Month: March 2017

Psalms and Their Wretched Authors and Readers

David Herbert3 Comments

Foxes Book of Martyrs 1851I have been thinking increasingly that the Psalter has fallen into the wrong hands – into my hands, and that, in my hands,  those who Frantz Fanon referred to as The Wretched of the Earth have been betrayed

The psalmists (I’m assuming many, or at least several) describe the wretchedness of their lives. Take the psalm appointed for today (March 31st), Psalm 102 as an example. The psalmist talks about her/his crying and distress. S/he isn’t just downhearted, but is smitten-down-hearted. Her enemies rage at her all day and every day and have ganged up on her to bully her. S/he is alone, hungry and thirsty. This is how s/he pours out the wretchedness of her situation:

1 Hear my prayer, O Lord;
    let my cry come to you.
2 Do not hide your face from me
    on the day of my distress.
Incline your ear to me;
    answer me speedily on the day when I call.

3 For my days pass away like smoke,
    and my bones burn like a furnace.
4 My heart is stricken and withered like grass;
    I am too wasted to eat my bread.
5 Because of my loud groaning
    my bones cling to my skin.
6 I am like an owl of the wilderness,
    like a little owl of the waste places.
7 I lie awake;
    I am like a lonely bird on the housetop.
8 All day long my enemies taunt me;
    those who deride me use my name for a curse.
9 For I eat ashes like bread,
    and mingle tears with my drink,
10 because of your indignation and anger;
    for you have lifted me up and thrown me aside.
11 My days are like an evening shadow;
    I wither away like grass.

But this isn’t self-pity: the psalmist is just telling it like it is. There is no room for self-pity because the psalmist knows God and his history. He knows that he turns to the prayer of the destitute, that he hears the sighs of the prisoner. This is an uprising of prayer and outpouring of trust that her enemies will be short-lived while “the children of your servants shall continue, and their descendants shall be established in your sight”.

This is a prayer of the down-hearted and an act of defiance in the face of her enemies. It is but one page of a prayer book that comes from the hands of those who have fallen on hard times and belongs in their hands. I am sorry to have snatched it from them. I hope I don’t take their words from them, and that I might hear their lament and join their Amen.

This is how this prayer (Psalm 102) turns out, from hard pressed people to their God:

12 But you, O Lord, are enthroned for ever;

    your name endures to all generations.
13 You will rise up and have compassion on Zion,
    for it is time to favour it;
    the appointed time has come.
14 For your servants hold its stones dear,
    and have pity on its dust.
15 The nations will fear the name of the Lord,
    and all the kings of the earth your glory.
16 For the Lord will build up Zion;
    he will appear in his glory.
17 He will regard the prayer of the destitute,
    and will not despise their prayer.

18 Let this be recorded for a generation to come,
    so that a people yet unborn may praise the Lord:
19 that he looked down from his holy height,
    from heaven the Lord looked at the earth,
20 to hear the groans of the prisoners,
    to set free those who were doomed to die;
21 so that the name of the Lord may be declared in Zion,
    and his praise in Jerusalem,
22 when peoples gather together,
    and kingdoms, to worship the Lord.

23 He has broken my strength in mid-course;
    he has shortened my days.
24 ‘O my God,’ I say, ‘do not take me away
    at the mid-point of my life,
you whose years endure
    throughout all generations.’

25 Long ago you laid the foundation of the earth,
    and the heavens are the work of your hands.
26 They will perish, but you endure;
    they will all wear out like a garment.
You change them like clothing, and they pass away;
27     but you are the same, and your years have no end.
28 The children of your servants shall live secure;
    their offspring shall be established in your presence

The image is from The Book of Martyrs, John Foxe, 1516-1587, Goodrich, Charles, 1790-1862.

Grains of Sand

David Herbert1 Comment

Grains of Sand is a rebrand. I originally called this blog The Jog. That has run its course. The blog was The Jog but now it’s just Grains of Sand. Why?

  1. Grains ain’t heavy and take themselves lightly
  2. I like my questions blowing’ in the wind
  3. I like the sound of sand sifting in the sea
  4. There are too many to count
  5. Jesus did all his best writing in sand

There’s rocks and then there is sand. Or is it the other way round? Time managers insist on getting to the rocks first but that suggests we don’t have to make time for the grains of sand. I get concerned that the blogosphere will be taken over by experts with their weighty opinions. Am I wrong in thinking that posts are getting longer and look more like journal articles? It’s as if they’re uttering the last word. I’m wanting space for the first words of consciousness and wonder.

They’re too many count. Nobody in their right mind would ever dream of counting grains of sand (although it might be a better way of getting sleep than counting sheep). In the Bible grains of sand stand for plenty. They stand for the extent of his love and the extent of his amazing grace. When we say “how much?”, we hear “so much, you can’t even begin to count”. His love and his mercy is measured in grains of sand.

How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand (Psalm 139:17f)

The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven and said “… I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore.” (Genesis 12:17)

The sins I have committed against you
are more in number than the sands of the sea. (Manasseh 1:9)

Jesus did his best writing in the sand. I say that because there’s no evidence that he did any writing other than the writing he did in the sand (John 8:1-12). In this passage Jesus subverts the judgments of his community.His opponents framed a woman – they said “caught in adultery”. They want Jesus to confirm the judgement that she should be stoned to death but Jesus refuses. He writes in the sand. He says the first stone should be cast by the one without sin – at which her (and his) accusers put their stones down and leave. Jesus, as the one without sin, should have been the one to cast the first stone. Instead he says, “I don’t condemn you”.

We don’t know what Jesus wrote in the sand. Instead we read into his writing his merciful love and his despair at those who don’t realise the damage they are doing when they judge others. There is one  fanciful suggestion (Derrett) that what Jesus did write was two verses from scripture. He was sitting down when he wrote – the theory is he would have been able to reach as far as being able to write only 16 Hebrew characters, which might have been:

“Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong… do not pervert justice by siding with the crowd.”(Exodus 23:2) and
“Have nothing to do with a false charge.” (Exodus 23:7)

We just don’t know what he wrote. But if the suggestion is true, or if he wrote something similar, it is clear that it was the malice of the chargers that bothered Jesus, not the alleged wrong of the woman. I would say that this is beautiful writing, calligraphy that spares the ones the world accuses (rightly or wrongly) – writing for salvation.

That is the way to write, with the grain of that sand. So Grains of Sand it is. Just a few grains, a tiny part of a large harvest. Just grains, secreted and buried in the blogosphere. It’s not for me to know what happens next. Thanks for reading and thanks to all fellow sifters.