Strange Brew

PSALM 113

Psalm 113 is a call to praise, opening and closing with a loud, “Hallelujah!,” because God is Lord of all that is, a lordship proved by God’s unique relationship to all that is—God chooses continually to reverse life as it is to bring to complete fruition the promise of creation that all shall be with God exactly as God intends all to be. 

God rules with love that is defined by grace—always allowing from reboots, no matter what; compassion—entering suffering with an eye to ending it forever; and resurrection—bringing the previous two works to completion by working eternal life for all that lives. 

These works are beyond human imagination on many levels. We understand the basics of grace and compassion, but how they manifest in the revelation of Jesus boggles our imagination—a savior who redeems by dying? a savior who chooses the Least of These as his implements? a savior who welcomes anyone, even avowed enemies, into his presence? That defies all human wisdom.

St. Paul makes the best attempt at explaining it as he opens his letter to the Corinthians—

For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were    powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

That works as an excellent theological explanation of the work of God, but leaves unanswered an essential question—how is it lived? To begin to see that, we look at two saints who experienced the full work of God within them—Hannah and Mary.

HANNAH

Hannah is not the first barren woman we meet in scripture, but in some ways she is more paradigmatic. She has no children. Such a state left her as an outsider. Women were valued as a source of children (cf. Ps. 127:3-5), who in turn were a source of security in an uncertain world where life expectancy was under 50, food was grown at home, and defense against marauders was the folks you could put guarding the fence. The community rejected women like Hannah as failures. They failed in their basic responsibility and work. 

Imagine life for Hannah. Scripture indicates her husband, Elkanah, treated her with compassion and patience (it may have helped that his other wife was fecund!), but Hannah still rose each morning to her barrenness. She could not succeed in her one path to worth and value. Depression probably does not even brush the darkness she dealt with daily. Living as dead probably does. 

God heard her cries. God answered. God blessed her with a child, a son, the blessing of blessings in that time and place. She tasted resurrection. Imagine her glow as she walked to the well in the morning, Samuel astride her hip. She lived!

And so she sang her song of thanksgiving. God heard the Least of These. God intervened. God redeemed.

We, too, deal with aridity and barrenness when our very souls dry out within us. There come flat times in life when everything loses its color. The song of Hannah is a reminder that God is most near when we feel so very far away. God seeks the deserts of existence to breathe new life into them. “Look at me,” sings Hannah. “God is good and grace abounds. God hears the neediest of all. God answers.”

MARY

And God is not selective, nor exclusive in the refreshing showers of grace. God seeks all people, all the time. Just ask Mary.

In so many ways, Mary is the exact opposite of Hannah. She is young, vibrant, bursting with life. Her journey is just beginning. She is about to start the path to becoming as she marries Joseph. She has no reason to doubt that all will be as it is supposed to be.

But then it isn’t, and God is the culprit!

God takes her normal, ordinary life and turns it on its head. God interrupts her. Now some would declare this whimsy of God near awful—Mary will now be at risk. Unwed mothers were more reviled than barren women—the barren had no choice in being lifeless, the adulterer chose to flaunt God’s gift of life, willy-nilly bringing life into being. God ordained an order for all this. Adultery flung that order in God’s face! So, be rid of her! But she knows God to be the author—

How does this fit the model of grace, compassion, and resurrection?

Like this—

God chooses the wrong means for redemption because we continually and forever choose the wrong means to achieve our ends. God redeems the utter folly of being human to become one with human beings in every aspect of their being. 

Moreover, God chooses the least likely candidate as the implement of salvation because we are all the least likely candidates for the work of salvation. God chooses to use what we are, as we are, as the means by which to communicate grace to the entire world. 

As we consider and accept these moves by God, we suddenly find ourselves in the full of power of the mighty works of God. Grace is real because God continually works with us, never abandoning us, nor rejecting us (no matter what our neighbors might do). Compassion is real because God never ceases to work for our experience of the full promises of God. We cannot fall too far from God to be beyond God’s reach and reclamation. Resurrection is real because there will always be tomorrow. Not even death can negate that truth. The New Creation comes. It dawns before us in Jesus the Christ.

No wonder the Psalmist cried, “Hallelujah!”