Sacramental Living

This is the second part of a continuing post.  Read Part 1 here.

The “one way” is introduced in Psalm 1 indirectly as a negative statement concerning the “path that sinners tread” (v.1).  In other words, the one way is the ‘not’ toward the “[h]appy are those” in verse 1.  Happiness through “delight . . . in the torah of the LORD” (v.1).  Notice that delight does not come from, out of, beside, nor any other host of prepositional possibilities in relation to torah; rather delight is found ‘in’ torah.  To this concept of placement ‘in’ torah we shall return.

Many English translations of Psalm 1 generate sterile understandings and limited scope for the meaning of torah.  Later-day Christianity succinctly refers to torah as the law, or the Old Covenant.  Yet, after reading Psalm 1 (and subsequently Psalm 19 and Psalm 119) certainly law cannot be the exhaustive meaning of torah.  Indeed Hans-Joachim Kraus states that “[u]nder no circumstances should we translate torah as ‘law,’ or introduce a corresponding understanding in legalistic terms.”[1] Kraus proposes ‘instruction’ as a fuller understanding of torah suggesting this gives the “impression of something living, dynamic.”[2] But semantics becomes a brain-numbing exercise at this level when ‘law’ and ‘instruction’ can be considered so vastly divergent in connotation.  Indeed, instruction hardly gives any indication of a living or dynamic understanding as relayed in the text of Psalm 1.  Here torah is likened to a living and active stream giving human life wholeness.  What understanding of torah would feed such a lively metaphor?

Torah is arguably the most important part of the Tanakh, because it is the written record of YHWH’s self-revelation as the God of all creation to a peculiar Hebrew people.[3] Indeed, torah is a narrative–a story–of God’s covenantal relationship with a particular people in space and time.  It is this sweeping, almost cosmic, defining of torah that gives the Psalter liberty to implement such playful imagery concerning YHWH’s story.  And indeed, torah is clearly situated as emanating from YHWH and generated by his initiative, not simply a story about YHWH.  This is how delight can come from being ‘in torah.’  When a community finds itself involved in YHWH’s story, there is delight, there is happiness because life is occurring as it was intended from the mind of God.

Now, we must wonder: what does a people do who find themselves in torah?  Verse 2 continues: “on torah they meditate day and night.”  The verb hagah here translated as “meditate” is elsewhere translated differently: “As a lion or a young lion growls over its prey . . .” (Isaiah 31.4).  There is something visceral and vocal to this meditation.  The Hebraic understanding of hagah is rooted in communal worship.  The holy din of worshippers singing and chanting psalms in the ancient temple feeds the connotations of hagah.[4] Meditation then is not some isolated mental exercise, nor a closet spiritual experience.  To be swept into torah–YHWH’s story–means to fully and actively rehearse that story in community fashion at all times, because the “streams of water” (Psalm 1.3) are continually flowing.  Thus, there is no time for the “happy” to consider following the “path that sinners tread.”  Instead, hagah must be constant and ongoing.  This conceptual reality of torah implies movement over against stasis.  Life in torah is a journey, not a destination.  There must be much room in YHWH’s story to move about for so many happy ones to take delight and be always on the move.  Life is decisive because of YHWH’s story.  The gifting of this story to humanity generates the Psalter’s confidence that “torah is the only thinkable response”[5] and the one way in which to journey and live life.  If torah is “all-embracing in its scope,”[6] there is no dichotomy of equal and opposite opportunity in Psalm 1.

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[1] Hans-Joachim Kraus, Theology of the Psalms, trans. Keith Crim (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1986), 34.

[2] Ibid.

[3] The first five books of the Hebrew Bible are similar in structure to the five-fold division of the Psalter, thus Psalm 1 is claiming that the Psalter is a reflection of Torah.

[4] See James Limburg, Psalms (Lousiville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2000), 2ff.

[5] Walter Brueggemann, The Message of the Psalms: A Theological Commentary (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984), 39.

[6] William P. Brown, Seeing the Psalms (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002), 57.

Related Posts:

• The ShadowPath of YHWH’s Open Story — Part 1
• On Reading the Hebrew Scripture — Part 2
• Daily LifeStream for 2008-09-24
• Daily LifeStream for 2008-09-18
• 24-hour Prayer Vigil … Hours 2 & 3