Toward Sunday, September 15, 2013

Season:        Creation -- Sunday 2
Scripture:     Psalm 19
Sermon:       Hear my wisdom

How do I know God?  And how do I know how to live?

The last verse of Psalm 19 suggests that this psalm is all about how we become good people, and scholars once thought it held two different answers -- that Psalm 19 is really made up of two different psalms that at some point were awkwardly stuck together. 

They saw verses 1-6 as one psalm, focused on how "the heavens are telling the glory of God" -- i.e. that Earth by itself speaks a universal "natural theology" that tells all humanity what we need to know about God and how to live, and that everyone can know it by listening closely to the voice of Earth and its life systems.

They saw verses 7-13 as another psalm, talking about how "the law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul" -- i.e. that aside from creation and how it works, there is a special "revealed theology" of laws that God gives to a chosen people to make them good and pleasing to God (and ready for heaven) in a way that others are not.

Between the two I used to believe the second more than (even instead of) the first.  The result was a spiritual snobbery among other people, and a deep dis-connect in my spirit from the life of Earth -- both of which probably still persist.

But what if the two are really not different at all?  What if this has always been one psalm and a single message?

Some scholars now suggest that the key verse of this psalm is verse 3: 

     "There is no speech, nor are there words;
     [the witness of Earth is "just there" for all to hear in their heart];
     their voice is not heard.
     [but we just don't listen]."

Might it be true that Earth and its systems of life really do tell all humanity all we need to know about God and true life, but that a lot of the time we do not listen and God therefore has to tell us more directly with laws about how best to live?

If this is true ... then people who know how to listen to Earth and its systems of life are on the same page as us, we are not necessarily better or more holy than them, and maybe they even have something to teach us ... and the purpose of the laws God gives us is not so much to make us good enough for heaven, but more to make us good enough for proper life on and within Earth.

Wow ... to me, that seems enough for a Monday. 

I know for the rest of the week I'll be thinking about natural and revealed theology ... the meaning of the wisdom of people like the First Nations and other groups more in touch with Earth than I am ... my own disconnect from Earth and whether I can overcome it ... whether the current findings of evolutionary science, the new physics and neuro-science tell us the same thing as God's law ... and whether God is known just as well (or even better) in a garden or on a good hard hike, as in church ...

This is going to be quite a week ... hope it is for you too.  See you Sunday?