Saturday, June 22, 2013

Honest Speech - Reading the Psalms

This summer I am studying the Psalms.  Reading Walter Brueggemann, Glenn Pemberton and Eugene Peterson, I quickly realized how unfamiliar the text was to me. I have read bits and pieces of the Psalms and knew they are understood as the songbook of Israel; I knew they are wisdom literature and I knew  they were poetic in the original Hebrew. But like English poetry, their cadence and content was challenging for me.

So, I decided I wanted to try to simply read through the Psalms, just to gain some familiarity with the language, like listening to Spanish radio helps me recognize forgotten vocabulary. I hoped I would notice repeated words and phrases, and begin to understand this new language. If I could get past the decoding stage of reading, I could begin to understand what the writers were saying.

Not surprisingly, Google offers lots of suggestions for reading the Psalms. There are 150 Psalms so reading 5 each day will take a reader through the Psalter in 30 days.One way to do that is to read the psalm for that date, e.g. today is June 22, so begin with Psalm 22, and then read every thirtieth Psalm, e.g. Psalm 52, 82, 112, 142. Repeat the math the next day.

But the Psalms are so varied that a numerical reading felt too random to me, so I chose a reading plan organized around themes.

Reaching the end of the plan, I realized that, there is a nuance between reading the Psalms in 30 days and reading the Psalms for 30 days. I had read just under 2/3 of the Psalter. Of the 61 psalms the themed reading plan did not include, more than half (34) were lament psalms. It struck me then how reluctant we are to use honest speech with God.

While Brueggemann uses the categories of orientation, disorientation and new orientation to identify different Psalms, Pemberton categorizes Psalms into praise, thanksgiving, lament and "other", identifying a full 60 lament Psalms in the Psalter. If we took away a third of our language, I don't think we'd be able to communicate well. Unless we soak ourselves in the Scriptures that are hard - the laments and even the violent and bloodthirsty passages, we risk thinking God only inhabits one part of our lives, and when we are hurting the most, we won't have the language to speak to God, and when we are in the darkest places and passages of our lives, we won't have the imagination to believe God is there with us.

I have built a reading plan that  takes a reader through the Psalter, more or less using the following categories.Some Psalms fit more than one category but for my purposes, they are included only once in the readings. I hope you'll spend some time with the Psalms and tell me whether this is helpful, or share how you approach the Psalter.

Individual Prayers for Help Individual Songs of Thanksgiving
Communal Prayers for Help Communal Songs of Thanksgiving
Hymns of Praise Royal Psalms
Creation Psalms Trust Psalms
Enthronement Psalms Acrostic Psalms
Songs of Zion Festival Psalms
Liturgies Historical Psalms
Instructional Psalms

Day 134567
Day 21317222628
Day 33135363839
Day 44243515455
Day 55658596164
Day 66970717786
Day 78894102109120
Day 8130140141142143
Day 94460677479
Day 108083108123126
Day 1113733656898
Day 12100103113114117
Day 13135146147148149
Day 14150819104139
Day 154793969799


Day 16 46 48 76 84 87
Day 17 122 2 12 15 24
Day 18 50 81 82 85 91
Day 19 95 107 115 118 121
Day 20 124 129 132 134 136
Day 21 1 14 41 49 53
Day 22 62 73 90 127 128
Day 23 133 30 32 40 57
Day 24 66 92 116 138 66
Day 25 75 18 20 21 45
Day 26 72 89 101 110 144
Day 27 11 16 23 27 52
Day 28 63 125 131 9 10
Day 29 25 34 37 111 112
Day 30 119 145 78 105 106