Day 17: Psalms 1-50

This is the first day of three days in the Psalms...the hymn book of the Bible.

Extreme Emotion

There are some who call themselves Christians who seem to believe that being Christian is synonymous with being stoic. No matter what happens in your life, you must not show it. You must always keep an even keel. You must always keep your emotions pent up inside or, at the very lease, vent them where no one else can see it. After all, the argument goes, non-Christians might see you get emotional and be turned away from following Jesus. I know these people are out there because I have met some of them (and been scolded by them, too).

As I read through the first 50 psalms, I realized that these kinds of Christians must hate reading the psalms. It must just drive them crazy when they open to the psalms and see little except for raw emotion. Fury, hurt, worry, doubt, pain, etc. are omnipresent throughout these first 50 psalms.

Christianity is not a stoic religion. Christians are not immune to the events and happenstance of life...and the writer(s) of the Psalms make it clear that followers of God are not expected to hide their emotional reactions to the happenings of life. In fact, Christians do a disservice to non-Christians when we hide our emotions. One of the things about being a Christian is taking advantage of the opportunity to model healthy ways of dealing with emotions.

And the Psalms are a good place to start looking for healthy expressions of even the most raw of emotions.

Return of the Preferential Option for the Poor

In the first chunk of Psalms, one theme comes up over and over again - that God cares deeply and specially for the poor, the oppressed, the orphan. One verse stood out in particular - Psalm 9:18 - "But the needy will not be ignored forever; the hopes of the poor will not always be crushed." Can it get any clearer? Is there any way to interpret those words other than as a factual statement that God will look out for the interests of the lowest in society?

I find two lessons in the constant appearance of this theme. First, there is a lesson of comfort for the person is poor and needy. They can take comfort in the words and in the knowledge that no matter what their current situation, God will one day vindicate them.

The second lesson, though, is more apropos to my own situation. There is a word of caution in these verses for the wealthy and privileged. Our time will not last forever. We will not be permitted to forever crush the spirit of the lower classes. No matter what laws we pass or how hard we try, there will come a reckoning where the poor are raised up. Perhaps we should allow that realization to affect the decisions we make today - and spend time working on lifting up the poor while we still have a chance.