February 7th

Psalm #65

Learning how to kneel

If you want to kiss the sky, better learn how to kneel.’  (U2)

This is the first of four psalms  (65-68) that focus on praising God for God’s manifold blessings in nature and God’s gracious dealings with God’s people.  God is the God of creation and the God of covenant. 

The psalm unfolds in three movements:

Vs. 1-4     God Answers Prayer

God of Zion, to you even silence is praise.
    Promises made to you are kept—
²     you listen to prayer—
    and all living things come to you.
³ When wrongdoings [overwhelm us]become too much for me,
    you forgive our sins.
⁴ How happy is the one you choose to bring close,
    the one who lives in your courtyards!
We are filled full by the goodness of your house,
    by the holiness of your temple.                                 

If the people have anything to offer God, it is their gratitude.  In the forgiveness of God, people are satisfied.      But note that silence is fitting for worship.  The Hebrew word for silence could be translated as ‘proper.’  We must learn to wait quietly before the Lord.     

Vs. 5-8      God’s Saving Actions

⁵ In righteousness you answer us,
    by your awesome deeds,
    God of our salvation—
    you, who are the security [hope]
        of all the far edges of the earth,
        even the distant seas.
⁶     You establish the mountains by your strength;
    you are dressed in raw power.
⁷     You calm the roaring seas;
        calm the roaring waves,
        calm the noise [tumult] of the nations.
⁸ Those who dwell on the far edges
        stand in awe of your acts.
    You make the gateways
        of morning and evening sing for joy.

The focus now extends outward to ‘all the earth.’  The mention of God’s awesome deeds recalls the Exodus.  The Exodus was a public event that was not simply for Israel’s benefit but was intended to fulfill God’s creational purposes.  From east to west (sunrise to sunset) God’s name will be reverenced.

The chaotic waters and unruly peoples are subject to God’s sovereignty.  Creation joins in praising God, in recognizing God’s gracious rule (v.9).   

Vs. 9-13    God the Provider

⁹ You visit the earth and make it abundant,
    enriching it greatly
        by God’s stream, full of water.
You provide people with grain
    because that is what you’ve decided.
¹⁰ Drenching the earth’s furrows,
        leveling its ridges,
    you soften it with rain showers;
        you bless its growth.
¹¹ You crown the year with your goodness;
    your paths overflow with rich food [abundance].
¹² Even the desert pastures drip with it,
    and the hills are dressed in pure joy.
¹³ The meadowlands are covered with flocks,
    the valleys decked out in grain—
        they shout for joy;
        they break out in song!

This psalm is frequently read at Thanksgiving services but to whom are we giving thanks?  Reinhold Niebuhr once wrote about a community Thanksgiving service ‘which became the business of congratulating the Almighty upon His most excellent co-workers, namely ourselves!’  The emphasis here, however in not our accomplishments but on God the ‘cosmic farmer’ who carefully tends and waters the earth so that it produces abundantly. 

One who understood what our psalmist is declaring was the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins.  Here is one of his most famous:  God’s Grandeur.

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

    It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

    It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

    And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

    And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

 

And for all this, nature is never spent;

    There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

    Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

    World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

 

Every time we see a tree, resplendent in countless shades of green, washed in sunlight, we see the presence of the goodness, truth and beauty of God. Every time we see anything in God’s Creation, shining forth its splendid self like shook foil, to borrow another image from Hopkins’ poem, we are seeing the presence of the Creator Himself. All is made in God’s image, the fruit of God’s divine imagination. 

It takes a soul blessed with humility to be able to see as Hopkins sees, with wonder-filled eyes that can contemplate the miracle that surrounds us, for, as Chesterton reminds us, ‘we don’t live in the best of all possible worlds, but the best of all impossible worlds.’  We are in the presence of a miracle, of which we are ourselves a miraculous part.

To escape from our often self-enclosed lives is the great gift and blessing of humility, for, in the words of the rock group U2, if we want to kiss the sky we need to learn how to kneel. This is an admonishment to astonishment! We need to learn, with humble hearts, to be astonished by the presence of beauty. For it is only in the presence of beauty that we will see the presence of the Beautiful Mind that brought such things into being.

Ironically, Hopkins the lover of nature and student of astonishment, died of typhus, probably from drinking contaminated water, June 8, 1889.  He was just 44.  His poetry endures.