Hilton Head Island, SC – January 22, 2012
The Chapel Without Walls
Psalm 22:1-18,22-31
A Sermon by John M. Miller
The Psalm Text Series – Text – For dominion belongs to God, and he rules over the nations. – Psalm 22:28 (RSV)
Along with almost half of the Psalms, Psalm 22 is identified as a Psalm of David. It begins with words which are far more familiar to most Christians than to most Jews, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
We know this verse, because we remember that it was spoken by Jesus on the cross. Curiously, we have two versions of what Jesus literally said from the cross. In Mark, the oldest Gospel, he is quoted as saying, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” In Matthew (27:46) he says, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” The first is Aramaic, the second is Hebrew. Aramaic is a Semitic language which was actually older than Hebrew. It was spoken by the people around Judah, but the Israelites in Judah itself spoke Hebrew. Further, by the time of Jesus, Hebrew was no longer the common language of Judean Jews; by then they also spoke Aramaic.
This raises a question. When Jesus recited the first verse of Psalm 22, was he saying it in Aramaic or in Hebrew? If he was reciting the scripture verse itself, he would have used Hebrew, because that is how he would have remembered it from the Nazarene synagogue as a boy. There the language of ritual was still Hebrew, as it still is here in Congregation Beth Yam. But if Jesus was thinking the meaning of this scriptural verse, he would have said it in Aramaic, because that was the language he used in everyday speech. The question of which language Jesus used on the cross makes a difference, but not an enormous difference. You can choose whichever answer you like. For whatever it is worth, I suspect Jesus said Psalm 22:1 in Aramaic. He was truly feeling forsaken by God, and therefore he voiced that feeling in the words he would have spoken on a daily basis.
Whichever alternative we choose, what might God have said to Jesus in answer? Did God forsake Jesus on the cross? For an agonizing instant, Jesus may have thought so. But did God forsake Jesus? If so, how could God truly reign in that moment?
Psalm 22 is presumably the thoughts of King David on the kingship of God. In Psalm 22 David wasn’t postulating about reign or rule on general; he, the king, was postulating about God’s reign and rule. David was feeling put upon when he wrote this Psalm, and he wondered what God was going to do about it. If He was God, and if God reigns, wouldn’t He prevent David’s enemies from berating and shaming him? “I am a worm, and no man, scorned by men, and despised by the people” (22:6).
That’s the question, isn’t it? How can God reign when things are collapsing all around us? How can we believe, as our sermon text declares, “For dominion belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations,” if God doesn’t seem to rule, and He doesn’t appear to be reigning?
If we are to be honest with ourselves, we must admit that there are certain existential problems regarding the reign of God. There are political issues, moral issues, and religious issues. Under the topic of political issues, for example, we can think of such countries as Syria, Somalia, Iran, or Uzbekistan. In each of these countries, ruthless dictators govern, yearly killing hundreds or thousands of their fellow citizens, and nothing prevents it, least of all God. Why? Where is the kingdom of God in such circumstances?
Individual people are faced with moral quandaries, both political and personal, regarding God’s reign. Where was God when outgoing Governor of Mississippi Haley Barbour pardoned a couple hundred convicted murderers, rapists, robbers, and other criminals? How could a God who rules allow that? Where was God when the ship sank off the western coast of Italy? How could a reigning deity allow that?
There are religious matters involved in the reign of God as well. Can God be in charge when religious extremists act in extreme ways? Is it just if extremists should take control of any government and decree that no woman may have an abortion under any circumstances, even when there has been forced incest or rape? Where is God when Israeli religious settlers kill Palestinians on the West Bank in what the Palestinians insist is their own land? How could God permit that West Bank settler years ago to kill Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli prime minister who was seeking to establish peace between Israelis and Palestinians? Where was God when Islamist extremists commandeered four airplanes and killed almost three thousand Americans plus other people of other nationalities, including Muslims, on 9/11? Does God truly reign?
The most important and frequently-expressed concept in the teachings of Jesus was what he called “the kingdom of God.” Many of his parables were meant to explain aspects of God’s kingdom. Large blocks of quotes included in the Gospels are devoted to Jesus’ understanding of what the kingdom of God is.
In numerous instances Jesus seemed to suggest that the kingdom of God was something that had not yet come fully into existence. It would be ushered in at the end of time through a great apocalyptic and eschatological divine act of God. Jesus had no doubt that God was king, but he believed God’s kingdom had not been completely established.
On the other hand, Jesus also indicated that we, you and I, can help usher in God’s reign right now by how we live our lives. When we give food to a hungry stranger, when we offer a cup of cold water in God’s name, there the kingdom is made manifest.
Well, which is it: God’s reign is coming at some future eschatological moment, or it is already here and we are agents for solidifying its foundations? If God’s kingdom isn’t properly realized yet, does God truly reign? And if God’s reign depends on what we do, have we done enough to establish it?
In 1924 William Alexander Percy wrote a short poem about Jesus’ disciples called “They cast their nets in Galilee.” In 1941 David Williams set it to music, and it became a minor-key and sadly not-well-known hymn. The final stanza declares, “The peace of God, it is no peace/ But strife closed in the sod/ Yet, brothers, pray for but one thing -/ The marvelous peace of God.”
The kingdom of God, His reign, is synonymous to what that hymn text says about the peace of God. When God reigns, things do not necessarily go flawlessly. In fact, God’s rule can render our lives much more difficult and demanding than if He didn’t rule. Nevertheless, the reign of God is the best and most hope-filled reality we can pray for. When God reigns, when He truly takes control of our hearts and minds, we become different people. We no longer focus primarily on ourselves. Instead, we focus on what we believe God wants for the whole world as well as for ourselves.
Kathryn Harrison is an author and historian who is writing a biography of Joan or Arc. A couple of weeks ago she wrote a piece for the OP-ED page of The New York Times. In it she underscored some of the reasons the so-called Maid of Orleans has captured the interest of millions of people ever since she was burned at the stake in 1431. She heard what she claimed were voices from God who ordered her to lead an army against the great enemy of France at the time, the English. She led the French to several victories. In time, however, as her voices had predicted, she began to lose the war. She refused to tell the authorities that the voices were from the devil. In so doing, she was sentenced to death, and died in flames lit by religious zealots.
What does Joan of Arc represent? Kathryn Harrison writes, “The self-professed agent of God’s will, she wasn’t immortalized so much as she entered into the collective imagination as a living myth.” Ms. Harrison ends her piece by saying, “We don’t need narrative to rationalize human experience so much as those that enlarge it with the breath of mystery. For as long as we look to heroes for inspiration, to leaders whose vision lifts them above our limited perspective, who cherish their values above their earthly lives, the story of Joan of Arc will be one we remember, and celebrate.”
When David said, “Dominion belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations,” was he making an objective observation, or was he holding out a hope to the readers of Psalm 22 and to the world? When Jesus spoke of the kingdom of God, was he describing something that was, or something that ought to be? Kathryn Harrison said of the French peasant girl, “It seems Joan of Arc will never be laid to rest. Is this because stories we understand are stories we forget?”
God’s reign, like the teenage girl from northern France, is ultimately a mystery. It is not like the reign of any other monarch or ruler who ever lived. God’s reign isn’t established by armies or by economic or political power, or by treaties or alliances. Those are the building blocks of human kingdoms. The kingdom of God comes about when it is given birth in human hearts. It springs into existence when people both high-born and low recognize that God alone is worthy to reign over them, and that allegiance to anyone or anything else is unworthy of their devotion.
Saudi Arabia is a kingdom. It has an actual king, and an immense royal family. The Saudi monarchy is a tangible, visible reality. So is the monarchy of the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan an actual monarchy, and the emirates of Kuwait or Qatar or Abu Dubai, or other Persian Gulf states. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Norway and Sweden are also monarchies, but their monarchs are not truly rulers; they are instead figureheads from past centuries and previous glories. Nevertheless, they function with the trappings of royal splendor.
God’s reign is a mystery. It is determined only by faith, not by facts. If we believe God reigns, He does, and if we don’t believe He reigns, He doesn’t. We have it in our power to create or to obliterate the reign of God. Fundamentally, the kingdom of God is an internal reality, an inner reality, a spiritual reality, not a normal physical or visible or earthly reality.
What this means is that God’s reign can be understood only in context. There is no such thing as the reign of God outside a particular context. Does someone show kindness to someone to whom it is very hard to show kindness? There is the kingdom of God. Does someone show kindness to others in order to be admired and praised by others? God’s reign is probably not evident there. When a government gives up torture as a means of gathering intelligence from enemy combatants, the reign of God may have become manifest. When governments give up torture because they conclude it is ineffective, likely God’s reign cannot be discovered in that pragmatic decision. When anyone tells the truth, knowing that it will nonetheless damage them personally, God kingdom has become established. When people tell lies to protect themselves, in such a context God cannot reign.
There is no reign of God, no kingdom of God, in general. God’s rule may be observed only in specific situations. It isn’t a physical monarchy at all. It is a spiritual one.
Does God truly reign? If so, it is determined by us. His kingdom exists only in human minds and hearts, and nowhere else.
When Vladimir Ilyitch Ulanov, otherwise known as V.I. Lenin, rode a train into St. Petersburg after the astonishing and unpredictable success of the Bolshevik Revolution, he stepped from his railroad car. His first words to the gathered crowd were famous, if also ominous: “Let us proceed to the establishment of the socialist order.” In a totally different context, not essentially political at all, let us proceed to help establish the kingdom of God.