For those who want a change from the Gospel

Palm Sunday – Psalm 118

We have become familiar with the idea that the book of Psalms as we have it contains some different collections – we explored, for example, the ‘Songs of Ascents’ here. Today’s Psalm is the final one of another group, Ps 113-118, known collectively as the ‘Egyptian Hallel’. Hallel means ‘praise’ (as in ‘Hallelu – Jah’ – ‘Praise the Lord’, and the Egyptian bit is about a remembrance and celebration of the rescue from Egypt, the exodus. This is particularly clear in Ps 114, but it is not a big stretch to see the others in this collection reflecting on the power of God and his rescue of Israel from slavery and poverty in Egypt. Not surprisingly, therefore, scholars have suggested that these Psalms had their liturgical use particularly at the Passover, and it seems that Ps 113 and 114 would have been sung before the Passover meal, and Psalms 115-118 at the end. So when the Gospels tell us that Jesus and his disciples sung ‘the hymn’ before heading off to the Mount of Olives, it could well be that Psalm 118 was the last Psalm Jesus sung before his death.

In its form it is a mixture of corporate (v.1-4) and individual (the rest) thanksgiving. The whole community is invited to praise, but then individual reasons for that praise are enumerated. Hard pressed and overwhelmed people find deliverance in God, and celebration ensues. The hymn ends with the declaration of blessing (‘we’ would probably be the priests who blessed all pilgrims to the Holy City as they entered the precincts), and there is the mention of a sacred procession, which provides the link between the Psalm and the Christian Palm Sunday, although a less obvious one with the Passover meal. The Psalm ends with further words of praise to God for all his goodness to his people.

In the light of this, we might wonder what these words meant to Jesus as he sung them on the eve of his arrest, torture and death. We can understand that in extremis Jesus appropriately cried out in the words of Psalm 22 ‘My God, why have you forsaken me?’ But what might it have felt like to use these words of praise and thanksgiving for God’s deliverance, knowing that actually abandonment was what it was going to feel like? How did it feel to give thanks to God for past deliverance while his heart was breaking for what was to follow immediately? How did it fit with the prayer of Gethsemane, with being betrayed, denied and deserted by those closest to him? This in turn leads onto some fascinating questions about liturgy.

As many readers will know, I am in the final stages of doctoral research into Anglican churches which don’t like or use Anglican liturgy. My interviews with church leaders have revealed some fascinating and largely negative attitudes towards set liturgy, often as opposed to the supposed ‘freedom’ of singing the worship songs which have largely replaced liturgical worship in most of the churches I visited. Liturgy, I was told again and again, would simply not ‘connect’ with people, and particularly with young people. It is ‘inauthentic’, unlike the praise which is meant to spring unbidden from within our hearts. In the light of Jesus’ experience of using the text set for the day, it seems to be the ultimate example of disconnection. To be given words of praise to use when one’s heart is breaking seems as bad as being given miserable, dirgy Psalms to sing when one ought to be abounding with praise and worship.

But here’s the rub – maybe liturgy is deliberately designed for those moments of disconnect. Sometimes the words put into our mouths by liturgical worship do try to express how we’re feeling. Next week many of us will be declaring ‘Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia’, and hopefully we’ll be feeling it too. But maybe there are other times when liturgy is there not to tell us what we’re feeling, but rather what is true in spite of how we’re feeling. Did Jesus experience those words as rubbing his nose in the agony he was about to undergo? Or maybe were they precious truths to hold on to, to sustain him during his arrest, trial and torture? I’ve mentioned before a friend who drew the distinction between the ‘real’ and the ‘true’, identifying the fact that there are things which we believe are true even if we’re not experiencing them as real right at this moment. Set liturgy can provide reminders of truth for which we’re still waiting, or even for which we are at the point of giving up waiting. Maybe a key to using it well is to ask not how it is making us feel, but rather what truths is it telling us, whatever we may happen to be feeling.