Psalm 29

1 Ascribe to the Lord, you gods, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.

2 Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his Name; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.

3 The voice of the Lord is upon the waters; the God of glory thunders; the Lord is upon the mighty waters.

4 The voice of the Lord is a powerful voice; the voice of the Lord is a voice of splendor.

5 The voice of the Lord breaks the cedar trees; the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon;

6 He makes Lebanon skip like a calf, and Mount Hermon like a young wild ox.

7 The voice of the Lord splits the flames of fire; the voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness; the Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.

8 The voice of the Lord makes the oak trees writhe and strips the forests bare.

9 And in the temple of the Lord, all are crying, "Glory!"

10 The Lord sits enthroned above the flood; the Lord sits enthroned as King for evermore.

11 The Lord shall give strength to his people; the Lord shall give his people the blessing of peace.

(This year, Monday Matters will focus 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. Please note that these days in the church, there are two tracks of readings in the lectionary, offering a choice of psalms. Your church may or may not have read the psalm included in this email.)

he psalm reprinted in this email, a psalm in the lectionary line-up for yesterday, seems focused on the voice of the Lord, so let’s think this Monday morning about that voice. How have you heard it?

The way the psalm presents it, on first reading, I imagined the voice of the Lord as similar to the voice of the Wizard of Oz. Booming and knee-quakingly terrifying. No doubt about it, there is great power in the voice of the Lord, as all of creation came into being through the spoken word of the Holy One. But think with me about some of the other places in scripture where the voice of the Lord is heard. 

In the midst of his daily, and I assume mind-numbingly boring job as wilderness shepherd, the voice of the Lord came to Moses through a bush that burned but was not consumed. Lesson here: the voice of the Lord meets us right where we are.

In the cave where he fled because Jezebel, the queen of mean, was out to kill him, Elijah heard the voice of the Lord. That voice was not in fire or earthquake or storm. It was in a still small voice, or as one translation puts it, in the sound of sheer silence. Imagine what that was like. Lesson here: the voice of the Lord often comes when we simply try to be still.

Yesterday in church, we read about another occasion when the voice of the Lord was heard. As Jesus emerges from Jordan waters, whether he was dunked like a Southern Baptist or discreetly sprinkled like an Episcopalian, a voice from heaven spoke, with a message of grace: This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. The voice that begins the season of Epiphany is heard again on the last Sunday of the season, when atop the Mount of Transfiguration, the voice from heaven again declares the belovedness of Jesus.

Do you see what’s happening here? The voice of the Lord indeed has awesome transformative power but it need not be seen as a voice that causes fear. It’s a voice that meets us where we are, often heard in a moment of quiet peace, with a message of belovedness.

If you want a good project for Epiphany, read a book by Henri Nouwen called Life of the Beloved. (It's mercifully succinct, i.e., short.) He explains the Christian faith to someone outside of the faith. He bases his presentation on the voice heard when Jesus was baptised. Nouwen asserts that the voice heard by Jesus is a voice we can hear addressed to us as well. He writes to this friend:

“All I want to say to you is “You are the Beloved,” and all I hope is that you can hear these words as spoken to you with all the tenderness and force that love can hold. My only desire is to make these words reverberate in every corner of your being – “You are the Beloved.” The greatest gift my friendship can give to you is the gift of your Belovedness.’

The psalm tell us that there is transformative power in the voice of the Lord. It’s hard to imagine a more transformative force in our lives than the news that the God of creation regards each one of us as beloved. The God whose character is love shines that love on us in a powerful way that can free us from fear. It shines that love on us in a way that we can share it, letting our life be guided by the goal of loving God with all our being, and loving neighbor as self. 

In a world where voices of hate aspire to be a winning political strategy, Christians are called to listen for a different voice. Ask God to let you hear that voice this week in some new and transformative way.

 -Jay Sidebotham