.

Mature Christians, by contrast, are better poets, skilled at singing all the songs and adapting the rhyme and meter of faith to the season and situation.