Sermon for June 25th, 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. Notice that the Psalm doesn’t specify what exactly constitutes integrity, how do we know what’s right, how do we know what’s true? It kind of presumes we already know.
That may seem like an over-simplification; you may not always know what the right thing to do is in a complicated situation…but I think the key here is simply good intent. We all know, on a basic instinctual level, when our inner thoughts are unkind or hateful, or resentful. And what begins in our hearts and minds will ultimately manifest in our words, and then our actions, and then our lifestyles. Psalm 15 reminds us that the place to start is with a simple desire to be good, to do what’s right, to speak what’s true. If we keep going back to that, we may not always have the right answer, but we will always be pointed in the right direction.
Verse 3 continues, this time with our first list of “DON’Ts.” Who does God welcome? The ones who: DON’T slander with twisted tongue; who DON’T malign family or friends; who DON’T pile shame upon their neighbors.
Notice what all these have in common? They all have to do with the first thing comes out of our thoughts and emotions—our words, our speech. The first things that actually have an impact on the people around us. And usually, our words have the most effect on the people closest to us—in this case, our neighbors, our family, our friends. In other words, after you’ve worked on mastering what goes on inside of you, next work on mastering what comes out of you—out of your mouth, specifically. And your core audience here—your friends, family and neighbors—will be a more forgiving audience than the wider world. If you can’t speak kindly and respectfully of those who already love you or like you, good luck trying to do that with people who are indifferent or even hostile. It is through your words (spoken publicly, privately, or posted in social media) that people will come to know you, understand you, and ultimately decide what kind of person you are.
The circle gets wider in verse 4, with our next list of DOs. Who does God welcome? The 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.
Here we move beyond our circle of friends family and neighbors to the wider world and two different classes of people: The wicked and the godly. Now, does everyone fit neatly into one of those two categories? Clearly not. In fact, most of us are capable of being wicked or being godly, or anywhere in between, depending on the time of day and situation we find ourselves in.
But I think Psalm 15 is saying to give more weight in your life to the people who are more consistently following a godly path. Let yourselves be influenced most by those people. And the people who are truly wicked? The NRSV translation says you should “despise” them, but that seems a bit harsh—I don’t think you have to despise anyone. The Hebrew verb in question is נִבְזֶ֤ה (nibzeh) which can mean to despise, but when coupled with the word בְּֽעֵ֘ינָ֤יו (b’enah) like it is in this passage, it means “to despise with the eyes” an expression that means to see something as worthless, or not having any value. You don’t have to despise wicked people, you just have to realize that they contribute nothing of value to your life…and therefore should have no influence in your life.
Finally in this section, DO keep your word, even when it hurts. This is another lifestyle choice—and an acknowledgement that sometimes doing the right thing, keeping your promises, can cost you, can even hurt you at least in the short term. But it’s the right sacrifice to make. Because the alternative, the second half of this verse which really belongs in the final section, is to be someone who goes back and forth—someone who gives something and then takes it back, someone who vacillates and is therefore untrustworthy.
So let’s tackle the last list of DON’Ts then: Who does God welcome? The ones who: DON’T barter back and forth and back again; (that’s actually the last part of verse 4) Verse 5: Who DON’T enrich themselves at others’ expense; who DON’T demand bribes from decent beings.
All three of the items in this list have some word related to commerce or business—in other words, this is the money section, and I love that it’s the final piece of advice for living. I’ve often heard it said that if you really want to see what someone’s values are, look at how they spend their money, and what they spend it on! To put it a different way, how you do business with other people (especially how you manage your potential gain and their potential loss) will reveal your true character.
The first DON’T in this list is almost invisible in the NRSV and other translations; they lump it together with the last DO in the previous section: those who DO stand by their oath, even to their detriment.” But in Hebrew, there’s clearly a לֹא (lo/don’t) followed by a money word, יָמִֽר (yamir) which means to barter or haggle. The sense of it is DO keep your promise, even when it harms you, and DON’T barter or try to negotiate your way out of it. I see how they get spliced together, but the neat symmetry of the poem (3 DO’s, 3 DON’Ts, another 3 DO’s followed by another 3 DON’Ts) plus the shift to marketplace language is what tells me that it really belongs on its own, with the last list.
So, Don’t haggle. Don’t give something and then take it back, and then give it again, or keep changing your mind about what it’s worth. Be consistent with how you value things, and don’t be too concerned with getting a good deal, especially if your gain is a loss for someone else. Which leads to the next DON’T—Don’t enrich yourself at someone else’s expense. The NRSV is technically correct in translating this as “usury”—don’t charge interest. That was a forbidden thing to do in ancient Israel. But I think that technically correct translation lets us off the hook too easily today, since most of us aren’t bankers charging other people interest. The sense behind the verse, I think, is this: If your profit comes from exploiting someone else, don’t do that. If you can’t find a way to make all your transactions a win/win—profitable for you and just as profitable for the person you’re dealing with, then the transaction isn’t worth it (or pleasing to God) in the long run.
And the final DON’T in our financial advice list: Don’t demand bribes from decent beings. Here again, the NRSV is more literal (but less poetic): Don’t take bribes against the innocent. But it’s the same general principal—Take only what you’ve honestly earned, and never take for yourself what someone else has honestly earned. Even if it’s completely within your power to do so.
Our Psalm began by saying that this was a list of DO’s and DON’Ts for those who wanted to enter into God’s presence—criteria for who God welcomes. But the conclusion—the last part of the last verse, turns things upside down, and reveals that all along this was not advice to benefit or please God…but instead advice that would benefit each one of us:
Verse 5b: The ones who DO all of these things… DON’T ever falter or fall.
That may sound like a rather unrealistic promise. First, who could possibly keep all the DOs and DONT’s on this list, all of the time? And even if you were able to do most of the things on this list, most of the time…does that mean you’d really NEVER falter? NEVER fall?
No. Even the Psalm itself has told us that sometimes it hurts to keep your word, to do the right thing. If by “falter” and “fall” we mean that nothing bad will ever happen to you, nothing will ever go wrong, you’ll never suffer, lose, or endure hardship…I don’t think the Psalms (or God for that matter) ever make that promise to us.
But think instead of the metaphor of a journey—a climb up a rocky, mountainous slope with lots of twists and turns, and maybe a sheer drop-off on one side. I was literally on a path just like that about a week ago… but in the metaphorical, poetic language of the psalms, that perilous path is our journey through this life. If you take the advice offered in Psalm 15, you still have to navigate all the twists and turns. It’s still an uphill climb, and painful at times. The path is not easy; you might get blisters or twist your ankle. But if you let the simple DO’s and DON’Ts in this Psalm be your guide, your path—then you will always have a path forward, you will not fall off the path, and the path you are on will not falter—it will lead you home in the end.
