April 23rdPsalm 105
Lest We Forget
Bless, O my soul, the God of grace;
His favors claim thy highest praise:
Why should the wonders He hath wrought
Be lost in silence and forgot? [Isaac Watts]
January 21, 2025 will mark the 500th anniversary of the Radical Reformation, that decisive moment when some young folk, going against state and established church laws, baptized each other in witness to their commitment to follow Christ.
We tell that story, and the successive stories of our Mennonite forbears in many ways and with many emphases. The way we tell our stories is important and shapes our lives even to the present.
Israel often reflected on her past and Psalm 105 is one such retelling. The telling is a selective and creative telling. The real subject is not just names and places but praise (v.1-6) and obedience (v.45). So this is not primarily about the past. Rather, it is about the present and the future. (In Psalm 106, Israel will offer another telling but with a very different emphasis, again not unlike our own tellings).
This Psalm articulates the priority of God’s grace. God does call for obedience, but only after God’s choice of the people and the performance of ‘wonderful works.’ This is the story of Israel: Exodus precedes Sinai; deliverance precedes demand; grace comes first. God’s choice precedes all human choices.
One scholar finds ten imperatives in the first 6 verses. This is history re-told in order to move God’s people to remember what God has done and be moved to praise and obedience in the present!
Here is one outline of this long recital:
v.1-6 Call to Worship
v.7-11 Remembering the Covenant (with Abraham & Sarah)
v.12-15 Strangers among the nations (wanderings in Canaan of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob)
v.16-22 Famine in the Land (the Joseph story)
v.23-36 Israel in Egypt (slavery and freedom)
v.37-43 Israel in the Wilderness (the desert years)
v.44-45 Doxology [1]
This is a creative re-telling of the Biblical story found in Genesis to Joshua. It is a story of God’s covenant commitment to a small and insignificant people; of endurance through hardship and wandering, and of coming to a good land of promise. How risky of God to make a covenant with human beings who can be expected to let God down! But God is not deterred; God takes the risk.
If I were to offer a quick telling of ‘my’ Mennonite story it might look something like this:
*The first baptism in Zurich in 1525.
*Mennonites scatter and settle in Prussia and Holland. Even though persecuted, they often thrive and find success as farmers in Prussia, and as business persons in Holland.
*Catherine the Great invites Mennonites to settle in Russia. For almost 130 years Mennonites grow and thrive in Russia, though not without some discord and disunity.
*In 1860, a small group of Mennonites in Russia break from the main church to begin the Mennonite Brethren church.
*From 1870 to the 1920s many Mennonites from Russia migrate to North America.
*One hundred years after the last great Exodus from Russia, Mennonites are (too?) comfortably acculturated to life in North America.
As you can tell, this leaves out vast swathes of the story that are equally important. My questions are: How would you tell the story? What do you choose to remember? What place does God have in your story? Is this a story of mere survival? Of grace in the midst of struggle? Of an inward or outward looking church? How WOULD you tell this story?
The whole point of this psalmist’s retelling of the story is clarified in the last two verses:
44 God gave them the lands of other nations;
they inherited the wealth of many peoples—
45 all so that they would keep his laws
and observe his instructions.
Praise the Lord!
Something to think about.
Notes
1 Karl Jacobson – Psalms for Preaching & Worship.