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Psalm 4 Answer me when I call, O God, defender of my cause; “You mortals, how long will you dishonor my glory; Know that the Lord does wonders for the faithful; Tremble, then, and do not sin; Offer the appointed sacrifices and put your trust in the Lord. Many are saying, “Oh, that we might see better times!” You have put gladness in my heart, I lie down in peace; at once I fall asleep; This year, Monday Matters will focus on wisdom conveyed in the treasures of the book of Psalms. We’ll look at the psalms read in church before Monday Matters comes to your screen. |
Better times
It amazes me when I read the psalms to find that issues on the psalmist’s mind, expressed several thousand years ago, are issues we face these days. Who among us has not said: Oh, that we might see better times? How do we navigate that sense that things are going off the rails? People have posed these kinds of questions for centuries. Does this psalm, read yesterday in church and included above, have anything to say today, offering ways to navigate the times in which we live?
My wife and I went to hear Anne Lamott speak last week. It was great. She has a new book (her 20th) and her presentation was given on her 70th birthday. (Happy birthday, Anne! You are yourself a gift.) She is a deeply faithful person, even if in her theological reflections she throws in a few expletives. I especially love her take on prayer, by which she says that we only need three words to pray: thanks, help and wow.
That part about asking help is reflected in Psalm 4, and provides a way to approach those times when we wish for better times. The psalm begins by asking God to answer when we call. The psalm asks for help, for mercy.
The psalm carries this warning. Don’t run after false gods or dumb idols. Don’t give your heart to that which will not satisfy your heart. Doing so may feel like a quick fix, but it won’t get you where you want to go. I don’t know what the psalmist had in mind when mentioning dumb idols. What do you think they might be in our context?
The psalm also calls for a good look in the spiritual rear-view mirror, to see how God has acted in the past. The Hebrew Scriptures do that again and again, reminding the people of Israel to remember the ways that God has acted in salvific, healing, miraculous ways. We do that again and again in our prayers at eucharist, when we include a portion technically called anamnesis. That Greek word literally means not amnesia. Not forgetting. When we find ourselves in times of trouble, a dose of faithful retrospection can help us move forward.
The psalm also speaks of the power of silence, with a call to contemplative attentiveness, putting aside our own thoughts. Nicolas Malebranche, an 18th century priest and philosopher, said it this way: Attentiveness is the natural prayer of the soul. (again, indicating wisdom from another era can help us in our own. There is actually nothing new under the sun.) That kind of attentiveness can be blocked by our hankering for better times. In silence, we can attend to what God has to teach us right now, even as that moment may be filled with challenge. It’s a way of saying “here we are.”
And in the end, it’s about where we put our trust. An old hymn has this refrain: We may not know what the future holds, but we know the one who holds the future. For centuries, trust has been a key issue for people of faith, the confidence that all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well, even if we don’t experience that reality right this second. That kind of trust is a spiritual practice, something we get stronger in when we exercise it. Based on that trust, we can lie down and fall asleep. We can be at peace.
We may long for better times. But we are where we are. The good news this Monday morning is that God is with us.
-Jay Sidebotham