Hilton Head Island, SC – October 14, 2012
The Chapel Without Walls
Psalm 59:1-8,11-17
A Sermon by John M. Miller
Text – But thou, O Lord, dost laugh at them; thou dost hold all the nations in derision. – Psalm 59:8 (RSV)
If you attend The Chapel Without Walls on a regular basis, you will have noticed that from time to time I seem to do several sermons in a row based on the Psalms. There is a reason for this. I think the Psalms contain some of the greatest thoughts and ideas in all of scripture. Furthermore, they have been the inspiration for literally hundreds of hymns and anthems down through the centuries. Poets have paraphrased the Psalms in wonderful and moving verses: “The King of love my shepherd is” (Psalm 23), “A mighty Fortress is our God” (Psalm 46), “Our God, our help in ages past” (Psalm 90), “God, the Lord, a King remaineth” (Psalm 93), “All people that on earth do dwell” (Psalm 100).
There is another reason why every now and then I preach from several Psalms in a series. It is because I hope to preach through the whole book of Psalms by the time I retire a little more than two years from now. I won’t preach from every Psalm, because I have neither the time nor the inclination, but I will utilize many of them. There was a famous Scots minister (whose name I have forgotten, which happens the closer you get to retirement) who said, “There are thousands of texts crying out to be preached from.” Hundreds of those texts are in the Psalms, and between now and December 31, 2014, I shall preach from a few dozen of them.
Today’s Psalm is another ascribed to David. It says in the superscription, “To the choirmaster: according to Do Not Destroy. A Mitkam of David, when Saul sent men to watch his house in order to kill him.”
As we heard similarly last week, David wanted this Psalm to be sung to the tune named “Do Not Destroy.” We don’t know what that tune was, but presumably the choirmaster knew. Further, it says that this is a Mitkam which David wrote when Saul sent some of his soldiers to keep an eye on David’s house in order to kill him. Last week I suggested that maybe a Mitkam is a certain kind of poem, like a sonnet or limerick. I decided this week that perhaps it was a lament. I gave my biblical commentaries to the monks at Mepkin Abbey, so I can’t look it up to see what the experts say. Therefore I am now declaring myself an expert, and I’m also declaring that a Mitkam is officially a lament. I feel safe in doing this, because who among you will challenge an expert on that astonishing new piece of information?
Both Psalm 56 from last week and Psalm 59 from this week were composed by David when he was really up against it. Last week he was captured by the Philistines, which wasn’t his fault, and this week he is being pursued by King Saul’s henchmen, which isn’t his fault either, because Saul was even more of a psychological case than David. He was a classic paranoid schizophrenic, and you heard the diagnosis here first, and from an expert, no less. Saul became convinced David was trying to steal his throne from him, which he wasn’t, but Saul was mentally incapable of sorting out reality from his sadly contorted delusions.
If you glance at the words of our responsive for today, you may conclude David himself had at least a moderate case of paranoia. “Deliver me from my enemies, O my God, protect me from those who rise up against me, deliver me from those who work evil, and save me from bloodthirsty men” (59:1-2) Anybody who felt that besieged surely had to have done something to provoke so many people as enemies. David was no Little Lord Fauntleroy; he was a bellicose, belligerent, pugnacious, pugilistic royal pain in the backside. But oh no, David considered himself above reproach; “For lo, they lie in wait for my life; fierce men band themselves against me. For no transgression or sin of mine, O Lord, for no fault of mine, they run and make ready” (59:3-4). Bellicose, belligerent, pugnacious, pugilistic people tend to attract enemies like sugar attracts flies. They never seem to understand why that happens. Well, enough of that.
Interestingly, David goes from asking God to protect him from Saul’s soldiers to asking God to protect him from enemy nations. “Rouse thyself (O God), come to my help, and see! Thou, Lord God of hosts” (which really means Lord God of the armies), “(Thou) art God of Israel. Awake to punish all the nations; spare none of those who plot evil….But thou, O Lord, dost laugh at them; thou dost hold all the nations in derision” (59:4-5,8). Having pleaded with God to save David from Saul’s hired assassins, now David also pleads with God to save him from the other nations bordering Israel with whom David has chosen to go to war. David had a whole laundry list of enemies he wanted God to obliterate. He was the most powerful monarch of his time in the region of the eastern Mediterranean. But David being David, he waged many battles against his neighbors. Nevertheless, he convinced himself that God laughed at the other nations, and held them in derision, but of course not Israel.
In Hebrew, the word for “nations” is Goyim. A synonym is “Gentiles.” To Jews, everyone who is not a Jew is a Gentile. I am a goy, and you are a goy, and all who are not Jews are goyim. We are “the nations,” the ethnic others, and Israel is Israel.
So what is David implying here? Is he saying that God laughs at all nations, including Israel, or is he saying that God laughs only at the Gentiles? I suspect the latter may be what David actually thought. God laughs at us, but not at Israel, not at the Jews.
Might it be that God laughs at all the nations, at least on certain occasions, and that sometimes He holds all nations in derision? Could it be that every nation, like every individual person, sins before God, and does things which collectively we ought not to do?
In Psalm 22 David said, “All who see me mock at me, they make mouths at me, they wag their heads; ‘He committed his cause to the Lord; let him deliver him, for he delights in him!’” (Psalm 22:7-8) David, perhaps like most people, assumed God smiled on both him and Israel. Most of us think God has a special regard for each of us personally, and in particular for our nation, whatever our nation might be. But in Psalm 59 David insists God laughs at the nations, and holds them in derision.
Having traveled in a few dozen countries through the years, it is my impression, albeit a rather nebulous one, that we Americans hold our nation in higher regard than most other nationalities think of their own nations. American exceptionalism is alive and well. Brits might sing, Rule, Britannia, or Land of hope and glory, but they don’t get too carried away by it. Germans sing Deutchland, Deutschland, uber alles, and the French sing Allon l’enfantes des la patrie, but they don’t wax as patriotic, it seems to me, as Americans do when we sing America, the beautiful or My country, ‘tis of thee.
In this election campaign, is anyone thrilled to be a citizen of the United States of America? With all the problems which have been thrust on us, and all the problems we have thrust upon ourselves, might the Lord laugh at our nation, and hold us in derision? Considering how we came to stretch “from sea to shining sea,” taking land by force from Indians and Mexicans and Spanish, and buying it on the cheap from French and Russians, is it conceivable that the Creator of the universe might have an ironic, rueful chuckle at a nation such as ours? In the past century, there has been hardly a sizeable war in which the USA has not been engaged; what does God think about that?
How is it that nations come into being, anyway? What prompts “nation-building”?
In biblical times, and for many centuries up until the medieval period, the word “nation” connoted “ethnic group” more than what we now mean by the term “nation.” In the Bible, the Egyptians lived where the Egyptians still live, and the Babylonians lived in what now is Iraq, and the Moabites and Ammonites lived in what now is the Kingdom of Jordan, and the Syrians lived in Syria, and the various kinds of Canaanites lived in what is now Israel.
Biblical ethnic groups did not have borders with colored lines on maps the way nations have today. Rather it was like the various Indian tribes in North America prior to the arrival of Europeans on these shores. The Seminoles, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Cherokees lived in what is now the Southeast USA, the Mohawks, Hurons, and Iroquois lived in the Northeast, the Chippewas, Sioux, Sauk-Foxes, and Missouris lived in the Midwest, and so on. They all knew where each other lived, and what they claimed as their own, but no treaties determined their borders, nor did any battles determine their permanent size. Without lines drawn in the woods, prairies, or sand; everybody just knew where everybody claimed territory, and either they did or didn’t agree on the general assumptions thereof.
In Europe two millennia ago there were Celts and Burgundians and Teutons and Angles and Saxons and Norsemen and Andalusians and Huns and Franks. Then there was no Italy or Germany or France or Austria, nor was there a thousand years ago. The lines on maps with which we are familiar for most nations were drawn only in the past five hundred or three hundred or one hundred years. What we know as today’s “nations” were not necessarily nations even two centuries ago.
It was hard enough when “nation” was synonymous with “ethnic group.” But now, when there are a few or dozens or hundreds of ethnic groups in one nation, as is true for the USA, nations no longer represent what they represented centuries or millennia ago. Then, ethnicity was everything. Now, politics and power and the military and fixed borders are everything.
At all times and at various points on the globe, nations are having conflicts with one another. Probably this has always been true, but it is much more true now than ever before, if only because there are so many more people and so many more nations in the world today. Some of these disputes seem petty or inconsequential to outsiders, but to the parties involved, they are very vital and imperative, symbolizing what they consider their highest national interests.
God does not divinely determine everything that nations do any more than He determines what you and I do. All nations and all individuals are free agents. God never intended us to be His automatons who automatically do His bidding in our every action.
However, God surely is not pleased with everything nations choose to do. For example, China and Japan are now greatly agitated over some barren rocks in the South China Sea. Each nation claims these low-lying islands for themselves, not because of any value in the actual rocks themselves, but because there may be oil under the surrounding waters. What does God think about such a kerfuffle? Does He say, “Ha! Right! Big deal. Sort it out without violence, folks.”
Brazil continues clearing millions of acres of rain forest for agricultural purposes. It endangers the world ecosystem, but it also takes land away from the native tribes who live in the western reaches of the Amazon basin. What does God think about that? Does He say, “Ha! Sort it out, government of Brazil.”
Muslims are killing Christians in Nigeria, and Christians are killing Muslims. God probably doesn’t snort a derisive “Ha!”, but He does say, “Sort it out, and quickly, folks. I want none of my children murdered in my name.”
In Israel, Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar is engaged in what he calls “a battle for the soul of the Jewish people.” He represents Orthodox Judaism in Israel, and up until now, only Orthodox rabbis could perform certain ceremonies, such as weddings or bar mitzvahs. Other rabbis were forbidden to officiate. The government pays the salaries of thousands of Orthodox rabbis. Now they have agreed to pay the salaries of fifteen Reform and Conservative rabbis, and the Orthodox clergy are up in arms. What a joke! I can only suppose God says, “Ha! Right! Big deal. Sort it out, folks.”
Clearly it is not only individual people who sin against God. Nations also do it by how they engage in unjust or unwise or unacceptable practices. Nations bear collective guilt for injustice and merciless behavior, just as you or I or anyone may be guilty of such practices. For any nation to imagine that it is above reproach is truly and tragically laughable.
“But thou, O Lord, dost laugh at them; thou dost hold all the nations in derision.” That includes the state of Israel and the United States of America. “Not for battleship and fortress/ Not for conquests of the sword/ But for conquests of the spirit/ Give we thanks to Thee, O Lord.”