Storm and Stillness

Psalms 2 and 23

March 9, 2008

Rochelle A. Stackhouse

Enemies. What does that word make you think about? Every once in a while I meet someone who claims to have no enemies. What they generally mean is that they do not see anyone as their enemy and cannot imagine that anyone would see them as an enemy. It seems such a strong word which brings up strong emotions. They might acknowledge that there are rivals in their lives or people who irritate or annoy them or people who have hurt them in some way in the past. But not really enemies. Sort of like couples who say they never fight. They discuss, they will tell me, or they debate or they have a disagreement, but they don’t fight. It seems such a strong word. Like enemies, it implies emotions out of control, which is not how New Englanders do things.

The word “enemies” seems to gain traction in our lives only in times of war and where the enemies aren’t personal but political, that is unless you are a soldier. Some of you remember when the Germans and Japanese were clearly identified as enemies, or the North Koreans and the Chinese or the Soviet Union or the North Vietnamese. Now the enemy is a bit more difficult to quantify. “Terrorist” comes in many flavors, from WASP American Timothy McVeigh in Oklahoma City to the Saudi and Egyptian members of Al Qaida who flew airplanes into buildings on 9/11, to people called “Iraqi extremists.” Again, we try to keep it political and not personal, although 9/11 pressed that as we all asked, “Why do they hate us so much?” And we continue to wonder why Iraqis keep killing our soldiers when we were told that the result of this war, begun now 5 years ago and lasting longer than American involvement in World War II, would be that Iraq would be a better place.

Whether we understand the concept of enemies as personal or political, we need to acknowledge that even if there are no people we would consider our enemies, there are people in the world and maybe even in our personal lives who would consider us their enemies. That being the case, we need to try to figure out not only our response to enemies, but what we think God’s response to enemies is. That’s where these two Psalms come in today.

Psalm 2 is full of bluster and bravado. You heard it in the men’s voices as they sang Bernstein’s version of it. In Psalm 2, God laughs at enemies (“Yitshak”), God speaks to them in wrath and terrifies them with fury. God promises that the chosen king will dash the enemies to pieces the way a clay jar shatters when it’s thrown to the floor. The Psalmist asserts that God gets angry very quickly and, if not obeyed, will kill the enemy. And the Psalm ends with the rather ironic words, “Happy are all who take refuge in God.” The image is of the kids who stand behind the big brother who confronts any bullies that come along with violence.

Remember that the Psalms are all the words of human beings as they lift their deepest emotions to God. And there are times I would very much like God to act that way with some people. The folk who planned the 9/11 attacks, people who abuse children in any way, the folk in Darfur who continue to rape and burn at will. Yeah, if I search my deepest emotions, I do wish God would just deal with these people, wipe them off the earth like I would swat a mosquito. I want to look at them and shout “Yitshak!” “You think you’re so tough; well wait till God gets a hold of you. God is laughing right now thinking how you will be brought down. And I can’t wait to laugh, too!” It’s just my gut reaction.

When we turn to Psalm 23, however, we find a rather different emotional tone and set of metaphors in thinking about both our response and God’s response to enemies. Psalm 23 portrays God not as the avenger or warrior, but as the companion. God is not the great destroyer of enemies, but the one who walks beside us through the places of danger and fear. God does not kill in anger, but sets a table with food in the presence of enemies.

It’s that last image that has always pushed me a bit, because you could understand the metaphor at least two ways. One way to look at it would be that God’s protection is so complete that I could set a feast out while my enemies are all around me and God would keep me utterly safe, like a force field that keeps them out and me eating in peace.

Another way to look at this might be that God sets a table and invites those who seem to be my enemies to eat with me, the way Judas ate with Jesus at the Last Supper. In this image, God becomes not the destroyer, but the reconciler, the mediator, the one who draws all people into relationships of abundance, of cups overflowing. This image shows the table not as an “in your face” kind of bravado before an enemy, but as an invitation to a new relationship. Here God is not pursuing the enemy with a powerful weapon, but God chases after us with goodness and mercy, urging us not to give into fear or anger or the desire for vengeance

I experienced such a table in the town of Salah in Turkey in 1992. I may have told you this story before. My traveling companions, members of the UCC national staff, and I visited a small Syrian Orthodox monastery very near the Iraqi border during a time of heightened tensions following the first Gulf War and when those the Turkish government identified as Kurdish terrorists, the PKK, were active in the region we visited. While we were at the monastery, some Turkish soldiers came and asked to see our passports. When we handed them over, they left, with our passports. What had originally been planned as an hour-long visit to a place where the World Council of Churches had established a fish farm to help the nutrition of the villagers now became an indefinitely extended visit. With the extravagant kind of hospitality we experienced throughout Turkey, the monks rallied the villagers who killed a goat and gathered vegetables on our behalf, and together we ate an amazing feast. While we were eating, those soldiers returned.

Now the villagers, many of whom were Kurdish, were very frightened of the Turkish soldiers, and it would be safe to say that both soldiers and villagers saw each other as enemies. As the soldiers came into the room to return our passports to us, the monks rose and invited the soldiers to join us for dessert. And right there, in the middle of nowhere in southeastern Turkey, I saw a table set in the presence of enemies, and I will never forget it.

Did that moment heal the divisions between Kurds and Turks? Sadly, no. But I know that this moment was blessed in a way it would not have been had the enemies raged or postured for power. I also knew profoundly that the presence of God was in that place, and I do not know how that moment may have changed the lives of enemies in ways I will never see. That it changed my life is not in doubt. The goodness and kindness and mercy I witnessed and experienced that day continue to pursue me and give me hope.

Psalm 23 is then both a great comforting blanket, like our prayer shawls, to wrap around our lives, and also a challenge to see the things that make us afraid very differently from the gut reaction expressed in Psalm 2. There’s a tension here between these pictures of God and expressions of human emotions that is not easy to resolve. Bernstein does so in the Chichester Psalms by lifting up yet two other Psalms to end the piece, 131 and 133: “O Lord, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul like a weaned child with its mother.” And, “How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity. It is like the precious oil on the head, running down upon the beard of Aaron. It is like the dew which falls on the mountains of Zion, for there the Lord ordained blessing, life forevermore.”

Sounds a lot like “You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.” Could it be that the Psalmists saw possibility where we see conflict? I think so. The ultimate question is whether or not we can see this in our lives, and if we do, can we help the powerful of the world to see a table instead of anger: the stillness beyond the storm? Amen.