June 15thTaste and see
Psalm 34
“Taste and see that the Lord is good.” This rather earthy image, coming in the middle of the Psalm, also serves as its heart center. The only way to really experience the blessings and high calling of this Psalm is to put them into practice. Faith is not merely a trusting attitude of mind, a feeling. We experience faith by living it.
In verses 1-10 the psalmist encourages his listeners to lean on God in faith and prayer through times of trouble. This is based on personal experience.
I sought the Lord, and he answered me,
and delivered me from all my fears.
Look to him, and be radiant;
so your faces shall never be ashamed (v.4-5).
In the second part of this psalm, the theme is wise living.
Keep your tongue from evil,
and your lips from speaking deceit.
Depart from evil, and do good;
seek peace, and pursue it (v.13-14).
Live in the ‘fear of the Lord’ he counsels, which means, live by the ethical demands of God’s way.
‘Taste and see’ neatly sums up these two themes. Pray in faith and then act wisely. This echoes that wisdom teacher of the NT, James who says,
“Now someone may argue, “Some people have faith; others have good deeds.” But I say, “How can you show me your faith if you don’t have good deeds? I will show you my faith by my good deeds.”
The psalm closes (v.19-22) with a strong promise of deliverance and well-being but we should not be misled here. The promises do not mean that God’s people are always delivered from trouble and will live long, healthy lives. As he admits, ‘The righteous person will have many troubles.’ Life is difficult and full of suffering for everyone. The point is that there is no one but the Lord our God who can truly deliver us. We cannot do it ourselves, nor can any other human being. Trusting in God, we anchor our lives and destiny in the care of the eternal and Almighty Creator, and we put our trust in the Son who has conquered death and sin.
The film “Of Gods and Men” tells the true story of a community of Roman Catholic monks in the Atlas Mountains of Algeria during the rise of radical Islamist forces there. Under threat of death, the monks decided to remain in Algeria because of their commitment to its people. Despite their good work in the community, and their peace-building efforts, one night they were kidnpped by Islamic militants and executed. Their story looks like a testimony to God’s absence rather than to answered prayer.
However, Brother Christian de Cherge, Prior of the monastery wrote a letter to his family and friends to be sent on the occasion of his death. It is a testimony to the kind of faith in Christ that doesn’t demand deliverance, but perseveres as a testimony to Christ’s love for the world.
If it should happen one day—and it could be today—that I become a victim of the terrorism which now seems ready to encompass all the foreigners living in Algeria, I would like my community, my Church, my family, to remember that my life was given to God and to this country. I ask them to accept that the One Master of all life was not a stranger to this brutal departure. I ask them to pray for me: for how could I be found worthy of such an offering? I ask them to be able to associate such a death with the many other deaths that were just as violent, but forgotten through indifference and anonymity.
My life has no more value than any other. Nor any less value. In any case, it has not the innocence of childhood. I have lived long enough to know that I share in the evil which seems, alas, to prevail in the world, even in that which would strike me blindly. I should like, when the time comes, to have a clear space which would allow me to beg forgiveness of God and of all my fellow human beings, and at the same time to forgive with all my heart the one who would strike me down.
I could not desire such a death. It seems to me important to state this. I do not see, in fact, how I could rejoice if this people I love were to be accused indiscriminately of my murder. It would be to pay too dearly for what will, perhaps, be called “the grace of martyrdom,” to owe it to an Algerian, whoever he may be, especially if he says he is acting in fidelity to what he believes to be Islam. I know the scorn with which Algerians as a whole can be regarded. I know also the caricature of Islam which a certain kind of Islamism encourages. It is too easy to give oneself a good conscience by identifying this religious way with the fundamentalist ideologies of the extremists. For me, Algeria and Islam are something different; they are a body and a soul. I have proclaimed this often enough, I believe, in the sure knowledge of what I have received in Algeria, in the respect of believing Muslims—finding there so often that true strand of the Gospel I learned at my mother’s knee, my very first Church.
My death, clearly, will appear to justify those who hastily judged me naive or idealistic: “Let him tell us now what he thinks of it!” But these people must realize that my most avid curiosity will then be satisfied. This is what I shall be able to do, if God wills—immerse my gaze in that of the Father, to contemplate with him his children of Islam just as he sees them, all shining with the glory of Christ, the fruit of his Passion, filled with the Gift of the Spirit, whose secret joy will always be to establish communion and to refashion the likeness, delighting in the differences.
For this life given up, totally mine and totally theirs, I thank God who seems to have wished it entirely for the sake of that joy in everything and in spite of everything. In this “thank you,” which is said for everything in my life from now on, I certainly include you, friends of yesterday and today, and you my friends of this place, along with my mother and father, my brothers and sisters and their families—the hundredfold granted as was promised!
And you also, the friend of my final moment, who would not be aware of what you were doing. Yes, for you also I wish this “thank you”—and this adieu—to commend you to the God whose face I see in yours.
And may we find each other, happy “good thieves,” in Paradise, if it pleases God, the Father of us both. Amen.
https://youtu.be/no7Imi4IrZ4 - O taste and see