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I come from a branch of Protestant Christianity that promoted the singing of all 150 Psalms. An exciting chapter in my life was ten years spent on a denominational committee to “revise and improve” our Psalter Hymnal. That assignment shaped my appreciation of the interplay between the psalms and public worship.
The tradition in which I was raised and my precious second home in the Episcopal Church have in common the fact that hymn singing has become more popular than the psalms. And it’s only about half of the psalms that play any significant role in worship.
Today’s reading from Psalm 106 is a good example of the ones we mostly ignore. The “history” psalms are neglected just as we neglect the large number of “complaint” psalms that give voice to our laments and doubts.
Psalms 105 and 106 are a pair. They are history psalms, meant to remind and teach in those years after the return from captivity in Babylon. They take two paths for that instruction: Ps 105 is full of the joy and praise for the long story of God’s saving acts. Ps 106 complements that joy with a recitation of the long story of stubbornness, grumbling, and disobedience on the part of God’s people: at the Red Sea, during the years in the wilderness, in their syncretistic compromises with the local religions in Canaan, in the sinfulness that led to being conquered by Babylon – a long story of failure to live into and up to the goodness of God.
I wonder if there were families among those who returned to rebuild Jerusalem who suggested that it was not helpful to sing these reminders of the long history of failing to do what God requires. Why make our children feel bad about the past? Whatever the context, the priests determined that these recitations were important for shaping the prayers and obedience of the people.
Israel made a bull-calf at Horeb *
and worshiped a molten image;
And so they exchanged their Glory *
for the image of an ox that feeds on grass.
They forgot God their Savior, *
who had done great things in Egypt,
Wonderful deeds in the land of Ham, *
and fearful things at the Red Sea.
So God would have destroyed them,
had not Moses his chosen stood before God in the breach, *
to turn away God’s wrath from consuming them.
Wow! There was even a time when Moses did what Abraham had done in the old days – argue with God that it was better to be patient with the disobedient than to punish them.
Jack Reiffer
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