Psalm 138

1 I will give thanks to you, O Lord, with my whole heart; before the gods I will sing your praise.
2 I will bow down toward your holy temple and praise your Name, because of your love and faithfulness;
3 For you have glorified your Name and your word above all things.
4 When I called, you answered me; you increased my strength within me.
5 All the kings of the earth will praise you, O Lord, when they have heard the words of your mouth.
6 They will sing of the ways of the Lord, that great is the glory of the Lord.
7 Though the Lord be high, he cares for the lowly; he perceives the haughty from afar.
8 Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you keep me safe; you stretch forth your hand against the fury of my enemies; your right hand shall save me.
9 The Lord will make good his purpose for me; O Lord, your love endures for ever; do not abandon the works of your hands

This year, Monday Matters is focused on wisdom conveyed in the treasures of the book of Psalms. We'll look at the psalms read in church before Monday Matters comes to your screen.

Before the gods I will sing your praise. -Psalm 138:1

This phrase from Psalm 138 (reprinted above) points to the belief reflected in scripture that the biblical people lived in the presence of all kinds of gods. As the children of Israel made their way through the wilderness, headed for the promised land, again and again they were warned: Don’t be taken in by the local gods. We find it not only in the stories of the Hebrew Scriptures, where we run up against Baal and Molech and a bunch of other deities. It also turns up in the New Testament, when Paul goes to Athens (Acts 17…great story…take some time to read it later today) and comments on the various gods worshipped by the Athenians. There’s even a statue to the unknown god, just to cover all bases. We might be tempted to regard this polytheistic way of thinking as quaint. We might think we have outgrown such primitive notions. But it may provide an opportunity to think about the various gods we continue to worship. Where do we, as individuals and as culture, ascribe ultimate value?

I’m almost finished reading a great book (highly recommend) by Samuel Wells, Rector of St. Martins in the Fields in London and former chaplain at Duke. The book is entitled Humbler Faith, Bigger God. As someone who has clearly spent time among smart and skeptical college students, he presents objections to the Christian faith and outlines a way to respond to those objections in order to generate a lively faith, a faith to live by.

There’s a wonderful passage in which he goes through the ten commandments and talks about how each of the commandments addresses the fact that we don’t think we are enough or have enough. That sense of not-enough-ness is timeless. Each of the commandments can identify the fact that we don’t think we have enough.

Covetousness, adultery, bearing false witness among others, can be seen as a belief we do not have enough. When he gets to the first commandment, which says you shall have no other gods before me, that clearly indicates that in life, there are many things we might regard as holy, as ultimate, as worthy of our worship. When we do that, he believes it’s saying that our God is simply not enough.

Not surprisingly, he says it better than I can. Addressing the second commandment (having no idols) he writes:

Surely the psychology of this is that God is not enough – not big enough, or at least not near enough. So shall I make a god I can relate to, a god my size – a car perhaps, a career maybe, even the scales that tell me how much I weigh. And now we’re getting nearer the heart of the problem. There’s an abiding anxiety that we don’t have enough – not enough property, not enough time, not enough love, not enough language. But the heart of the matter is that we feel we don’t have enough God.

He then writes, in God’s voice:

I am a God of abundance, who gives you more than enough, far more than you could ever want or need, who created galaxies no one may ever see, who has depths of forgiveness no sinner may ever require, who gives in Jesus more love than you could ever realize.

The author of Psalm 138 recognizes there are other gods we might turn to, perhaps more accessible. But that author offers a bigger picture, moving into unfettered praise of the God of creation. That psalmist had glimpses of a god who all the kings will praise, and at the same time great enough to pay attention to the lowly.

J.B. Phillips wrote a wonderful, small book called Your God Is Too Small. I think that’s what Mr Wells is after. A bigger picture. How can we arrive at that broader view, that singular focus this week? No other gods. Jesus said: Seek first the kingdom of God and all these other things will be added to you.

There may be a course correction needed as we all contend with divided attention. We may not have chapels in our homes dedicated to the worship of Baal, but I venture a guess that we all are pulled in many directions. With awareness of that, we shift our focus to gratitude for all good gifts around us, with awe for the beauty of creation, with worship of a God who does far more than we can ever imagine, a God from whose love we can never be separated.

-Jay Sidebotham