READING THE BOOK OF PSALMS

PART XLVI

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Psalms 63 and 73

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Psalms 63 and 73 are similar to each other; they express faith in God, come from circumstances of affliction, and insist that the wicked will reap what they have sown.

The dubious superscription of Psalm 63 links the text to a time when David was hiding in the wilderness of Judah and people were trying to kill him.  This may refer to a portion of the reign of King Saul.  Alternatively, Absalom’s rebellion works as a context for the superscription.  Yet the psalm is a general lament from someone in mortal danger from human beings.  And who is the king in the last verse?  Is the king God or a mortal?  Is this verse original to Psalm 63?  Your guesses are as good as mine, O reader.

The superscription of Psalm 73 attributes the text to Asaph, a Levite and the choir director at the Temple in Jerusalem.  I do know if this attribution is historically accurate.  That question may be irrelevant anyway.  For your information, O reader, the Asaph psalms are numbers 50, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 79, 80, 81, 82, and 83.

The psalmist–perhaps Asaph–notices how many wicked people flourish.  He reports having doubted the purpose of remaining faithful until he visited the Temple.  The psalmist concludes that God will remain faithful to the pious and that the wicked will go to destruction.  This is mostly repetitive from other psalms, so I need not delve into that territory again, in this post.

Instead, I focus on the positive influence of religious institutions and congregations.  Rugged individualism is not a spiritual virtue.  We all rely upon God and each other.  We need faith community to teach and support us in paths of God.  This is why toxic faith and abusive and hateful religious institutions are so harmful; they drive people away from God and damage those whom they deceive.  Many people project their bigotry and spiritual blindness onto God.  In so doing, they create a mockery of religion that violates the Golden Rule.  Yet positive, loving faith community embraces the Golden Rule.

If God has created us in his image, we have returned him the favor.

–François-Marie Arouet, a.k.a. Voltaire (1694-1778)

I, as an Anglican-Lutheran-Catholic Episcopalian with liberal tendencies in South Georgia, U.S.A., belong to a visible minority.  I may belong to the one congregation in my county where I can speak my mind theologically without prompting either (a) concerns that I may be a damned heretic, or (b) certainty of that opinion, with (c) suspicions that I am too Catholic, tacked onto either (a) or (b). The growing influence of Eastern Orthodox spirituality within me places me more out of step with most of my neighbors and renders me more alien to the spirituality of the majority of nearby congregations.  Certainly, I belong to the one congregation in my county I can feel comfortable joining.  If I were a Low Church Protestant with liberal tendencies, I could choose from a handful of congregations.  So, given my spiritual and religious reality, I understand the importance of faith community.  My congregation, which helps to keep me grounded spiritually, is precious to me.

We human beings are social creatures.  Even I, an introvert, am a social being.  My personality type does not exempt me from evolutionary psychology.  Faith is simultaneously individual and communal.  Individual faith exists within the framework of a community.  The two forms of faith interact.  So, a solo person who claims to be “spiritual but not religious” pursues a nebulous path to nowhere.

May we, by grace, understand how much we rely on God and each other.  Then may we act accordingly.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

JANUARY 20, 2023 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF SAINT FABIAN, BISHOP OF ROME, AND MARTYR, 250

THE FEAST OF SAINTS EUTHYMIUS THE GREAT AND THEOCTISTUS, ROMAN CATHOLIC ABBOTS

THE FEAST OF GREVILLE PHILLIMORE, ENGLISH PRIEST, HYMN WRITER, AND HYMN TRANSLATOR

THE FEAST OF HAROLD A. BOSLEY, UNITED METHODIST MINISTER AND BIBLICAL SCHOLAR

THE FEAST OF HARRIET AUBER, ANGLICAN HYMN WRITER

THE FEAST OF RICHARD ROLLE, ENGLISH ROMAN CATHOLIC SPIRITUAL WRITER

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