Daily Journal: January 31st

Today's Reading: Psalm 2
I will tell of the decree of the Lord:
He said to me, ‘You are my son;
today I have begotten you.
Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,
and the ends of the earth your possession.
You shall break them with a rod of iron,
and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.’

Now therefore, O kings, be wise;
be warned, O rulers of the earth.
Serve the Lord with fear,
with trembling kiss his feet,
or he will be angry, and you will perish in the way;
for his wrath is quickly kindled.
(vs. 7-12)

Other readings:
Exodus 6:2-9 (God promises deliverance through Moses) and Hebrews 8:1-7 (Christ, the mediator

Hymn: "Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus"
Prayer: Almighty God, creator and ruler of the universe, the powers and divisions of this world melt away before your glory. We humbly thank you for calling us your children and showing us that nothing can separate us from your love.

Reflection
There's a double-play with psalm language like this, "[The Lord] said to me, 'You are my son; today I have begotten you.'" We can read this as though it refers to Christ--which is I suspect the reading implied by the lectionary gurus, with this being the Psalm specified for the Transfiguration, when Jesus' status as God's beloved son is again proclaimed by the voice from heaven. This sort of 'christological' reading of the Psalms is more typical of the Lutheran tradition than it is of the Reformed. Then, on the other hand, we can read the psalm as though we ourselves are speaking/praying this language. 'I, Matt, will tell the decree of God: God said to me, "You, Matt, are my child, today I have begotten you.'
I think there can be a danger in tending too hard one way or the other on this. To empower people to pray the psalms as their own, this can be a great and gospel-bearing thing. On the other hand, it can be too easy to always claim God's blessing for ourselves (see, for instance, that whole 'Prayer of Jabez' hooey). Of course, if we open up all the Psalms in our voice, then there is great diversity--sometimes we are the blessed ones, and sometimes we are in the pit.
The message that we are God's beloved children, it can be disheartening to think about still how many people in our world need to hear that simple gospel message. And, in large part, this is because of the way that Christians have distorted the gospel over the years. I'm not even just focusing on conservative/evangelical/fundamentalist types here. For a good part of the 20th-century, even the liberal mainline churches turned the central message of Christianity into moralism. You were a good Christian if you were a good citizen, a "good" person. I'm sorry, but I thought the central message of Christianity--the reason it's good news--was about God's grace, and what God did through the cross, and God incorporating us into Christ, and all that. Not so much about us and how good we can be. And I don't care if your form of works righteousness is that of the fundamentalists (the conservative moralisms against sexuality, drinking, swearing, etc.), that of the old liberal mainline (being a good upstanding citizen and a good person), or that of the social justice / progressive style liberals (working for justice, not buying things from unfair labor or from eco-insensitive production, etc.). All three forms are still works righteousness, if you've come to think any of it is a measure of how 'good' a Christian you are. There are days when I think conservatives and liberals alike need Martin Luther to come nail some theses on their doors.


Daily lectionary readings from Revised Common Lectionary Daily Readings, ©2005 Consultation on Common Texts. Hymn suggestions and prayer for the day from Bread for the Day 2008: Daily Bible Readings and Prayers, ©2007 Augsburg Fortress.