11/1/23

IT’S FALL!  Not only looks like it, but feels like it. And when the weather gets nippy, the sumac and the sugar maples turn red and the oaks and the hickories blaze with gold, my mind turns to Psalm 65. 
Psalm 65  invites us to pull our heads away from our phones, our tablets, our TV screens or whatever, look around and celebrate the greatness of God. 

We’re tempted to think of God’s presence as being limited to the church building or to our services – and that’s where the Psalmist begins. The temple is where God is praised as the one who answers prayer, and forgives transgressions, and those who live there are blessed:

Praise is due to you, O God, in Zion; 
   and to you shall vows be performed,
. . . 
Blessed are those whom you choose 
   and bring near to live in your courts. 
We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house, 
   your holy temple.

But wait! There’s more! The Psalmist invites us outside of the temple, to look far beyond the temple to the very ends of the earth: 

You are the hope of all the ends of the earth
   and of the farthest seas.
By your strength you established the mountains;
   you are girded with might.
You silence the roaring of the seas,
   the roaring of their waves,
   the tumult of the peoples.
Those who live at earth’s farthest bounds are awed by your signs;
   you make the gateways of the morning and the evening shout for joy.

We all are taken by the beauty of a sunrise, but the Psalmist looks at sunrise and sunset and sees something we miss: a shout for joy (the literalists among us are thinking, “I look at the sunset and I don’t hear a thing,” I’ll get to you in a second). 

And not only that (and this gets to my favorite part of the Psalm), but every soybean, cotton boll, cornstalk, wild-flower we drive by is the work of God himself. For the psalmist, rain is not just a matter of water droplets getting too heavy to stay in the clouds, but it is the Master-Gardener Himself watering the ground to make the earth fruitful: 

You visit the earth and water it,
   you greatly enrich it;
the river of God is full of water;
   you provide the people with grain,
   for so you have prepared it.
You water its furrows abundantly,
   settling its ridges,
softening it with showers,
  and blessing its growth.
You crown the year with your bounty;
   your wagon tracks overflow with richness.
The pastures of the wilderness overflow,
   the hills gird themselves with joy,
the meadows clothe themselves with flocks,
   the valleys deck themselves with grain,
   they shout and sing together for joy. 

Not only is the psalmist inviting us to see the life-giving presence of God in all of creation, but we’re also invited to see that this world filled with God-given life is constantly praising God. How? Just by being what it is. The mountains, the sea and the sun all fulfill their role in God’s creation. And the Psalmist looks out and sees that every mountain or cotton field or even the little orchid on my windowsill “sing together for joy” by simply doing and being what it was created to do and be!   

Again, I can hear the literalists saying, “You’re being ridiculous. How can they praise God - they don’t have mouths.” Yes, but let’s go back to verse 1 for a moment. From the KJV down to the ESV, most of our translations translate verse 1 similarly to the NRSV: “Praise is due to you, O God, in Zion.” But there’s something missing: the Hebrew word, dumiyah, means “silence,” and is usually left out or emended to something like “wait,” as in “Praise awaits you, our God, in Zion” (NIV). Why? No clue. The NASB at least makes this awkward attempt: “There will be silence before You, and praise in Zion.”  

The more literal translation works just fine: “To you, silence is praise, God, in Zion.” Yes, the Psalmist is inviting us to look up. . .  but the Psalmist is also inviting us to shut up! The subject of the poem, God’s greatness, is beyond what language can express. Commenting on this verse, the medieval scholar Rashi, wrote, “The praises of infinite God can never be exhausted. Silence is his most eloquent praise, since elaboration must leave glaring omissions.” 

The silent praise of creation is powerfully portrayed in the opening verses of  Psalm 19:

The heavens are telling the glory of God;
   and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours forth speech,
   and night to night declares knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words;
   their voice is not heard;
yet their voice goes out through all the earth,
   and their words to the end of the world. 

The gateways of the rising and setting sun shout for joy, the meadows and valleys sing together with joy, the heavens are telling the glory of God, and, yet, none of them make a sound! They praise God by doing and being what they were created to do and be. Maybe that’s the invitation behind our psalm: we praise God best not when we’re singing but when we’re being.  

We’ve had a very dry season, so maybe this Fall isn’t our prettiest, but still nature is putting on its best for an annual celebration of God’s goodness and is inviting us to join the party - but leave the noisemakers at home. Silent awe in the face of the splendors around us may be the perfect praise. “To you, silence is praise, O God.”