“Connecting the dots”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Saturday, May 13, 2023
Psalm 27 (Forward, p. 15) CEV p. 570
David, at least to my thinking at least, employs a couple odd analogies in today’s psalm. He speaks of God’s light as being his source of protection and His tent or temple as his place of protection. For me, with my literal, western, modern prospective, one that is somewhat ‘removed’ from the ways and customs of the Middle East, these images simply didn’t ‘connect’.
Firstly, he speaks of God as being his light, his source of protection. So, what might this mean? In our modern world, lights and darkness have come to mean relatively little. Our artificial lights—of many sorts—often mean that our so-called daylight hours extend long into the night—just look at our outdoor sporting events as examples of this! And, sad to say, muggings and various other crimes can happen even in the middle of the day, when light abounds. The ancient world, however, lived in constant fear of darkness and of the people and harms that took advantage of it. So, just in a literal sense, light served as a protection.
But here, in today’s psalm, it would seem that light has a more figurative sense, that is a place of vision, a place where we can see properly, a place of knowledge, enlightenment and vision. And what is more, this light provides, lays out a way forward for him, a level path in fact, one where he would not be inclined to stumble
And even more to the point, for the psalmist, it is the place of seeing God face to face, which is the best protection and refuge a person could ever have. Later on, he waxes eloquent about how God will always be there for him, that even though humans (like his father and mother) might fail him and not come through in a pinch, that God will always be there and uphold him.
Secondly, he speaks of God being His tent of protection. Again, being rather literal and undoubtedly ‘western’, I immediately think of a tent as being something rather flimsy, rather unsubstantial, the kind of thing that could easily be blown over by the wind or ripped open by a claw or knife.
But, once again, this notion errs on the count of not being in touch with Middle Eastern culture and ways. According to desert hospitality, a person could find refuge and safety within someone’s tent. He or she would be protected from harm by the person, the host, whose tent it was. (That is why the example of Jael and Sisera is so unnatural and out of the ordinary.
Sisera should have been able to find refuge there. See Judges 4:17-22). And so, accordingly, we can find refuge in the dwelling place of God.
And further to that, by extension, the tent or temple of God was also considered a sanctuary. We see two instances in the Scriptures where someone fled to the temple and grabbed hold of the horns of the altar for protection from being killed (Adonijah, in 1 Kings 1:50, and Joab, in 1 Kings 2: 28). In the first case, the man was spared, because he was innocent of grievous wrongdoing, in the second case, not, because he was a murderer. (That is where the medieval idea of church’s being a sanctuary from arbitrary arrest and deportation came from.) But in Christian terms, what those two individuals did, has come to have a wider and deeper meaning: to lay hold upon the altar is to invoke Jesus’ death upon the Cross.
And, so, to connect the dots of these two unmodern images: what the psalmist is doing is what all of us should do, namely, to turn to God, to Jesus Christ, for our vision and guidance and for our protection. But more that just these ‘things’, we should turn to Christ Himself and seek to know Him and love Him. It is Him and Him alone that we should trust and serve, and no one and nothing else. Amen.
Forward notes: “One thing have I asked of the Lord; one thing I seek; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life; to behold the fair beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple” (verses 5-6).
“For as long as I can remember, I have loved going to the physical building that we call church. To this day, one of my favourite things to do on vacation is to find an old church where I can meditate and pray. I’ve enjoyed visits to the massive cathedrals of Europe and the tiny Spanish mission churches across North and Central America and pretty much every place in between.
“As someone who loves and appreciates sacred architecture, I truly believe the psalmist did not have the actual temple in mind when they wrote about dwelling in God’s house forever. The Bible is clear that God’s glory cannot be contained by any building because it is everywhere. God’s house—that is, the place where God dwells—is within us and among us during our
everyday lives. Maybe dwelling in God’s house each day is more about our mindset than the physical place where we find God. Perhaps it is looking for the beauty of God that surrounds us each day, even when we are unaware.:
MOVING FORWARD: “Is it time for a spring cleaning of God’s house within you?”