Difference between revisions of "Sermon for June 25th, 2023"

Revision as of 14:00, 24 June 2023

I have to admit…after two weeks in Scotland—one week of intense research for my dissertation, followed by another another intense week with my son hiking and backpacking over 40 miles up and down remote highland hills—then a transatlantic flight, going through customs, delayed flights, baggage mix ups, another three hour flight back to El Paso arriving at 11pm, and jet lag…I was totally going to recycle an old sermon to preach this week.

But then I read the Psalm I had originally planned to preach on today, Psalm 15. I was struck by its beauty and simplicity, the symmetry of its poetry in Hebrew, and the weight of its advice. I thought of my daughter Abigail, who is midway through her 15th year of life, and like most teenagers today faced with difficult choices and decisions in a complex culture where social norms, rules and values seem to change every day.

And so I couldn’t help myself. Not only did I write the sermon, I also decided to do my own translation of Psalm 15 from the original Hebrew. There’s nothing really wrong with the NRSV translation in your pew bibles, but I wanted to make a translation that really highlights the poetic features that are so clear in the Hebrew—the alliteration, the meter, the structure and even the playfulness of this poem, all as it dispenses some pretty profound advice for navigating through life’s challenges. So this translation, and this sermon, are dedicated to my daughter Abigail—and really to anyone searching for sense and simplicity in a complicated world.

Psalm 15:1-5 (OT p. 495)

David’s Song of DOs and DON’Ts.

1YHWH, who can stay at your shelter?
Who may inhabit your holy hill?

2The ones who:
DO walk in the way of integrity
DO work at doing what’s right
DO speak truth from the heart;

3The ones who:
DON’T slander with twisted tongue
DON’T malign family or friends
DON’T pile shame upon their neighbors;

4The ones who:
DO perceive the wicked as worthless;
DO give weight to the ways of the godly;
DO keep their word, even when it hurts

The ones who:
DON’T barter back and forth and back again
5DON’T enrich themselves at others’ expense
DON’T demand bribes from decent beings.

The ones who DO all of these things… DON’T ever falter or fall.

Psummer of Psalms VI: Psalm 15

Right at the beginning, Psalm 15 is attributed to King David—of course we’re never really sure whether that means it’s a Psalm “by” David, “about” David, “to” David, or “for” David—whichever it is, I’ve simply chosen to translate that bit as “David’s Song” because that’s what a Psalm (מִזְמ֗וֹר / mizmor) is…a song. And this song is a sequence of DOs and DON’Ts—things you should and shouldn’t do if you if you want to enter into the presence of God.

Some biblical scholars actually think that Psalm 15 is part of a temple entrance liturgy—it would have been sung as a call and response while people were gathering in front of the temple in Jerusalem for worship. Hence the opening lines in verse 1: YHWH, who can stay at your shelter? Who may inhabit your holy hill? That part would have been sung by the temple priests, and then the various answers to the question might have been sung by different groups of people as they came in.

I think you could also look at those lines poetically—God created the heavens and the earth, and we are all his guests, traveling through his world, sheltering here for a brief while during our short lives. And what kind of guests does God particularly welcome?

Verse 2: The ones who: DO walk in the way of integrity; who DO work at doing what’s right; who DO speak truth from the heart. This is our first list of DOs. And all of these things have in common that they are inward things, interior things—things that have to do with our thoughts, our choices, our emotions. That’s where it all begins.