For those who want a change from the Gospel

Lent 1 – Psalm 25

Well, didn’t I get told last week! Apologies for my sloppy exegesis of the Wheat and Tares parable – you deserve better from revjohnleachblog. I would just say in my defence, though, that I was actually writing about the Psalm, not the parable, and the fact is that we do live in churches which contain all sorts of different people, there for all sorts of reasons, pure and impure. Anyway, I hope to do better this week as we enter Lent and look at one of my fave Psalms, and one of my fave songs by Graham Kendrick based on it, which you can listen to here.

The Psalm falls fairly neatly into three parts, although the join between parts 2 and 3 is not easy to see accurately. V.1-7, the part which our lectionary gives us, is a prayer for God’s deliverance and help, v.8-14 list some of God’s attributes, and v.15-22 are a further series of petitions which begin with an expression of confidence in God. Interestingly the Psalm is an acrostic, with each verse starting alphabetically with a different Hebrew letter, although this is not exact, and the same discrepancies occur in Psalm 34, which has led some to attribute them to the same author, who clearly didn’t know his Hebrew alphabet. There is no clear evidence about dating or liturgical use, but some say it feels post-exilic, whatever that feels like. In terms of Psalm classification it is usually thought to be an individual lament, although it is noticeable that the troubles which the Psalmist faces are vague and general enough to suggest that it was written not out of some dire personal circumstances, but rather by a poet or liturgist for the use of others perhaps less skilled in wordcraft. So a shout out to our liturgists, who have used their considerable gifts to put words of beauty and power into our mouths to help us express our worship for God, and to deliver us from too many ‘just reallys’.

I know I should stay away from the Appendix, but it struck me reading this Psalm that in the NT there are a few examples of people who ask something from Jesus, but are not at all sure that he wants to give them what they are asking for, or misunderstand what he really wants for them. A few examples which quickly come to mind are the Samaritan woman, who wants water but doesn’t get the idea of the kind of water Jesus has in his gift, the centurion who considered himself unworthy of Jesus putting himself out, the blind man who isn’t sure whether or not Jesus really wants to heal him, and so on. It is interesting in the Psalm that the prayers for help, forgiveness and blessing form the bread of this sandwich, while the filling is a recital of God’s attributes. If we want God’s help, it seems, we need to understand who he is and what he offers. This Psalm reminds us of that.

So God is good and upright; he guides us when we need his help; he is always loving and faithful, promising prosperity (note: to those living out a relationship with him, not the general public); and he guides and instructs any humble enough to fear him and be interested. The affirmation of confidence in God in v.15 reminds us that actually he is the only real person to go to for help. Knowing all this about God really adds power to our prayers, and helps us to understand to whom we are praying, and what he might want for us.

One of the things people often say they want to do during Lent is to deepen their prayer lives. In the light of this Psalm, maybe one way to do that would simply be to know God better, so that we can understand what he wants and pray for it with more confidence. We might, for example, meditate on those people mentioned above who, in the gospels, need to learn what it is that Jesus wants to do for them. There is one lesson I have learnt recently. Each morning my wide and I pray together, but recently there have been some very very specific things for which we have prayed, and have seen God answer them quite dramatically and very quickly. That has made me think that God likes specific prayers, ones that we will know whether or not have been answered, as opposed to vague ones which are no doubt great but actually don’t put ourselves on the line or ask too much of God. I can remember at Morning Prayer one day in my local cathedral, the Dean saying ‘We pray for the human race’. I could imagine God saying back ‘Yes …?’ That’s just a small example, but it does seem that to pray better implies knowing better the one to whom we pray.