From the Daily Lectionary for Friday/Saturday, August 14/15, Proper 14
Psalm 85
Lord, you were favorable to your land; you restored the fortunes of Jacob.
You forgave the iniquity of your people; you pardoned all their sin.
You withdrew all your wrath; you turned from your hot anger.
Restore us again, O God of our salvation, and put away your indignation toward us.
Will you be angry to all generations?
Will you not revive us again, so that your people may rejoice in you?
Show us your steadfast love, O Lord, and grant us your salvation.
Let me hear what God the Lord will speak, for he will speak peace to his people,
to his faithful, to those who turn to him in their hearts.
Surely his salvation is at hand for those who fear him, that his glory may dwell in our land.
Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other.
Faithfulness will spring up from the ground, and righteousness will look down from the sky.
The Lord will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase.
Righteousness will go before him, and will make a path for his steps.
Our reflections for the “Bread for the Journey” are written about the scripture readings from the Daily Office Lectionary. On some days, such as when that day is also the day of a saint or other significant person in the history of the church, the lectionary has additional readings for that person. Our book Lesser Feasts and Fasts commemorates the martyr Jonathan Myrick Daniels on Friday, August 14th, and the psalm upon which I have chosen to reflect is Psalm 85, the one suggested for him. Many of you probably know about Jonathan Daniels, who was a seminarian at the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the 1960s. While there in 1965 he answered Martin Luther King Jr.’s appeal to go to Selma to secure for all citizens the right to vote. While in Selma he learned first-hand and was greatly moved by the pervasiveness and intensity of the nation’s racism. He returned to seminary but then went back to Alabama to continue his work with integration. On August 20 of 1965, while in Hayneville, a small town near Selma, following their release from six days in jail for joining a picket line, he and three others walked to a small store. As the 16-year-old girl Ruby Sales reached the entrance into the store a deputy sheriff with a shotgun appeared, cursing her. Jonathan pulled her to the side to shield her. The gunman then pulled the trigger and with that blast from the 12-gauge instantly killed Jonathan Myrick Daniels. The murderer was later acquitted by an all-white jury. The letters and papers Jonathan had written reveal the faith and hope of this 26-year-old man. After his first trip to Selma he wrote: “The faith with which I went to Selma has not changed: it has grown… I began to know in my bones and sinews that I had been truly baptized into the Lord’s death and resurrection… with them, the black men and white men, with all life…. We are indelibly and unspeakably one.” From where did this faith, this optimism, this hope come? Let’s do a little speculation.
The book of Psalms is a collection of 150 poems or hymns dealing with the fundamental aspects of the human condition, good and bad. Perhaps the lasting appeal of the psalms is that they describe universal feelings and concerns which are timeless, as relevant today as when they were written millennia ago. Most see them as both human words to God and as God’s words to humans, and therefore full of theological concepts. It is probably safe to say that the most important theological concept in the book of Psalms is represented by the Hebrew word hesed, often translated as “steadfast love” (NRSV). Throughout the psalms the word hesed serves virtually as a one-word summary of Israel’s understanding of the character of God. God is fundamentally compassionate, gracious, faithful, and loving, although also demanding. The book of Psalms is quoted and alluded to in the New Testament more than any other Old Testament book. This is perhaps not surprising because the theology including the hesed of God is compatible with the essence of Jesus’ preaching and teaching. The good news of Jesus is that God reigns with unfailing love, that the reign of God is a present reality, and that we are all invited to experience it here and now, despite the persistent opposition and hardship which we will face.
Is this hesed and the incarnation of God in Jesus the source of the optimism and hope expressed in the writings of Jonathan Daniels? Maybe so. Look at Psalm 85 above. There are three distinct divisions in it. The first three verses speak to God’s favor in times past, for restoration of good fortune, pardon of sins, compassion and forgiveness. The second section in verses 4-7 reveals that something has gone awry. Israel is suffering. The psalmist is asking God to restore Israel again, to put away anger and indignation, to show “your steadfast love” (hesed). The psalm switches gears again in the third section in verses 8-13. Here we see a portrayal of God’s promise of peace and salvation, given in the midst of current distress: God “will speak peace to his people,” “salvation is at hand,” “steadfast love and faithfulness will meet,” “righteousness will look down from the sky.” It reflects the faithfulness of the people that God is still present, still reigns, and will set things right. Historically, Psalm 85 may have its origins as a prayer amidst the disappointment of the early return to Jerusalem following the exile in Babylon. Although Israel had been restored to its home, the people still found themselves in need of restoration.
As Christians we see Jesus as the coming of God, and his message one of hesed. However, the Kingdom of God is an “already but not yet” reality. More is to come than what we see now. Are we living like Israel in the second part of Psalm 85, with the hope and confidence and optimism expressed in the third part that God will make all things right? Is that where Jonathan Myrick Daniels was? This reminds me of the PBS documentary series “Reconstruction, America After the Civil War” which I watched recently, an exploration of how the United States emerged from the Civil War and slavery. It is a history which I had never seen before. Despite the feeble efforts at reconstruction by President Andrew Johnson, African Americans made significant political, economic, and social progress in the decade following the end of the war in April of 1865. About fifteen African Americans, most previous slaves, were elected to the U.S. Congress. The U.S. government sent troops into the south and tried to support reconstruction by among other things enforcing the transfer of land to freedmen. This all soon ended. In the election of 1876 the Republicans made a deal with the south in order to get Rutherford B. Hayes elected, who had lost the popular vote to Democrat Samuel Tilden. The electoral votes in several southern states were disputed, and southern Democrats agreed to give these votes to Hayes if the Republicans would recall the federal troops that were supporting reconstruction. This effectively left the fate of African Americans to the southerners to whom only a decade before they had been enslaved. As with the plight of Israel in Psalm 85, they had moved from a condition of beginning prosperity to one of suffering, in their case from oppression and fear and terror often including death by lynching at the hands of whites who wanted to return to the days of economic and social success they had enjoyed on the backs of their former slaves. And we are still suffering the consequences today, a century and a half later. It is in faith that we can still pray that third part of the psalm, where “salvation is at hand” and “righteousness and peace will kiss each other.” That is our hope. It is also our optimism that things are finally beginning to change, that we are beginning to understand racism for the structural and systemic evil that it is, and that our current crises can be a portal leading us into another way of life, closer to the Kingdom “on earth as it is in heaven.”
Rev. Bob Donnell
August 14, 2020
Prayer (Lesser Feasts and Fasts, 2018 p. 357)
O God of justice and compassion, who puts down the proud and mighty from their place, and lifts up the poor and afflicted: We give you thanks for your faithful witness Jonathan Myrick Daniels, who, in the midst of injustice and violence, risked and gave his life for another; and we pray that we, following his example, may make no peace with oppression; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
