We are so used to advertising messages these days that when
it comes to looking at scripture we come with the same mentality. If you use
product A your life will be spectacularly, marvellously, stupendously, profoundly
wonderful… It will solve all your problems, you’ll be happy… we guarantee it. We
can view Psalms like the one we read today as being that kind of promise… that
if we do A then God will do B, and B is that God will bless us with prosperity,
happiness and security …. It will solve
all our problems… Guaranteed. But Psalm 128 is a wisdom Psalm reflecting on
life rather than a sale pitch to make us buy into something by offering us
unrealistic benefits.
Like Psalm 127 before it it’s more a Psalm of Solomon than
David. A proverb a wise saying wrapped up in a blessing. A proverb that says
that the fear of the Lord is the source of all God’s blessing, prosperity of
land, with its illustrations of plentiful grape harvests and olive groves
sprouting from good soil. It’s focus on family, where in an agrarian culture
having many sons was seen as a great advantage. The blessings that Abraham
received in his covenant with God of land, family and prosperity, the covenant
blessings at Sinai where Israel became God’s people, bought down to a personal family
unit level. But also in verse 5and 6 spiraling out again as being a basis for
the blessing of the whole of Jerusalem and Israel. The health of a nation is
dependent on the health of the family units within it. Sadly we see the truth
of that today, in the personal and social cost of family disharmony and
breakdown.
It’s helpful to see where this Psalm comes from.
Commentators suggest three possibilities. One is that it was originally a
blessing given at marriage. Some sage advice and hopes for a couple setting out
together. That they would live in a way that revered God, and that if they did
that that they would experience God’s blessing.
The other is that it was a blessing on the host that a traveller being
given shelter and hospitality would give on the doorstep before entering the
house. Once again wise advise that the household would serve the Lord, and sure
hope that they would receive blessing because of it. The last is that it became
the welcome for pilgrims as they entered the sanctuary of the Jerusalem
temple. A reminder of blessings coming
from that life of reverence for God. All these use the psalm to remind people
that any and every blessing comes from a life lived in fear of the LORD.
The fear of the Lord is not that we live afraid of God, scared
that God will be angry with us, if we put a foot out of line, but we are aware
of who God is, his sovereignty over all creation, but also his faithful love
for his people and what he has done for us so we live a life that reflects
God’s goodness to the people around us.
For Christians it is as we become more and more aware of God’s mercy and
grace shown in Jesus Christ that we reflect that in the mercy and grace we show
to other people.
Being wisdom literature, it is not a promise but an
observation that blessing comes from the fear of the Lord. In a marriage in a
house hold in a pilgrim’s life. In that respect it’s a psalm of orientation,
this is the way life should be. We have to remember that scripture is also very
realistic when it comes to looking at life and one of the greatest themes of
the wisdom literature is dealing with the disorientation in life, with the very
real issue of evil or why bad things happen to good people? The psalms are
resplendent with Psalms of disorientation, people wrestling when it all seems
to have gone pair shape and despite being people of faith they wonder where God
is in the midst of the suffering and pain. But also reorientation when they
again turn to focus on the fear of the Lord, that reverence for God is the
centre point in life, and God’s abiding presence becomes the focal point of
hope.
So what does this wisdom Psalm have to say to the pilgrim
and to us.
The first thing is like with Psalm 127 every good thing
comes from God. Family sustenance, prosperity stability security are blessings
from God. We live in a society where we are told we can be blessed and happy if
we have things and as we’ve got more and more sophisticated and technologically
advanced those things that supposedly give us happy lives have become more and
more varied and expensive and extravagant. In that environment the simplicity
of God’s blessing in family and produce and provision of good food that Psalm
128 gives bring us back to be able to see such basic things as true treasurers
that we are able to give thanks for. To see our children’s children is to be
able to see how God’s goodness is able to be passed on from generation to
generation. It also allows us to see how the Church,a temple of living stones bought together as 1
Peter puts it, is able to continue to be a blessing from generation to
generation.
The second thing is that it directs the pilgrim and us to
what is of vital importance in life. Our relationship with God, established by
his unfailing covenant love for us and that is lived out as we reflect that
love in how we live and relate to the people and world around us. For God’s Old
testament people it was the God who chose them in Abraham and bought them out
of Egypt, through the wilderness and into the promised land to be his people.
For us it is as we remember God’s faithful love for us in sending Jesus Christ
to live, die and be raised to life again for us. That we may be set free from
the past given a fresh start and new life in Christ. A life that finds its true
joy and meaning and blessing in knowing Christ and allowing our live to confirm
to his in loving other people. In
Philippians Paul talks of the surpassing greatness of Knowing and being known
by Christ, he talks of learning of being content and knowing he is blessed if
he has heaps or if he has nothing because he has learned that he can do all
thing in Christ that strengthens him. In
that it allows us to see the blessings that gives us as well. A family not only of biological connections
but of brothers and sisters right next to us and around the world. The
provision of our daily bread, as we come to communion part of that celebration
is taking those everyday things that God provides for us to remember his death,
his abiding presence with us and his eventual immanent return.
Finally it shows the pilgrim the way forward, not just what
God had done for them but how to live it forward. Like it might to a marriage
or as a reminder to a household offer hospitality or a pilgrim come to worship
it points us forward on the ongoing journey in life, not that we have come to a
place of simple blessing but are invited onwards as his people to live that
relationship with God out. And the trust that as we do that we will see more of
God’s great blessings on the journey.
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