Photo by Devon Beard - Unsplash
Karen Hollis | May 12, 2024
Easter 7
Psalm 1 Happy are they who know good and do good. Their love for the good feeds them continually. They are like trees planted near the river, whose roots go deep and wide. They thrive, bear fruit in season, and weather drought without wilting. Those who are not so grounded will blow around like dry leaves in the wind. Root yourself in Good, and live.
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be reflections of your word to us today, in Christ’s name we pray. Amen
I watched a documentary the other day about a river that had a dam removed maybe 10 years ago. They told the story of salmon returning to the river and bringing nutrients from the ocean up into the forest and feeding a whole ecosystem. Trees living nearby have everything they need because of ancient relationships that still provide nourishment today . . . the author of Psalm 1 knows that a tree living by a stream will never lack for goodness.
Psalm 1 is included in the Wisdom literature of the ancient Near East, which reflects on what it is to live well . . . the impact of living in relationship with what Christine Robinson refers as the “good,” which seems to be the many expressions of God that ground us in things like love, justice, dignity, interdependency, generosity, collaboration.
I gently and humbly suggest this morning that through our liberal/progressive Christian lens, we find and learn from the good through the two books of scripture. The two books are creation and the collection of texts that make up the Bible.
Creation is God’s first book, from whom the good pours forth. From bees gathering pollen to the snow-specked mountains, from the symbiotic relationship between stream and forest, to gatherings of humans in community, the Word of God is everywhere.
The second book of scripture, as we understand it is the collection of God-inspired human documents we call the Bible . . . and certainly some texts that didn’t make it into the Bible.
I took a class in school on the Abrahamic religions – the faith traditions who hold up Abraham as their first prophet – Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. During her introduction to the class, the professor shared with us the varying definitions of scripture across the three religions.
In Christianity, we define scripture as these words written on a page that we can pull from our shelves.
In Hebrew, the word for scripture means “that which is read.” So, Judaism views scripture not just as a collection of texts, but as something with which people engage.
In Arabic “Quran” means “that which is recited or proclaimed.” So, scripture in Islam is something that is read out publicly. The full understanding of God’s second set of scripture in the Abrahamic tradition is something that is written down, read/studied, and proclaimed.
Scripture is more than a book we hold in our hands. To affirm its fullness, we engage with it and proclaim it when we gather.
Biblical scholar, Michael Fishbane once referred to scripture as rescued responses to the initiating presence of God in human history. These stories, while imperfect, are already infused with the human/Divine relationship. They are a source of the good in the way they help us engage with our own humanity, interpret us at times and help us see ourselves in a new way, and are a vehicle for the Holy Spirit to speak into our lives.
The books themselves come from different sources, time periods, and range in level of divine inspiration. They contain sources of wisdom, and in some places are devastatingly human.
For us, who live in the wake of colonization, slavery, residential schools . . . contexts where scripture was used to oppress, shame, dehumanize . . . we see every day the impact of using it irresponsibly. With courage, we pause, reflect, and acknowledge what was done.
It’s important for us to differentiate between the word of God in scripture and human interpretations of the texts that, when acted on, have been tragic for our Earth and First People’s of this land.
So, when we pick up the text to study, and proclaim, we know the way we engage matters. We get curious about the texts themselves and what they were saying in their time and place. We do our best to read them through lenses of the good. Sometimes we learn from our texts, sometimes talk back, sometimes we find company and receive nourishment. We engage with scripture not because there is a set of edicts that, if we simply follow them, will lead us to a life of happiness – we know that’s not true – these texts from help us engage with one another and name our truth. It is in this kind of conversation with community, with history, with the possibilities of today that we shape our world.1
Engaging with text and community doesn’t provide everything we need to be fully human. We also need that connection with God’s first book of creation. We might walk through the forest or along the beach and remember that we are One with all creation. We might plant ourselves for a moment in a stream, feeling the cool on our feet, as we breathe in the good and release to the stream our anger at residential schools, breathe in the good and release fear about our climate, breathe in the good and release our grief at what has been done in the name of the Living Christ.
Like the first book of scripture, who opens their beauty to us all the more when we remember we are kin, the second book of scripture becomes a playground when we remember that we belong to these stories and they belong to us. We can get out pen and paper, engage our imaginations, partner with the risen Christ or the movement of the Holy Spirit and play with language until the text of our ancestors just sings into our own context. Hear is one such version of Psalm 1 from enfleshed.
Psalm 1 – enfleshed, with edits by Karen Hollis
Happy are those who do not follow the advice of church leaders who support residential schools, or sit in the seat of those who scoff at “non-traditional” sources of sacred wisdom; but their delight is in all sources of God’s love and justice enfleshed around, manifesting differently today. They meditate day and night on the guidance of Truth and Reconciliation, on the poetry of queer people, on the flesh of mothers, of grandmothers, of daughters, cis and trans, on the stories of trees and creatures and land neglected.
They, the ones whose community of God is anyone and everyone seeking life and freedom and wisdom beyond what the individual self can contain. Seeking forms of accountability that address lineages of power and tendencies to repeat cycles of harm and trauma and self-hate. They, the ones who keep asking more of God’s Word and each other than any flat and static relationship can endure. They are the ones who stand in God’s first book of creation as a member of the family. They are like trees planted by streams of water. Yielding fruit for the season, meeting the needs of the times, prospering in justice and love. They do not decay or grow stale. Their leaves do not wither but change with the season.”2
1 enfleshed Oct 25, 2020
2 enfleshed October 25, 2020, with edits by Karen Hollis