The
Text: A Storm God?
A Psalm of David.
1 Ascribe to the LORD, O heavenly
beings—
Literally, “sons of gods.” This quasi-polytheistic opening line immediately evokes the scene of a heavenly court, not unlike the pictures of Mount Olympus in Greek mythology. It suggests that the psalm we’re reading may have roots in the surrounding Canaanite culture, in which numerous gods populate the heavens. In other words, this ancient Israelite psalm, attributed to King David, may be drawing its style and content a little bit from neighboring cultures, not unlike how Christians appropriated the pagan symbol of the tree for their celebration of Christmas, or how some of our most famous hymns were paired with melodies that originated in popular culture. Perhaps King David was composing a song in the cultural language of the day.
ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.
2 Ascribe to the LORD the glory of
his name;
worship
the LORD in holy splendor.
If this psalm does have a Canaanite flavor to it, the psalmist has clearly repurposed it for the Israelite faith. If this psalm imagines a multiplicity of gods, as its opening line suggests, there is no question which god is supreme. It is the LORD, Yahweh. All the heavenly court are singing his praise, declaring his might and power.
3 The voice of the LORD is over the waters;
the
God of glory thunders,
the
LORD, over mighty waters.
4 The voice of the LORD is powerful;
the
voice of the LORD is full of majesty.
Sometimes when we have a thunderstorm, we will jokingly imagine that God and the angels are bowling. I remember learning that expression as a child. It made thunderstorms a little less frightening. I could tell, of course, that my parents didn’t literally believe God and the angels were bowling, but just the figure of speech itself domesticated the thunderstorm, transforming it from a wild, untamed force of nature into a bit of divine recreation. In other words, God was up there. God was in control.
While God and the angels are not bowling in this psalm, there is a similar “domestication” going on. The psalm reimagines a thunderstorm as the voice of God. The emphasis is not on the content of God’s voice. Not once in this psalm do we hear what God actually says. The emphasis is on the impression of strength and power and glory of God. God is up there, the psalm assures us. God is in control.
In Canaanite mythology, Ba’al is a storm god, pictured riding in the clouds with a thunderbolt in one hand and lightning in the other, doing battle against the sea, the waters, which represent chaos. Our psalm today envisions a similar sort of “storm god,” but with a twist. God is not riding in the clouds but speaking from above. Amid the chaos of the storm, the mess of the mighty waters, God’s voice booms and asserts his majesty.
5 The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars;
the
LORD breaks the cedars of Lebanon.
6 He makes Lebanon skip like a calf,
and
Sirion like a young wild ox.
In this scene, the voice of Yahweh produces winds strong enough to down trees, the mighty cedars of Lebanon, and thunder that explodes so mightily that the ground quakes and trembles.
7 The voice of the LORD flashes forth flames of fire—in other words, lightning.
8 The voice of the LORD shakes the
wilderness;
the
LORD shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.
9 The voice of the LORD causes the oaks to whirl,
and
strips the forest bare;
and
in his temple all say, “Glory!”
The psalm began in the heavenly court, where divine beings sang God’s praise, but now the scene has shifted to earth, and it is humans in God’s temple who are singing God’s praise.
10 The LORD sits enthroned over the flood;
the
LORD sits enthroned as king forever.
Some biblical scholars suggest that this particular psalm would have been sung at the Feast of Tabernacles, which corresponded with the autumn harvest and may have included as part of its traditions a divine enthronement ceremony. We catch a glimpse of God’s enthronement in these verses. In particular, the psalmist envisions God as enthroned “over the flood,” meaning that God has triumphed over chaos.
11 May the LORD give strength to his people!
May
the LORD bless his people with peace!
The psalm opened with acknowledgment of God’s strength, and here it closes in similar fashion—but with a special plea. The psalmist turns his praise into a prayer, asking that God’s awe-inspiring power give strength and peace to God’s people.
Wrestling with Psalm 29
I have to confess, Psalm 29 is not among my
favorite psalms. The thunderstorm metaphor disturbs me. I think, for example,
of the recent flooding in Texas. Was God enthroned over that flood? Was that
God’s voice in the torrential downpour that swept away innocent lives?
I’ve chosen Psalm 29 for our scripture today in order to wrestle with it. The psalms have long represented the original prayer book of both Jewish and Christian followers of God, and I want to explore what it looks like to pray from a text that might disturb us or at least not make immediate sense to us.
To pray from Psalm 29, I decided to use an ancient Christian practice known as lectio divina. In a nutshell, lectio divina is listening for God in scripture. It is a slow, patient reading. Usually a word or a phrase from the scripture takes root in the reader’s heart, calling to mind thoughts and feelings in which the reader senses God’s presence and perhaps hears God’s call.
Hearing
Voices
When I tried to pray from Psalm 29 using lectio divina, the phrase “the voice of the Lord” (which is repeated, significantly, seven times) caught my attention. So I sat with it.
I thought of Saul on the road to Damascus, who heard an unidentified voice that turned his life upside down (Acts 9:1-9). A little bit like a whirlwind, like a storm.
I thought of Jesus on the banks of the Jordan, who heard an unidentified “voice…from heaven,” blessing him and declaring God’s love and favor for him, a message that changed the course of his life, prompting him to begin his ministry (Luke 3:21-22). I thought of how immediately afterward, Jesus heard another voice in the wilderness, a voice that accused him, that disputed his identity and challenged him to prove himself, saying, “If you are the son of God…” (Luke 4:3, 9).
I wondered if Jesus’ experience in the wilderness is not a little bit like our own experience in the world. We certainly hear that voice that challenges us and accuses us, the voice that says we are not important enough, not accomplished enough, not strong enough or secure enough, a voice that belittles us and shames us. It’s a voice we hear everywhere. In our advertising, certainly, as it introduces seeds of doubt and insecurity, but also in the words of leaders and teachers who preach a false gospel of independence and self-sufficiency. Most of all, we hear this voice in our own hearts, whispering constantly that we are not enough, we don’t belong as we are, there is something more we must do. This voice leads to chaos, or to what the psalmist might call a “flood,” the mighty waters that overwhelm us and rob us of life.
But if we listen closely, there is another voice. A voice that has power over this flood, over this chaos. A voice of blessing, a voice that tells us we are God’s beloved children and that nothing can change that. We might hear this voice first from a parent or grandparent, a caregiver who makes sacrifices on our behalf and does everything to ensure we are nurtured and kept safe. (I still remember the tune of a lullaby that my mother hummed when I was an infant, in that immemorial time before words meant anything; sometimes I wonder if that lullaby communicated more to me than any words could communicate.) We might hear this voice of blessing and belonging in the beauty and wonder of creation, where the sacred circle of life welcomes all things into its dance, where sunshine and rain fall upon good and wicked alike, where green things poke insistently through concrete and all manner of debris. We certainly hear this voice of blessing and belonging in the good news of Jesus, as when he tenderly calls “Daughter” the woman who has suffered from a hemorrhage for twenty-nine years and has been excluded from society, or when he pronounces blessing and peace upon the shamed woman who sits at his feet, or when he eats with the tax collectors whom the respectable and upstanding abhor and exclude.
And when we really hear this voice of blessing and belonging, when it sinks to the ground of our soul, does it not turn our world upside down, as it did for Paul? What is this voice, that overturns everything we know (like a storm), even as it calms the storm and anchors us in God’s peace?
God’s
Word as a Creative Force
When I sit with the phrase “the voice of the LORD,” I also find myself thinking about how God’s speech in scripture is often not represented as the definitive “voice of God” but only as “a voice.” Elijah hears a still, small voice (1 Kgs 19:12). Or as we noted before, Jesus and Paul both hear an unidentified voice that changes the course of their lives.
I wonder if this apparent anonymity isn’t a gesture toward our own experience of God. In other words, we do not have the benefit of an omniscient narrator who pronounces, “And then God said…” Instead we must determine for ourselves the voices we hear and which ones we listen to. And that will make all the difference. That will indeed shape our world. Psalm 29 insists on the truth of creation, that God’s Word (“the voice of the Lord”) has the power to shape and reform all things.
I’m reminded of a story in which a black pastor was asked, “Why do black people stay in church so long?” This particular pastor explained, “Unemployment runs nearly 50 percent here [where I live]. For our youth, the unemployment rate is much higher. That means that, when our people go about during the week, everything they see, everything they hear tells them”—and I would add the commentary that this voice is the voice of Satan—“‘You are a failure. You are nobody. You are nothing because you do not have a good job, you do not have a fine car, you have no money.’ So I must gather them here, once a week, and get their heads straight. I get them together, here, in the church, and through the hymns, the prayers, the preaching say, ‘That is a lie. You are somebody. You are royalty! God has bought you with a price and loves you as his Chosen People.’ It takes me so long to get them straight because the world perverts them so terribly.”[1]
The
Power of God’s Voice
All of this to say, when I pray from Psalm 29, I end up in a very different place from the disturbing thought that storms are literal manifestations of God’s will and power. Christ leads me away from an interpretation that makes God into something of a negligent creator at best (allowing storms to wreak havoc), torturer at worst (causing them to wreak havoc). Instead I begin to see the storm as a metaphor for the chaos that erupts whenever I believe the lie that I am not enough, that I do not belong, the chaos that erupts when I try to do things on my own. And I begin to hear the voice of God, a voice powerful enough to create a new world…and a new heart. I begin to hear the Voice that echoed on the banks of the Jordan, declaring to Jesus and to all of us, “You are my beloved child, with whom I am well pleased.” The Voice that echoed in the words of Jesus himself, as he declared this good news to the people who had the least inkling of it.
Yes, it is true that sometimes God’s voice is experienced as an utter terror, as something that knocks us off our feet and destroys our life’s project, as when it did so to Saul. But it is equally true that the voice itself is not a terror but our salvation, that the real terror is being left alone on the waves of our own desires and insecurities, at the whims of a storm whipped up by Satan’s accusations. As I pray from Psalm 29, I find myself encouraged to listen more closely to the voices I hear every day, knowing that they have the power of life and death, the power to create and the power to destroy. I find myself inspired with the desire to speak God’s language, a language of blessing, as opposed to Satan’s language of accusation. And I find myself feeling grateful for Jesus Christ, who helps me to hear more clearly “the voice of the Lord.”
Prayer
Whose word takes on flesh
And shows us what love looks like—
Help us to tune out the voice of Satan,
The accusations and grievances and insecurities
That keep us in a whirlwind of chaos,
So that we might hear
The same voice that Jesus heard
On the banks of the Jordan.
In Christ, the Word of God: Amen.
[1] Stanley Hauerwas and William H.
Willimon, Resident Aliens: Life in the
Christian Colony (25th anniv. ed.; Nashville: Abingdon, 2014),
154-155.
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