Reading 1—Encountering God’s Imagination

So often the question I am asked as a biblical scholar is some version of this: Is the Bible accurate? We all ask this question in some form or another. Did Jonah really get swallowed by a whale? Did Methuselah really live 969 years? Did Jesus really walk on water? Did Paul really think women should be silent? Is Revelation literally going to happen someday? My answer inevitably is this: it depends. If the only way we judge accuracy is through scientific or historical precision, then we will miss most of the richness of the biblical witness.

The Psalms are, perhaps, the best example of this richness. They communicate embodied experiences of song, poetry, prayer, emotion, relationship with God. Scientific accuracy, historical precision, even perfect transmission of language is not the point of the Psalms. Rather the Psalms are exactly the opposite. They hold the power to capture our imagination and to sing into our souls, to put expression to emotions we didn’t even know how to attend, and to draw us into ever more living relationship with God.

And yet, like any of our most beloved hymn texts, they do draw on themes, histories, and theologies that tie us to millennia-old sacred memories.  Although tradition ties them to King David, the headings that suggest David sang or wrote them could also simply suggest that they were dedicated to David or David’s descendants. The headings were also added many centuries after the Psalms first appeared. We don’t know for sure who wrote the psalms or the headings. That doesn’t matter, because they speak so profoundly into our everyday lives. Millennia after their writing they connect our emotions to the histories of countless generations of faithful ancestors—generations who have absorbed and contemplated, chewed on and sung, found comfort and challenge in these songs across time, geography, and even religious communities.

I invite you this summer to romp through these treasures together with friends from across the NC Synod. Weep with snorting sobs, laugh uncontrollably at the silly images of sea critters and talking trees, give yourself over to moments even hours of praise, hold your head between your hands in lament, feel the intimacy of God as she knits you together so lovingly and names your loneliness and suffering in the same breath, and sing new songs in your own key.

To Consider

What are your earliest memories of the Psalms? Was there one that you remember more clearly than others?

What role do the Psalms play in your faith formation today?

God, your breath and your song, your laughter and your tears fill the corners of creation, waiting for us to encounter you more profoundly. Sing your song in us, even when we weep, even when we shout, even when words are not enough. Breathe your grace through our lives that we may know your justice, your presence, and your hope. Amen.

The Rev. Dr. Katherine A. Shaner is Associate Professor of New Testament at Wake Forest University School of Divinity in Winston-Salem. She is also an ordained pastor in the ELCA. She enjoys digging in the dirt, whether in her garden or on an archaeological excavation. She also hikes, makes a mean turkey sandwich, and argues theology regularly with her dog, Karl Bark.