praying and living beyond my antisemitism: psalm 69

Many of us who grew up in the American Christianity of the 50s and 60s learned that the portrayal of God in the Old Testament - the Hebrew Bible - was qualitatively different from God's depiction in the New Testament - the additional texts of Christianity. The short hand summary goes something like this: the God of the OT is judgmental and violent while the God of the NT is forgiving and kind. My experience suggests that this caricature was just as true in the Reformed churches as it was in the Anabaptist or Roman Catholic traditions. It was said by well-educated preachers from the pulpit, well-intentioned Sunday School teachers in our classrooms, and shaped the conversations of countless confirmation and catechism classes for decades. Sadly, it is still alive in 2018 as the recent massacre in Pittsburgh documents.

That this vulgar misrepresentation is untrue didn't matter: after about 250 CE, the Christian Church has been riddled by and polluted with antisemitism. What began as a theological argument between Jews in the first century of the Common Era became codified as tradition in the second and amplified as creed in the third. Dr. Amy-Jill Levine cut to the chase when she noted that: “Residual Marcionism, the view that God had a personality transplant somewhere between the pages of Malachi and Matthew, is still alive and well in churches today; it is also still a heresy.” (Short Stories by Jesus.) James Carroll, a former priest in the Roman Catholic realm, articulates it well:

Saint Paul lives in the Christian imagination as the chief sponsor of Christian contempt for Jews, the avatar of law versus grace, flesh versus spirit, works versus faith, Moses versus Jesus, the Old Covenant versus the New. This brutal dichotomizing was attributed to Paul most influentially by Martin Luther, who used a perceived Jewish legalism, materialism, and obsession with externals as stand-ins for the decadence of his nemesis, the pope. “Because the Papists, like the Jews,” he wrote, “insist that anyone wishing to be saved must observe their ceremonies, they will perish like the Jews.” After Luther, both Protestants and Catholics read Paul as the preeminent tribune of Jewish corruption—a misreading that had terrible consequences, especially in Luther’s Germany, where the Volk were defined in ontological opposition to Juden. (Christ Actually: The Son of God for the Secular Age)

I mention our historic theological and ethical corruption by antisemitism as prelude to reflecting on today's Psalm. There are, of course, a variety of ways to pray the Psalms and each has its own wisdom. If, however, we only read the Psalms with an eye for finding references to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, we will likely reinforce our hatred of Judaism without knowing it. From time to time I use the Orthodox spiritual practice of looking for Christ in the Psalms as a meditative practice. It is one way to do lectio divina (sacred and contemplative reading with Scripture.) But if this is my only use of the songs of prayer from ancient Israel, I will strengthen my already distorted view of the Hebrew prayers and nourish an ignorance that renders Judaism incomplete at best - and more likely defective, dangerous and superseded as well. 

Remember super-secessionism was found to be heresy by the Roman Catholic church only during the final days of Vatican II. (see James Carroll's exhaustive but illuminating history Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews - a History for details.) The liberal Reformed tradition quickly embraced this new perspective, but it has remained outside the norm for Baptist, Anabaptist, Pentecostal and Evangelical congregations and institutions even in 2018. That is why whenever I use the devotional resource, Christ in the Psalms, by Patrick Henry Reardon, I must also read Robert Alter's commentary, The Book of the Psalms, for balance and depth. The first is takes me deep into my Christian story and I find it useful; but without the careful exegetical analysis of both key words and original historical context in the second, there can be trouble. So, suffice it to say that I know my opening commentary takes too long to note that the most common way God is described in the Hebrew text is as the source of steadfast love and kindness. Psalm 69: 14-16:

As for me, this is my prayer to you at the time you have set, O LORD: In your great mercy, O God, answer me with your unfailing help. Save me from the mire; do not let me sink; let me be rescued from those who hate me and out of the deep waters.

Mercy is how most English translations render "the paired terms hesed and 'emet" which Alter tells us literally mean "kindness and truth but with the idiomatic sense of 'steadfast kindness' or even 'dependability as partner in a covenant." (Alter, p. 238) Elsewhere hesed suggests compassion as in Micah 6:8 where doing justice (mishpat) and walking in spiritual humility (tsana) are linked to cherishing compassion (hesed.) One of the essential Christian commentaries on this truth is found in what I consider Matthew Fox's finest work: A Spirituality Named Compassion - Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice.

Compassion is not the eleventh commandment. Why not? Because it is a spirituality and a way of living and walking through life. It is the way we treat all there is in life -- ourselves, our bodies, our imaginations and dreams, our neighbors, our enemies, our air, our water, our earth, our animals, our death, our space, and our time. Compassion is a spirituality as if creation mattered. It is treating all creation as holy and as divine... which is what it is. (See "altruism vs compassion for a summary @ https://innerself.com/Spirituality/altruism_compassion.htm)

Dr. Amy-Jill Levine writes that compassion is a feeling that becomes a living and embodied commitment as mercy and justice embrace. Such is the core of fulfilling the dual commandments to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and, love our neighbor as ourself. I see the  prayer of this Psalm as a cry for both the rescue God's steadfast loving-kindness brings as well as a commitment to share this mercy with others in the mire and deep waters of a broken world. Clearly the love Jesus enfleshed this compassion. And it would strengthen our resolved to do likewise by remembering that he learned it from his mother's compassion. She shared the merciful wisdom of Israel with her child as part of his spiritual formation. This is how Jesus knew to trust God even in the emptiness of his passion. God's steadfast loving-kindness endures for ever.

One contemplative suggests a merciful way to meditate on this text as a search for ways we can go deeper into the cost and joy of discipleship:

What do I do when confronted with something I don’t understand? Do I flee or fight? Do I acquiesce or seek out understanding? Fleeing or fighting is easier than considering my other options. They require nothing of me other than to operate out of some primal urge. Seeking wisdom is the harder path. Whether I acquiesce in the mystery of something greater than myself or seek meaning in that mystery, I am making a conscious decision rather than giving into an urge. In choosing to seek and serve Christ in the world around me, I am allowing the Holy Spirit to help turn my will into action, as I work out my salvation in fear and trembling. (http://prayer.forwardmovement.org)

Part of my embodied prayer today is taking in and living into the paradox of compassion. One of my mentors, Joni Mitchell, just turned 75 and put it like this in her earliest days.