Week 6: Worshipping in Community: Psalms and Honesty, Ustedes Va, Undergroound

This week, the topic is "Worshipping in Community: Psalms"

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PSALMS

PSALMS are the Jewish prayer-book (Rob Bell called it a "book of poems")  that the early Christians used.  What's wonderful, refreshing, honest...and sometimes disturbing  (to us in the West) is that they cover the whole breadth of life and emotion.  They are all technically songs and prayers..  But note how some weave in and out from a person speaking to God, God speaking to a person, a person speaking to himself.  Somehow, Hebraiclly, holistically, it all counts as prayer.

...And as "song"  Note in your Bible that several psalms have inscriptions which give the name of the tune they are to be prayed/sung to.  Some seem hilarious, counterintuitive, and contradictory, but again not to a Hebrew mindset and worldview, with room for honesty, fuzzy sets and paradox:

• Psalms  (click) with the line "Destroy my enemies", "break their teeth!!" ... To be sung to the tune of "Do Not Destroy"  !!  (Psalm 58:6)
• Psalm 22, a depressing ditty about someone in the throes of rejection despair and death.  To be sung to the tune of "Doe in the Morning"   ??

In this video (and in the new book by Sweet and Viola), Sweet makes the case that"the greatest song ever sung" was Psalm 22.....and the singer was Jesus:  (

Can you name contemporary songs where the music doesn't seem to fit the lyric?  Down lyrics to upbeat music?  Vice Versa?  How might that  be healing/helpful/Hebrew/holy?  and not Hellenistic?

Remember the Bono quote:

Click here for the audio (or watch here on Youtube) of this delightful statement by Bono:

"God is interested in truth, and only in truth. And that's why God is more interested in Rock & Roll music than Gospel... Many gospel musicians can't write about what's going on in their life, because it's not allowed .  they can't write about their doubt....If you can't write about what's really going on in the world and your life, because it's all happy-clappy... Is God interested in that? I mean, 'Please, don't patronize Me! I want to go the Nine-Inch-Nails gig, they're talking the truth!
-Bono

From a 2003 discussion with New York Times, more audio here

"The Jewish disciples all worshipped Jesus, and some of those worshippers doubted."  (matthew 28:17)

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There are several ways to categorize the psalms.

The first is the way the Bible itself does: Psalms is broken down into 5 "books"  Hmm, 5...does that sound familiar?  Name another book with 5 sections and suggest an answer for "Whats up with the number 5?"

Note the 5 sections are not comprised of different kinds/genres of psalms..but the styles and kinds are "randomnly"

represented throught the book..

kind of like life..

  Here is one way to categorize the styles and genres:

• lament
• imprecatory
• praise
• thanksgiving
• petition

 Walter Brueggemann  suggests anotherhelpful way to categorize the Psalms.

 Orientation:

o      Creation - in which we consider the world and our place in it

o      Torah - in which we consider the importance of God's revealed will

o      Wisdom - in which we consider the importance of living well

o      Narrative - in which we consider our past and its influence on our present

o      Psalms of Trust - in which we express our trust in God's care and goodness

q        Disorientation:

o      Lament - in which we/I express anger, frustration, confusion about God's (seeming?) absence

§       Communal

§       Individual

o      Penitential - in which we/I express regret and sorrow over wrongs we have done

§       Communal

§       Individual

q        Reorientation

o      Thanksgiving - in which we thank God for what God has done for us/me

§       Communal

§       Individual

o      Hymns of Praise - in which we praise God for who God is

o      Zion Psalms- in which we praise God for our home

o      Royal Psalms - in which we consider the role of political leadership

o      Covenant Renewal - in which we renew our relationship with God

                                          -Bruggeman, source Click here.

 note how astonishingly HONEST the prayer/worship book of the Jews (and Christians) is!

We'll spend some time on the "three worlds" of Psalm 22, which Jesus quotes  honestly  on the cross:

Here (click title below) 's a sermon on Psalm 22, which is another amazing psalm to use in a worship setting...How often have you heard "My God, My God, Why have You forsaken me?"   Or "God, where were YOU when I needed you!!"

  (see 

Sixpence and God both sneak a smoke  

and 

"Is there such a thing as Christian music?")

  in a church song?

Yet how familiar is the very next psalm: 23.

Life is both Psalm 22 and 23...sometimes on the same day, in the same prayer.

If we think both/and...we think Hebrew.

Here's a link with several of the stories and illustrations I talked about tonight Iike the speaker who said "I almost didn't come tonight",,

 

Click the title: 

"The Lord Be With You...Even When He’s Not!"

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Jesus died naked..but not in Christian art and movies

I am not here to offend anyone unnecessarily.
But I believe Corrie Ten Boom was right and right on:

Jesus died naked.

Even the (very conservative)Dallas Theological commentaries assume this, so this is not just some "liberal" agenda:

"That Jesus died naked was part of the shame which He bore for our sins. " -link

Which means this picture
(found on a blog with no credit)
is likely wrong(Jesus looks too white).

...and largely right (What Jesus is wearing).

I answered a question about this a few years ago, I would write it a bit differently know, but here it is:

First of all, it is probable that (again, contrary to nearly all artwork and movies), Jesus hung on the cross absolutely naked. This was a typical way of crucifixion, to increase the shame factor. Romans might occasionally add a loincloth type of garment as a token concession and nod to Jewish sensitivity; but not very often, it would seem. Of course, once we get past the emotive and cultural shock of imagining Jesus naked, we realize that if He indeed die naked, the symbolism is profound and prophetic: In Scripture, Jesus is called the "Second Adam". As such, it would make sense that He died "naked and unashamed." We are also told that "cursed is he who dies on a tree." The nakedness was a sign and enfolding of shame and token of curse. And the wonderful story of Corrie ten Boom and family, told in the book and movie "The Hiding Place," relates. One of the turning points of her ability to endure the Ravensbruck concentration camp, particularly the shame of walking naked past the male guards, was her conviction that Jesus too was shamed and stripped naked before guards. "Finally, it dawned on me," she preached once," that this (shaming through nakedness) happened to Jesus too..., and Jesus is my example, and now it is happening to me, then I am simply doing what Jesus did." She concluded, "I know that Jesus gave me that thought and it gave me peace. It gave me comfort and I could bear the shame and cruel treatment." 
continued

More:

• Two-stage shaming, Naked at the Cross ... 
• The Last Temptation of Movie Boycotters, Peter Gabriel, Jesus...and us
• 'do i love or know jesus?” 

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Psalm 22 possible chiasm: Death is off the table.

LHooge posts:

Psalm 22 – “My God, My God, Why hast Thou Forsaken Me?:

.

This Psalm has 2 parts.  The first part is a chiasmus.  The second part is not. 

The chiasmus has a famous beginning (“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken Me?”), a good center, and a nice end. 

Here’s a basic outline of the chiasmus:

A:  A cry for help:  no answer

B:  Israel

C:  Personal (an “I/me” section)

D:  Bulls, lion, bones

E:  Dogs, ‘pierce’, bones

F:  A prayer for God’s help

E’:   - , sword, dog

D’:   – , lion, oxen

C’:  Personal (an “I/me” section)

B’:  Israel

A’:  Cried for help:  heard

I particularly like the connections through D2, E2′, E’2”, and D’2” :  …  think ‘sharp’, as in e.g., ’teeth’, as in ‘open lion’s mouth’.

Interestingly, D3 and E3′ (“bones”) have been left unmatched in E’ and D’.  I wonder why?  Is it because of the section’s closer association with death?  If so, then ‘death’ is absent in the latter sections.  …  Death is off the table.  Life is in play  …  ?..

        -CONTINUED HERE

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Many artists who are Christians would serve as anointed bridgebuiders for honest worship gatherings...if churches would allow them: Bruce Cockburn ("Whatever was God thinking of?" is honesty not blasphemy, but simply honesty (T Bone Burnett, Alice Cooper (actually admitting sexual and demonic temptation.)

The most haunting, devastating, barely listenable (which is why I regularly listen to it, and use it as a call to prayer and honesty)song I know is by Michael Knott, madman-genius-Christian of the voluminous catalog...whether under his own name, Lifesavers Underground, LSU, Cush...
Here's the song:
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Double

you're sittin' there wondering why is it like this
and the whole world's crazy and the earth is sick
and someone's yelling from the bathroom door
the toilet's overflowing on the floor
and the one by the phone 
says i cannot hear
while the one by the jukebox spills his beer
and the man on the pinball hits sixteen mil
someone ducks behind the counter to pop a pill
and you reach in your pocket to see if there's more
and the biggest bill falls so you're left with four
and you're too gone to look but you still try
then you see it in the hand of a great big guy
who looks just like he'd kill you fast
and you think for a minute
you let it pass

and the stool falls over when you set back down
it bumps a mean pool shooter from across the town
he misses his shot - it's all on you
and with your last four bucks you know what you'll do
sorry man can i buy you a drink
and he shakes his head and says, make it a double

the next thing you know you wake up at home
and the little one there won't leave you alone
she's awake and hungry
she needs some potty help
and you remember what happened last time she tried it by herself
and your wife says hurry, we're late for church
and you can barely see
and your head still hurts
and the preacher starts preaching
and you feel remorse
he's got five little kids and a big divorce
and your wife looks down and says she don't know how
he's been her guiding light for ten years now
and his marriage is over, it's barely alive
and how in the world will ours ever survive?

-Knott

The juxtaposing of "church"world and "real world" is too close for comfort...and offers little; as does a pastor's divorce. The sharing and prayer time after the stunned silence that song creates would inevitably be life-changing... BUT is this version ready for church? Note the slight (but HUGE) Lyrics change:

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"I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For":

"There has never been a more concise theology of redemption, atonement and the substitutionary death of Christ. No clearer proclamation of theGospel has ever sold so many copies...But he hasn't found what he is lookingfor. I remember speaking in Dublin and seeing this rather exuberant Christian atthe front of the hall. I began my address by asking had anyone found what they were looking for. "Amen brother. Yes Hallelujah!" I am not sure how my dearbrother came to earth as he discovered that for the next hour I was exposing that to have found what we are looking for has nothing to do with BiblicalChristianity...So my conclusion is that U2's I Still Haven't Found What I Am Looking For is probably the best hymn written in this century, it has the theology of the cross but is centred in the reality of a fallen humanity and i sabout striving towards a better man and a better world" (Rev Setve Stockman, read it
all)

So why do Christians feel they have to change the lyric to sing it in church?:

 think Bono said it best, when he exclaimed,“You broke the bonds and you loosed the chainscarried the cross of my shame, of my shame.You know I believe it.“But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.”
Said what best Mike? He didn’t say anything!I mean, that doesn’t make any sense does it?Jesus is what we’re looking for. Right?
Well, yes.
I remember a particular chapel service at my Christian high school,when a worship band came and sang this song.It was terribly cool at that time to sing a U2 song for worship too,but when it came time to sing the refrain after that verse,they cleverly changed the lyrics to,“and now I have found, what I’m looking for!”It was quite a moment too. Hands going up all over the place,people shouting, flags waving, it was totally amazing.And I remember pumping my fist, and thinking, “yeah! That’s right.What does Bono know? How could he talk about Jesus and thensay that he still hasn’t found what he’s looking for?Not me! I’ve found what I’m looking for! I’m not still searching,I’m not still looking….right?
Well, yes and no.
Ten years ago I thought U2 was trying to say that Jesus wasn’t really the answer.Now, I’m starting to see that they just understood something that I didn’t.You see, I think Bono was simply reiterating something that theologians havebeen writing about for centuries. He wasn’t making blasphemous statementsas much as he was poeticizing what is commonly referred to as,“the already and the not yet.”And you know, I’d say it might just be the most difficult truth that a Christianwill ever have to wrestle with.The fact that we already have what we’re looking for,and in the same moment, haven’t yet received it,isn’t so easily reconciled as one would hope.   link

See:

Well-Ended Stories That Don't End Well

See also:

God will ALWAYS give you more than you can handle

and:

Our church may not go as far as incorporating the "Hymns to Swear By" byPádraig Ó Tuama, (though we probably should be that bold and insurrectionist).  

  
But we will no doubt glean lots from the section of the Rollins' "Insurrection" book ("The Centrality of Absence," p, 175ff in which we are introduced to an example from their catalog.   About one song, Rollins comments, "this is not simply a song about suffering and the sense of cosmic homelessness--is is sung from that space (177).

Here's the song, but you are probably not ready to include it next Sunday.
Which is precisely why you should.

(P.S. Just tell your team it's called, "Maranatha," ....doesn't that sound safe enough?(:

 
Maranatha from Peter Rollins on Vimeo.
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missing Jesus, tollbooths, and the temple: the pursuit of the normal

Once, in Solomon's Box,  we actually did it via graffiti on one of the church walls (one that was due to be painted, anyway).










Once, in another church location, we did it with colored markers on posterboard.
Photos here, click twice to read and weep...and laugh!:

But most of us do it less officially, and more often,...in prayer, even if unarticulated/wordless.

Complaints/laments/questions have to surface somewhere.  So we might as well be honest andelevate them. pray them post them, sing them....prophetically write them on subway walls or church halls.

The

Complaints Choir

movement, let along the psalms of lament,

suggests that an outlet must be found, and can be not only threrapeutic/healing, but evangelistic/missional.

"The "Wake Up Dead Man" prayer (complaint/demand/honesty) is sometimes all we have...
and all we need.

The "where were You?" question-prayer may be unanswerable.
But  that we must ask it is unquestionable.
(see  "Sixpence and God both sneak a smoke").

The "Where was God at Panda Express?"questions must also be asked aloud..


SO It hit me last night, as Rabbi Adam was talking about the Jewish homesickness for the temple,
that no non-Jewish person can know what that feels like.
As he was speaking to our class, I quickly found and projected  this photo  of some of us in front  of the Temple Mount, and it nearly brought him to tears.


.

The rabbi has not yet been to Israel.
(but Israel has been to the rabbi).

He misses a place he's never been.

With one exception, I  can only miss places I have been.

I have been all over the middle of  the Connecticut Turnpike.

Along with Spidey P. and gang, I was a toll collector for a couple of summers.
Not the most exciting job on the planet, but the memories collected are priceless,
and the ground there was  therefore hallowed.
Here we are:

But that toll booth complex no longer exists.
It was torn down, and the whole toll system discontinued years ago.

Which means, on a visit the spot where they were, I once felt I had to reach down and actually feel the pavement where so much of my life once happened.

No words for what I felt.
Not even a song of complaint.

But the words of St. Bruce Cockburn do come to mind as I remember my wordless touch of the pavement prayer:

"Those who know don't have the words to tell
And the ones with the words don't know too well":




Are there any places in your past that  are simply...and unforgivably...no  longer there?

I realize my stories (and yours) may sound trivial compared to "missing" the Temple and the Shekinah..
but they are our stories, and windows into The Story.
They are overheard stories....and all are hallowed.


Though most of you will laugh when you learn that I am the one on the right in this pic,

...There is no way this photo will not evoke wordlessness and/or tears for my cousin:

That wagon may exist somewhere, but our grandparents home, where this was taken, does not.

That's not fair.

No one asked my permission.

But I do know that:

 Every place I have set foot is holy ground.

The Temple Mount included.

St. Jamie, in an amazing blog post found here, even found Jesus in the most "unlikely of places":
church.

          -link,

            -Holy Hamburgers

UNTIL we interpret all of a scripture as in large part as a lament/grief that the temple..or something/somebody?Somebody is no longer there/here....we miss the point

--SINGULAR PLURALS/USTEDES VA:

A Crash of Rhinos...a Committee of Buzzards

"Rhino Crash Church"


from The Barbarian Way, Erwin McManus

A few years ago I took my kids to a wildlife animal park near San Diego. As we rode on a tram through the open terrain, a guide pointed out the unique features of the different species that we encountered. I suppose I always knew it in part, but I had not come to realize how most groups of animals have unique names or designations when they dwell together.

With insects most of us know that bees are called swarms, and ants are called colonies. Among ocean life, I was aware that whales are pods, and fish are schools. Cattle are herds, birds are flocks, and if you watch Lion King, you know a tribe of lions is a pride. If you grew up in the country, you might know that crows are murders. Maybe the most unnerving one is an ambush of tigers.

I was surprised to learn that a group of buzzards waiting around together to feast on leftover carnage is called a committee. Just this one insight is worth the price of the whole book. This explains so much of what’s going on in churches—a lot of committees waiting around to live off human carnage.

Flamingos are called flamboyants, which for some reason reminds me of TV evangelists. And the less glamorous owls are known as parliaments. They do seem sort of British.

But my favorite of all is the group designation for rhinos. You see, rhinos can run thirty miles an hour, which is pretty fast when you consider how much weight they’re pulling. They’re actually faster than squirrels, which can run up to twenty-six miles an hour. And even then who’s going to live in dread of a charging squirrel! (Sorry—that was a bit off the point.) Running at thirty miles an hour is faster than a used Pinto will go. Just one problem with this phenomenon. Rhinos can see only thirty feet in front of them. Can you imagine something that large moving in concert as a group, plowing ahead at thirty miles an hour with no idea what’s at thirty-one feet? You would think that they would be far too timid to pick up full steam, that their inability to see far enough ahead would paralyze them to immobility. But with that horn pointing the way, rhinos run forward full steam ahead without apprehension, which leads us to their name.

Rhinos moving together at full speed are known as a crash. Even when they’re just hanging around enjoying the watershed, they’re called a crash because of their potential. You’ve got to love that. I think that’s what we’re supposed to be. That’s what happens when we become barbarians and shake free of domestication and civility. The church becomes a crash. We become an unstoppable force. We don’t have to pretend we know the future. Who cares that we can see only thirty feet ahead? Whatever’s at thirty-one feet needs to care that we’re coming and better get out of the way.

We need to move together as God’s people, a barbarian tribe, and become the human version of the rhino crash. The future is uncertain, but we need to move toward it with confidence. There’s a future to be created, a humanity to be liberated. We need to stop wasting our time and stop being afraid of what we cannot see and do not know. We need to move forward full force because of what we do know.

Yesterday Mariah was in a store with her mom. She saw a man working with fabrics, and for some reason he caught Mariah’s attention. Mariah looked at Kim and pointed to the man, and she said, “Mom, look at the man. He’s the loneliest person I’ve ever seen.” Mariah began to weep uncontrollably.

We may not be able to see what’s at thirty-one feet, but we don’t have to be blind to what’s right in front of us. There’s a world that desperately needs God, a world filled with loneliness, hopelessness, and fear. We have somehow become deaf to a cry that reaches heaven coming from the souls of men. But God hears.

Erwin McManus

How does it change your interpretation of the Bible to realize that many passages are to a "plural you": 

Ephesians: 2:8-10,  3:16, 6:10-20 ?


--
We watched an amazing video of Cappadocia.

UNFORTUNATELY> this episode called "Don't Forget Us" is not online

(remember the church 2o stories underground, and the amazing testimony of Rebecca from Sudan?)  but some notes on it are here.  Also pp. 164ff here.

Here is more on Cappadocia and  the underground cities of Derrankuyu"

Derinkuyu Underground City