Psalms for Turbulent Times - Psalm 50: Give thanks not sacrifices

Psalm 50[1]

¹   The mighty one, God the Lord, speaks and summons the earth
    from the rising of the sun to its setting.
²   Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines forth.
³   Our God comes and does not keep silence,
    before him is a devouring fire, and a mighty tempest all around him.
⁴   He calls to the heavens above and to the earth,
    that he may judge his people:
⁵   ‘Gather to me my faithful ones, 
     who made a covenant with me by sacrifice!’
⁶    The heavens declare his righteousness,
     for God himself is judge.                                                                 Selah
⁷   ‘Hear, O my people, and I will speak,
     O Israel, I will testify against you. I am God, your God.
⁸    Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you;
     your burnt-offerings are continually before me.
⁹    I will not accept a bull from your house,  or goats from your folds.
¹⁰  For every wild animal of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills.
¹¹ I know all the birds of the air, and all that moves in the field is mine.
¹² ‘If I were hungry, I would not tell you,
     for the world and all that is in it is mine.
¹³  Do I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?
¹⁴  Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving,
      and pay your vows to the Most High.
¹⁵   Call on me in the day of trouble;
      I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.’
¹⁶   But to the wicked God says:     ‘What right have you to recite my statutes,
      or take my covenant on your lips?
¹⁷   For you hate discipline, and you cast my words behind you.
¹⁸  You make friends with a thief when you see one,
     and you keep company with adulterers.
¹⁹  ‘You give your mouth free rein for evil,
      and your tongue frames deceit.
²⁰   You sit and speak against your kin;
      you slander your own mother’s child.
²¹  These things you have done and I have been silent;
      you thought that I was one just like yourself.
      But now I rebuke you, and lay the charge before you.
²²   ‘Mark this, then, you who forget God,
      or I will tear you apart, and there will be no one to deliver.
²³   Those who bring thanksgiving as their sacrifice honour me;
      to those who go the right way I will show the salvation of God.’

Someone I know gets up every morning and things of five things he is thankful to God for before breakfast!

Now, springing out of bed with gratitude may not be your thing. Not all of us have that positive mindset first thing in the morning. Quite often, the fears of the early hours or the emotions of a clouded dream follow us out of our sleep. And if the sadness or despair or anxiety which enveloped us in our sleep or 3am wakefulness is deep, even if unfocused, these feelings can follow us quite a way into the day.

But I am convinced that daily gratitude plays a huge part in good mental health. Notwithstanding the lurking power of lingering shadows of the night, approaching the rising of the sun with thanks seems to help release me from darker thoughts. Not that those troubling thoughts, which often seem to revolve around unresolved senses of loss (last night I dreamed of the loss of a much-beloved pet), are to be swept away. No. I do believe that the waves of worry that afflict us in the night can often most gently and helpfully be attended to as dawn begins our journey into daylight. And it is gratitude that lays the surest path away from navel-gazing or self-gratification.

Today’s psalm is a shot across the bows to people of faith who become so caught up in the rituals and rites of the religion that they begin to forget the essential spring of those rituals or rites – sheer thankfulness. And one of the worst aspects of people of faith is that they begin to think they are a) better than others or b) somehow involved in some kind of transaction of grace with God. The psalmist today presents words of God to people who thought that with the sacrificial system of the Temple faith in full flow, they were somehow on a path to God which meant they did not need to attend to how they behaved. God, naming them as wicked (vs16) calls them out for their hypocrisy (vs 16-21).

In his day, Jesus warred with words against hypocrisy. He told a parable that mirrors this psalm. It is recounted in Luke 18.10-14

¹⁰ ‘Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax-collector. ¹¹ The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax-collector. ¹² I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.” ¹³ But the tax-collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” ¹⁴ I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.’

Sometimes, first thing in the morning, we are utterly aware of our vulnerability. We are humbled by our breath. We are amazed to be alive. We are fully conscious of our frailty. We can be truly open to God. Before the invasion of the things of the day we can be quiet. We can open ourselves to mercy. And we can be truly thankful – not because we are involved in some falsified religious transaction (the worst kind of trick our mind can play) but we are free to give honest thanks.

In the parable told in Luke, the self-congratulatory man approached God with a sense of his importance and goodness in his own eyes; while the humble man knowing his own sinfulness, approached God seeking mercy, which is the true currency of God’s love.

Being stripped of church-going or some of the outer garments of a religious life in this lockdown period, we might truly be finding the spring of God's mercy in our vulnerability and the renewed sense of gratitude for the small things of life.

Slow down today even more and give thanks, not for self-gratification but because of gratitude. Don't make a ritual of it - but I can think of worse things to do than give thanks for five things before breakfast. 

And tomorrow we will walk with Psalm 51, which Luke 18.10-14 provides a bridge for our contemplations. 

---

[1] New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised (NRSVA)
New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition, copyright © 1989, 1995 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.