N. T. Wright’s “The Case for the Psalms” Chapter 3

We are considering and riffing a bit on N. T. Wright’s The Case for the Psalms: Why They Are Essential.

In chapter 3, Wright explains how the psalms “invite us, first, to stand at the intersection of the different layers of time.

(Psa 90:1-4 ESV) Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.
² Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
³ You return man to dust and say, “Return, O children of man!”
⁴ For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night.

Wright contrasts Psalm 136 —

(Psa 136:1-10 ESV) Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good,
for his steadfast love endures forever.
² Give thanks to the God of gods,
for his steadfast love endures forever.
³ Give thanks to the Lord of lords,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
⁴ to him who alone does great wonders,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
⁵ to him who by understanding made the heavens,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
⁶ to him who spread out the earth above the waters,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
⁷ to him who made the great lights,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
⁸ the sun to rule over the day,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
⁹ the moon and stars to rule over the night,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
¹⁰ to him who struck down the firstborn of Egypt,
for his steadfast love endures forever; …

— with —

(Psa 137:1-6 ESV) By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion.
² On the willows there we hung up our lyres.
³ For there our captors required of us songs, and our tormentors, mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
⁴ How shall we sing the LORD’s song in a foreign land?
⁵ If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill!
⁶ Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy

Wright comments,

One moment we are chanting, perhaps clapping our hands in time, even stamping our feet; Psalm 136 reminds me of the kind of song boys might sing on the bus on the way back from a victorious soccer game. The next moment we have tears running down our cheeks, and we want the earth to open and swallow us. (We shouldn’t miss the extra point here. It may be impossible to “sing YHWH’s song” in this foreign land, but this particular psalmist turns this impossibility itself into yet another of “YHWH’s songs,” thus making a psalm out of the fact that one can’t sing psalms here.)

Those videos are for Psalm 137. Here is one for Psalm 136 —

(I can’t help but comment on how easy it is to find songs built on the Psalms, usually contemporary music. Contemporary song writers often compose songs out of the songs found in scripture.)

Wright deals forthrightly with the several psalms that cry out for a king. How do we reconcile monarchial psalms with the modern democracies? Does this mean that God wants us to be ruled by a king?

Haven’t these psalms, and the others like 149 that go with them, been used and abused to justify tyranny and wickedness? Yes, of course — just as the soft and meditative psalms have been used to justify quietistic retreat from God’s world; the penitential psalms have been used to justify overscrupulous navel gazing; and the celebrations of creation have been used to express a soggy, romantic pantheism. The abuse doesn’t remove the use. But what is “the use” in this case? What are those royal psalms celebrating? How can we sing them today? …

Now, at last, we come to the central point. Here is the larger framework: God calls humans to be his rulers over creation, and though humans have distorted this vocation into ugly parodies, treating God’s creation as if it were a mere toy to play with or resource to exploit, God has not rescinded the project or the vocation.

Despite the abuses of kings and queens, God created men and women to “rule” or “have dominion” over the creation (Gen 1:26-28). Thus, the king the psalmist asks for is often ultimately all saved people.

(Eph 2:4-7 ESV)  ⁴ But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,  ⁵ even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved —  ⁶ and raised us up with him and seated us with him [Eph 1:20: at God’s right hand] in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,  ⁷ so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

“And he lives forever with his saints to reign”! This biblical truth has been part of our hymnody forever, but not part of our teaching. It is very often true that our hymns teach better theology than our sermons, Bible classes, and tracts.

Wright explains,

Humans have sinned, but God will still work through them; Israel has sinned, but God will still use its people to bless the nations; monarchs have sinned grievously, but God still promises to bring world into subjection under his anointed king. Unless this is sheer folly on God’s part, or indeed sheer arrogance on the psalmist’s part, this can only mean that these psalms are to be sung in the light of God’s intended future.

That is, just as the psalms often look back on creation, the Exodus, or other past events as assuring us of how God will act today, they also look forward to the end of time, so that we may live in the hope that God will ultimately change the world so that sin and corruption exist no more. In short, the psalms encourage us to live encouraged by the past and in hope for the future.

Wright concludes,

We are called, then, to stretch out the arms of our minds and hearts, and to find ourselves, Christ shaped, cross shaped, at the intersection of the past, present, and future of God’s time and our own time. This is a place of intense pain and intense joy, the sort that perhaps only music and poetry can express or embody. The Psalms are gifts that help us not only to think wisely about the overlaps and paradoxes of time, but to live within them, to reach out in the day of trouble and remind ourselves — and not only ourselves but also the mysterious one whom the Psalms call “you” — of the story in which we live. Past, present, and future belong to him. We are called to live, joyfully and painfully, in the story that is both his and ours. Our times are in his hand.