Today we are going to start our reflections for the season
of Prayer, by looking at the practise of
Christian meditation on scripture. Now I don’t know about you but when I think
of meditation I get images that are shaped by the increased identification of
meditation with eastern religions… the chanting of mantra, burning insence and
sitting in positions that don’t look that comfortable to me in fact they rather
resemble complex knots. A lot of that is
just relaxation techniques, contemplative Christians talk of centering prayers,
short sentences or verses of scripture that help us to calm ourselves and focus
not on nothingness or the universe, but on God. Breathing exercises that help
us to quiten our minds and bodies amidst the rush of everday life. It might
make meditation seem complex and difficult, this morning I want to simply say
that if you can worry then you can meditate.
When something is worrying you it is always on your mind, it
becomes your focus, it can consume your time, you lie awake at night turning it
over and over in your mind. That’s not necessarily a healthy process, it saps your
strength, it does not always lead to a solution. I attended a business training
course when I was in Napier, and the business man who took the course, talked
of how he dealt with problems and issues that ‘worried him” about his business
in a healthy manner. He said he took time out to sit in his thinking chair, and
work the problem, he would continually ask the question why until he had
explored the issue, from so many difficult angles and got it down to well
thought out practical steps he could take. Christian meditation I believe is taking the
time to think reflect and turn over and over again in our minds the word of
God, so it is able to be used by God to lead us forwards.
The word Meditate has the
same feeling as the word Masticate: which is to chew. When you worry something
gnaws away at us, meditation is to chew it over, like a cow chews its cud. Cows
have four stomachs and they will bring the grass they’ve eaten back up to chew
it over again and extract all the goodness and nutrients they can get from it.
That is a gross but good illustration of meditating on God’s word, chewing it
over and extracting all the nutrients and goodness from it and allowing that to
become part of us and to energise and direct our lives.
Our bible passage this morning is from psalm 119 and I want
to look at what it has to say about meditating on scripture. Psalm 119 is the
longest of the psalms and it is an acrostic poem, made up of twentythree eight
line stanzas, each starting with a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet. It
celebrates God’s word that the psalmist had at that time and it uses the whole
of the language it was written in to do so. We had two sections read out today
verse 97-104 which is the letter ‘mem’ and 105-112 which is the letter ‘nun’.
The ‘mem’ section focuses on giving praise for the wisdom that God’s word
provides and the ‘nun’ section acknowledges the value of God’s word in leading
us through the dark and difficult times of life, like it is a torch
illuminating a treacherous path at night.
For the Psalmist the focus on his meditation is the law, the
Torah. We also have the rest of the Jewish cannon, the old testament and the
gospels and epistles, Jesus said he did not come to do away with the law but to
fulfil the law, so Christians beleive we have that fuller revelation of God, to
meditate on. In the psalm itself there are eight different terms to refer to
the scriptures, its not tying it down to a set torah, but it focus is on the psalmists
relationship with the scripture and through them with God. If the psalmist was a Jew writing in the time
of the exile in Babylon it would have been when the written books of the Old
testament would have started to become available, and away from the cultic life
in Jerusalem they would have been the focus for establishing synagogues and of
keeping the faith alive, in a society that pressured all those who they
conquered to adapt and be assimilated. Focusing on the Torah keeps the
psalmists focused on God and God’s covenant.
The book of Daniel tells the story of such Jews being indoctrinated in
the Babylonian ways and religion, and we see Daniel and his friends resist and
keep their faith and identity as they keep their spiritual practises.
The psalmist says he has a daily routine and discipline of
meditating on God’s word. In Jewish society being a scholar and student of the
scripture and having the day to devote to it was the highest privilege you
could have. Today you can see yeshiva’s schools dedicated to Jewish students
focusing on their scripture and related teachings, both in class room settings
and also in pairs or small groups. But if this was the exilic period they may not
have had the benefit of such schools or the time to do this and it could as
easily speak of taking the time during the day to focus on the scriptures. As
the psalmist goes through his day, his mind is thinking about the scriptures. Those
he has read that day or he may be reciting scriptures he has memorised under
his breath, and scripture memorisation is a great discipline, and groups like
the navigators have got some great resources to help you to do that.
The psalmist says this meditation on scripture gives him
wisdom, and in his exile environment, he says it makes his wiser than his
enemies and gives him more understanding than his teachers. This is not a vein boast, but rather elevates
the knowing of God and God’s purposes and ways as important and central in the
face of all the other messages he is receiving from the society round him. It’s
not that those things are unimportant but rather the central thing is that life
is lived through that knowing of God.
The rest of this section of the psalm helps us to see what
this daily meditation might look like. In
verse 103 the psalmist talks of the word of God being sweet to the taste. There
is the daily consumption of God’s words. There is a daily routine of reading
scripture, again there are many different ways and means of doing that. For the
past four years I have set myself the goal of reading through the bible each
year. I use an ap on my phone called ‘one year bible’ which also gives me an
email each day with readings from the Psalms or Proverbs, the New Testament and
Old Testament to systematically read through the bible in a year. Each day they
come with comment from Nickey and Pippa Gumble and a daily prayer as well. Here
at St peter’s we provide people with the chance to use ‘the word for today”
produced by Radio Rhema, which has a reading for each day and a reflection on
one verse or section each day as well. Also the daily bread from scripture
union. They are all just helps to allow us to have a regular input of God’s
word.
In verse 104, the psalmist talks of gaining understanding
from God’s precepts, not only is there the reading of the word daily there is
the process of understanding what the passage is saying as well. That takes
time and effort to reflect on scripture, not just to read it. It’s as we come
to understand it that we are able to apply it to our lives.
That application to life is what is at the centre of this
first section of our reading. In verse 101 and 102 the psalmist talks of
obeying God’s word and not departing from God’s law. It is the process of
understanding what God has to say and them allowing it to change us, to speak
to our way of life. Contemplation leas to application. Thomas Morton was a
famous monk from the 20th century, he was always wanting more time
to spend on retreat to go away and pray and meditate on God’s word, one of the
things that has made Thomas Morton one of the most influential Christians of
the last century is that when he came back from those times of meditation and
retreat he would have written very insightful and powerful books or essays on
important social issues like the rise of the atomic age and how to respond to
it, the challenge of living in a pluralistic society and how to relate and
communicate and act with other religions. We may find it is simply how we react
in difficult situations in our work place or family, seeing our job not simply
as a necessary evil, but part of God’s calling on our lives., or to be
encouraged to simply show love to our neighbours.
This is what is called an inductive bible study. Starting
from the word by reading it, then coming to understand it, what does it say,
understanding its message: what did it say to the people then and there and
applying it: what does it say to us today and how am I going to live
differently in light of it.
Then in verse 102 we also get what makes meditating on God’s
word communication with God. The Psalmist says that god himself has taught him,
it’s an affirmation of the fact that scripture is God’s word or as we had in
our new testament reading from 2 Timothy, it is God breathed, but also that God
is involved in the process of open the scriptures to us and teaching us. AS we
have come to believe in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit has been poured out on us,
one of things Jesus said the spirit would do was lead us into all truth, and
bring to mind all that Jesus had said and taught us and as we reflect and
meditate and chew over God’s word, God is able to speak to us.
The second section that we read today the ‘nun’ section talks
of God’s word being a lamp for our feet and a light on our path, that it can be
trusted to lead us through the dark and difficult paths of life. Along the
rugged storm lashed coast of England there are lifeboat stations, and people go
out in small boats from those stations out into the stormy weather to save the
lives of sailors on ships that get into trouble. The people who man the
lifeboats will tell you it is not the times they have gone out in response to
emergencies that make them able to do their job and save people, rather it is
the hours and days and weeks and months they put in practising and practising
in the lulls between the storms that enables them to do what they do. It is as
we allow God’s word to sink deeply into our lives in a regular routine of reading and reflection, meditating on the
word allow our lives to be marinated in the word of god that enables the Holy
Spirit to use it in those dark and stormy times.
I want to leave you with just a simple practical exercise
for this week. Two spiritual disciplines which I believe will help you to
develop meditating on scripture to be more a part of your life. It’ll take
about ten minutes in the morning and maybe another ten or so at night and
hopefully some time during the day when you’ve got a chance to take a moment or
so to simply read the verse over again.
The first discipline is just to have one verse for the day,
to reflect on this week. To chew over and contemplate. To carry with you and
allow God to speak to you through. Maybe
even to commit it to memory, can I say that is a challenge for me, my mind just
does not seem to be wired that way. You probably notice that when I’m leading
worship and even when we’ve sung a song over and over again I still get the
lyrics wrong.
The second is to have a go at journaling. To take time at
the end of the day to write down your reflections on that passage and how you
have felt God speak to you through it during the day. When you write that sort
of thing down it gives you the chance to reflect and actually think of how
you’ve related to it and how God has related to you through it during the day.
It also allows you to put it in the back of your bible and then look back at it
in a month or a few months’ time and remember what God said and even how it has
continued to be manifest in your life.
if you want to use or view the verse of the day reflections booklet her is the link to it as a pdf
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