READING THE BOOK OF PSALMS
PART XLIX
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Psalm 68
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Psalm 68 is either the most difficult entry in the Psalter or one of the most difficult psalms, depending on the Biblical scholar with whom one agrees. The disjointed text contains 15 words found nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible, plus many words rare in that canon. Psalm 68, which reads like a series of first lines of psalms, describes the divine victory over God’s foes and affirms Jerusalem’s status as the place of divine dominion.
Psalm 68 does have a coherent message, though:
The reign of God is never fully manifested; it is always opposed. The people of Israel and Jerusalem were regularly assaulted; Jesus was crucified. Or, to put it in slightly different terms, the proclamation of God’s reign is always polemical. For the psalmist, to say that Yahweh is sovereign means that Baal is not. For first-century Christians, to say that Jesus is Lord meant that Caesar is not. For contemporary Christians, to say that God rules the world, and that Jesus is Lord is to deny ultimacy and ultimate allegiance to a host of other claims–national security, political parties, economic systems, ethnic heritage, job, family, self. Indeed, the underlying temptation represented by Baalism is perhaps more prevalent than ever–that is, to conclude that human beings can manipulate the deity and thus ensure security by our own efforts.
–J. Clinton McCann, Jr., in The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. 4 (1996), 947
The illusion of control may be near the top of the list of most common idols. This illusion feeds our egos and creates and exacerbates a plethora of unnecessary problems. Indeed, to accept the sovereignty of God entails surrendering other sources of identity. In some contexts, to accept to accept the sovereignty of God may make on a traitor, as in the case of Christians for centuries during the Roman imperial period. In the context of the Roman imperial cult:
Christianity was, quite unambiguously, a cosmic sedition.
–David Bentley Hart, Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies (2009), 124
And the Book of Revelation, which denounces the Roman Empire as being Satanic, constitutes treason against the Roman Empire. The Apocalypse of John is not a go-along, get-along text.
Our identities as people of God are properly rooted in God. God properly and fully defines us. Our accomplishments do not properly and fully define us. Neither do our socio-economic status, our careers, our partisan affiliations, our cultures, our skin colors, our genders, or anything else. And we depend on God. Can we handle these truths?
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
JANUARY 23, 2023 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF SAINT JOHN THE ALMSGIVER, PATRIARCH OF ALEXANDRIA
THE FEAST OF CHARLES KINGSLEY, ANGLICAN PRIEST, NOVELIST, AND HYMN WRITER
THE FEAST OF EDWARD GRUBB, ENGLISH QUAKER AUTHOR, SOCIAL REFORMER, AND HYMN WRITER
THE FEAST OF GEORGE A. BUTTRICK, ANGLO-AMERICAN PRESBYTERIAN MINISTER AND BIBLICAL SCHOLAR; AND HIS SON, DAVID G. BUTTRICK, U.S. PRESBYTERIAN THEN UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST MINISTER, THEOLOGIAN, AND LITURGIST
THE FEAST OF JAMES D. SMART, CANADIAN PRESBYTERIAN MINISTER AND HYMN WRITER
THE FEAST OF PHILLIPS BROOKS, EPISCOPAL BISHOP OF MASSACHUSETTS, AND HYMN WRITER
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BLOGA THEOLOGICA 
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