Christ Our Strength: Psalm 18
THE SEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY
Without a doubt, St. Augustine is my favorite theologian, and I have several, by the way, but he, by far, has and continues to shape my religion. Historian Robert Louis Wilken said of Augustine, "It is not hyperbolic to say that during his lifetime he was the most intelligent man in the Mediterranean world…Augustine surpasses measurement. More than any other Christian author in the early centuries, he is a world." I believe I'm on stable ground when I state that few Christians have influenced how the Church talks and thinks about God more than St. Augustine.
The Bishop of Hippo was ordained in the year 391 and died on August 28th, in the year 430, serving Christ's Church for nearly 40 years. And over that time, he wrote volumes and volumes of books, letters, catechisms, commentaries, and sermons. In fact, the first homily he ever preached was on the Psalms. Augustine loved the Psalms. The next time you read his Confessions, note how often he cites the Psalter (over 220 times), citing the Psalms far more frequently than other biblical or literary sources. In fact, Augustine's most prolonged work was his running commentary on the Psalms, reflecting upon and drawing from them his entire life and ministry and didn't finish his commentary until the year 418: that's a twenty-six-year project on the Psalms, which, by the way, ended up being the largest work written in Christian antiquity. Augustine records his sheer delight when he first began using the Psalms for prayer.
What utterances sent I up unto You, my God, when I read the Psalms of David, those faithful songs and sounds of devotion which exclude all swelling of spirit, when new to Your true love…What utterances used I to send up unto You in those Psalms, and how was I inflamed towards You by them, and burned to rehearse them, if it were possible, throughout the whole world, against the pride of the human race!… I read the fourth Psalm in that time of my leisure — how that Psalm wrought upon me…when I spoke by and for myself before You, out of the private feelings of my soul (Confessions, Book IX).
For Augustine, the psalmist's words were, in some way, his words; what David, or Moses, and Asaph, Solomon, and the other authors of the Psalms expressed through inspired hymns spoke to Augustine's soul. Because the Psalms speak on a universal level, they speak for humanity, articulating the joys and struggles of being human in a world so desperately in need of redemption. In particular, they speak to covenantal life; the joys and disappointments of walking with God; the doubts and frustrations with him or his people; you see, David speaks not only for himself but for all of God's people, which is why Christians so easily find themselves within the psalms and the words to express what is often inexpressible yet reflecting who and how we are at any given moment in this Christian life. Augustine said, "If the Psalm prays, you pray; if it laments, you lament; if it exults, you rejoice; if it hopes, you hope; if it fears, you fear. Everything written here is a mirror for us.”
But the uncanny alignment between the Psalter and human experience is rooted in something far deeper and more real than common human experience. The Psalms are grounded in the true and perfect humanity, humanity which resides within perfect Divinity. You see, the referential center of the Psalter is the person of Jesus Christ because, as the creator of all humanity and having united himself to humanity through the incarnation, Jesus is the voice of the Psalter. Jesus is the "blessed man" of Psalm 1, who walks in the way of righteousness and flourishes over death. His is the name of Psalm 34 to be praised "forever in our mouths;" Our defense against the noonday darkness and night terrors of Psalm 91, who gathers us under his wings, safely nestled in his feathers. Jesus is "the new song" of Psalm 98, the Warrior King who fights for Israel, celebrated in Psalm 76, who arose to help all the meek upon the earth, alluding to the great victory over death when Christ burst forth from the grave, for death could not contain him. You see, we have turned to the Psalms this Trinitytide because we need to find Christ, to see his face, and to hear his word; only then will we experience any real and lasting growth in the Christian life- which is our great enterprise; to grow in holiness unto perfection until our savior returns on the cloud for the consummation of our salvation.
"I will love thee, O Lord, my strength." I don't think I could devise a more succinct and encompassing statement defining the goal of our sanctification. "I will love thee, O Lord." Isn't this the goal of all Christian spirituality, service, and religion? Isn't all of this working towards this one end: to love the Lord? But why is it so difficult to love him? Why does he compete for our attention, our presence, our devotion? In a sense, the answer is simple: sin. That's not incorrect, but a great deal more could be said. Ultimately, Augustine shows from Scripture that our love is broken because we desire wrongly and suffer from a kind of spiritual schizophrenia. St. James, in his epistle, calls it δίψυχος (the double-minded; the unstable person). Paul speaks of it experientially, confessing, "For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate... For I have the desire to do what is right but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing" (Rm 7:15-19). In our daily prayers, we confess that "we have left undone those things which ought to have done; And we have done those things which ought not to have done, and there is no health in us" (BCP,23): δίψυχος. And yet, nowhere in the canon does Scripture give us a pass because of this spiritual diagnosis. In fact, we are told quite the opposite. Listen to what the Apostle says to the baptized in Romans chapter Six,
How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
He continues,
We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin.” Now listen to this, "so you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you since you are not under law but under grace.
By grace, we have been brought from life to death; by grace, we have been removed under the dominion of sin and enslaved to Christ; by grace, we have regained the capacity to choose righteousness, to chose NOT TO SIN, and the empowerment to overcome those many temptations and proclivities which complicate the Christian life. Divine grace and human will work together; it's a profound mystery, but it is reality. Therefore St. Peter exhorts us to "strive to make our calling in election sure" (2 Pt 1:10), and another apostle, along these same lines, exhorts "to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you to will and to act on behalf of His good purpose" (Phil 2:12b-13). We struggle to love God because that old nature (that which is being repaired) is still hanging around; our love is being healed but easily divided because we remain divided in body, soul, mind, and will. Loving God begins and remains through a conscious act of the will: "I will love thee, O Lord." Love compels action; we pursue what we love, and what we love, we desire; we want to obtain to have and hold that which we say we love. I love my grandchildren, so I long to see them. I love my wife and miss her when we're apart. I love my dog and can't wait to take her for a walk tonight. Again, love is compelled by desire, and actions ensue.
There are two other aspects of love: a knowing or knowledge of the beloved and a very clear understanding of the value or the benefit received by loving them: so, knowing and benefit. Once again, think of anything or person, and your love is regulated by how what you know about them and what their value is to you: everything falls somewhere on this scale; your work, your car, your phone, your spouse, your Church, and even, your Lord, Jesus Christ. In the Hebrew text, Psalm 18 (BCP, 359) is introduced as follows, "For the music director, by the Lord's servant David, who sang to the Lord the words of this song when the Lord rescued him from the power of all his enemies, including Saul." In 2 Samuel chapter 22, you'll find the first version of this Psalm sung by David immediately after defeating the Philistines at Gath when Jonathan (David's brother) slew "a man of great stature, who had six fingers on each hand, and six toes on each foot, twenty-four in number, and he also was descended from the giants" (21:20-21).
Psalm 18, which adapts the text from 2 Samuel 22, is the hymn of an old king at the end of life, reflecting upon the Lord of his deliverance, who helped him from his youth up to overcome not one giant but two and protected him, Saul, who sought his life for over those forty years. "I will love thee Lord, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my stony rock and my defense." Perhaps it's his old age, but David has come to realize his utter weakness, especially in the face of his enemies. Both David and Paul knew the cure for weakness: "I will love Thee, O Lord, my strength," which is to say, "I can do all things through Christ, who strengthened me." David loves God because God loved David. God's love for David was demonstrated in saving him from the hand of his enemies. And wouldn't we say the same of our Lord Jesus Christ? Who loved us before we loved him by laying his life down for us? The almighty, eternal son who made himself weak for us and for our salvation. Contemplate the weakness of this Man of Sorrows, who bore a weakness that marked His whole earthly life; weakness was his companion in the cradle, suffering hunger and thirst in the desert and tiring from many journeys. And finally becoming weak on the Cross, and by that one final sentence, "It is finished," turned every divine weakness into everlasting life. Weakness was never so rewarded as that day when Jesus hung upon Calvary's Cross. Because he who was raised upon it loved the Father and trusted him with his very life. Listen to the Psalm and put these words in Jesus' mouth,
4 The sorrows of death compassed me, * and the overflowings of ungodliness made me afraid. 5 The pains of hell came about me; * the snares of death overtook me. 6 In my trouble I called upon the LORD, * and complained unto my God: 7 So he heard my voice out of his holy temple, * and my complaint came before him; it entered even into his ears. 17 He sent down from on high to fetch me, * and took me out of many waters. 18 He delivered me from my strongest enemy, and from them which hate me; * for they were too mighty for me. 19 They came upon me in the day of my trouble; * but the LORD was my upholder. 20 He brought me forth also into a place of liberty; * he brought me forth, even because he had a favor unto me.
Thus Jesus fulfilled the very words of David: "I will love thee, O Lord my strength." Though truly experienced and composed by David, ultimately, these are the words of Christ, which is why they are our words as well because Jesus is our Savior who saves us from the power of the devil; our Defense because, in him, our weakness is made strong; our Stony Rock to support us when we stand against the world, the flesh, and the Devil; and our Strength, who crowns us when we fight.
Christian, without Jesus in your life, you are weak and defenseless- you will not overcome this world by might nor by power, but by the Spirit of the Living God, the Spirit of Christ in you. Beloved Jesus is our Savior in Baptism, our Defense in repentance, our Stony Rock by patience, and our Strength by his once for all victory on the Cross. How are weaklings to wage war in the battle for the soul? Love. "I will love thee, O Lord, my strength," today, tomorrow, and tomorrow, even to the end of my life. Loving God is the weaponry of the weak. So let us be content to be weak in this world knowing and loving Christ, that hereafter, in that moment of death, when our warfare is accomplished, our infirmity may also be abolished forever! Amen+
