Psalms - The Park Forum

September 11, 2020September 9, 2020

Praising Christ’s Righteousness

Scripture Focus: Ezekiel 14.13-14
“Son of man, if a country sins against me by being unfaithful and I stretch out my hand against it to cut off its food supply and send famine upon it and kill its people and their animals, even if these three men—Noah, Daniel, and Job—were in it, they could save only themselves by their righteousness, declares the Sovereign Lord.

Psalm 55.16-18
As for me, I call to God,
and the Lord saves me.
Evening, morning and noon
I cry out in distress,
and he hears my voice.
He rescues me unharmed
from the battle waged against me,
even though many oppose me.

From John: The repeated failure of leader after leader after leader who promised to “save” us from various threats makes this post from two years ago more relevant than ever. Within the repeated failure of leaders both religious and political, perhaps we may find a lesson and a judgment against us for continuing to trust in leaders who deceive us more than the God who wishes to free us.

Reflection: Praising Christ’s Righteousness
By John Tillman

We cannot save ourselves. Praise God.

God specifically tells Ezekiel that not even the greatest, most righteous men he might trust in would be able to save the nation.

God specifies that even great men of the past like Noah or Job could not save the country. Neither could the greatest living leader of the Israelites at that time, Daniel. Not even if all three of these men at once were in Israel, could they save it from its destruction.

Praise God we cannot be saved by the righteousness of humans.

Imagine our difficulty finding one trustworthy enough. Imagine hanging our hopes on a great leader, only to watch him or her fall near the end of the race.

Most of us don’t have to imagine it. It has happened. It has happened on the left and on the right. To secular leaders and to Christians. At personal levels and at the highest levels of governmental and institutional power.

Men and women who have betrayed our trust litter the media landscape. Think back over the past year and their faces and headlines will float up from your memory—comedians, judges, police officers, politicians, pastors, writers, journalists. Human leaders who won our trust, but can’t save us.

And the collective effect of humans working together, doesn’t solve the problem. If anything, human institutions magnify the failures of individual leaders.

How pitiful a situation we would be in if our salvation relied on human institutions. Think of the wide variety of institutions that have failed and continue to fail the people they are meant to help. Banks have failed us. Insurance companies, oil companies, food companies, charities, churches, ministries, and governments have failed us.

Praise God we are free from the delusion that humans and human institutions are infallible.
Praise God that despite the sinfulness of humans and our institutions, we do have a place to put our trust.
Praise God that our salvation does not rely on any person who may turn and betray us or fall into error or sin.
Praise God that we can live in fellowship not because we or “they” are trustworthy, but because we are united in our need for forgiveness and redemption.
Praise God that we can embrace our fellow brothers and sisters with the same mercy that we have been shown.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Morning Psalm
God takes his stand in the council of heaven; he gives judgement in the midst of the gods:
“How long will you judge unjustly, and show favor to the wicked?
Save the weak and the orphan; defend the humble and needy;
Rescue the weak and the poor; deliver them from the power of the wicked.
They do not know, neither do they understand; they go about in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken.
Now I say to you, ‘You are gods, and all of you children of the Most High;
Nevertheless, you shall die like mortals, and fall like any prince.’”
Arise, O God, and rule the earth, for you shall take all nations for your own. — Psalm 82
– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle

Today’s Readings
Ezekiel 14 (Listen – 4:09)
Psalm 55 (Listen – 2:43)

This Weekend’s Readings
Ezekiel 15 (Listen – 1:09), Psalm 56-57 (Listen – 3:11)
Ezekiel 16 (Listen – 10:36), Psalm 58-59 (Listen – 3:32)

Read more about Christ—Ruler of Political Leaders
Part of what we say when we say that a structure is God-given is also that God will hold it to account. — NT Wright

Christ—Ruler of Political Leaders

Read more about Servants in the Age of Showboats
Truthfully, our emperors have no clothes. They think they are rich, but they are poor, blind, and naked.

Servants in the Age of Showboats :: Readers’ Choice

September 10, 2020October 24, 2023

Responding to Political Violence

Scripture Focus: Psalm 52.1
1 Why do you boast of evil, you mighty hero?
Why do you boast all day long,
you who are a disgrace in the eyes of God?

Ezekiel 13.10-12
10 “ ‘Because they lead my people astray, saying, “Peace,” when there is no peace, and because, when a flimsy wall is built, they cover it with whitewash, 11 therefore tell those who cover it with whitewash that it is going to fall. Rain will come in torrents, and I will send hailstones hurtling down, and violent winds will burst forth. 12 When the wall collapses, will people not ask you, “Where is the whitewash you covered it with?”

Reflection: Responding to Political Violence
By John Tillman

Today’s scriptures show us David’s response to violent men like Doeg the Edomite in Psalm 52 and a faithless culture that denies God in Psalm 53.1-2 and they seem particularly relevant.

Political violence, like that committed by Doeg, was still the norm during Jesus’ ministry. The disciples were familiar with political murders and slaughters of innocents that would be shocking in today’s world.

It is part of our modern vanity that we falsely believe ourselves beyond the violence of previous ages. Despite our sense of moral superiority, we have not advanced beyond violence for political ends.

Our political rancor has reached the point of normalizing violence. In the dystopian novel, 1984, Orwell described ”The Ministry of Peace” which dealt in war. The dystopian “War is Peace” concept has been gradually adopted by all political groups, Christians not excluded.

It seems more and more Christians are willing to whitewash politically motivated violence as necessary self-defense. We have sunk to the point that political opponents (left and right) cheer their violent allies and point to violent opponents as justification for further violence. Such violent language unfailingly leads to murder in the streets.

If trends continue, there will soon be an event similar to the Kent State shootings. For Christians to fail to condemn, or worse, to directly endorse this type of violence is a great moral and theological failing.

Ezekiel spoke to whitewashing prophets of his day who glossed over the weakness of “a wall” they claimed would defend the faithful from harm. Ezekiel told his listeners (and tells us) that everything they trusted in more than God would be destroyed and they would watch it fall in horror.

While psalmists and prophets often cheer the wielders of violence, Jesus sets a new standard for us when he calls us to bless and not curse, to turn the other cheek to insults, and to go the extra mile, enduring under oppression.

We are called to stand up for and support those who are being oppressed to aid them, defend them, and speak out for them.

We are called to endure patiently our own oppression, ensuring that we are suffering for doing good, not for doing evil.

May we remember that responding to oppression is not about vengeance or self-defense.

Our response must be one of remaining faithful in what we say and do, while patiently suffering the consequences of doing good.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Greeting
Lord, you have been our refuge from one generation to another.
Before the mountains were brought forth, or the land and the earth were born, from age to age you are God. — Psalm 90.1-2– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle

Today’s Readings
Ezekiel 13 (Listen – 4:14)
Psalm 52-54 (Listen – 3:18)

Read more about Choosing Gentleness Over Violence
The language of many Christians and prominent Christian pastors has followed [the world], growing combative, disrespectful, and even violent.

Choosing Gentleness Over Violence

Read more about Abandoning Human Vengeance
We must be the first to break the chain of retaliatory and violent rhetoric.
We must abandon human vengeance before we can see divine justice.

Abandoning Human Vengeance

September 9, 2020September 7, 2020

Have Mercy

Scripture Focus: Psalm 51.1
1 Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.

Reflection: Have Mercy—Guided Prayer
By John Tillman

We think of sins as individual actions but that is only one dimension of sin.

David’s words, “against you, and you only, have I sinned,” do not mean that he did not sin against Bathsheba, or Uriah, or Joab, or against his whole nation. He sinned against God by bringing harm to those God cared for, who included Bathsheba, Uriah, Joab, and the entire nation.

David’s confession, often prayed by individuals to confess failings, acknowledges that David’s so-called individual sin brought harm upon more people than just himself. The healing brought by the confession will likewise be collective, not individual. David writes that his confession and God’s mercy will “prosper Zion” and “build up the walls of Jerusalem.”

Pray this pluralized version of Psalm 51 this week, confessing not only our individual sins but the sins of our communities, churches, and nations.

Have Mercy
Have mercy on us, O God.
Yours is the only love unfailing
We pile up great, unending heaps of transgression
You pour out great, enduring floods of compassion

Have mercy on us, O God.
You are the only righteous judge.
Our sins fill the earth and reach the skies
Your justice rolls like rivers, comforting mothers’ sighs

Have mercy on us, O God
You alone bring new birth
We toil in darkness, faithless, broken, aimed toward death
You clothe us in light, resurrect faith, make us blessed

Have mercy on us, O God
You are our only holiness
Our filthy rags fail to cleanse, smearing our waste around
Your blood-dipped hyssop drips cleansing mercy down

Have mercy on us, O God
Your purity stands alone.
Our ruin rots beautiful things. Our touch drips decay and doom
Where your fingers trace, truth, love, and beauty bloom

Have mercy on us, O God
Redeem our sin-wracked ways
Our errors and crimes, cause pain, hurt, and harm
Your grace comes behind us, with love as your balm

Have mercy on us, O God
Make our lives a lesson
Our efforts are selfish, our success is hollow
Your mercy to us teaches sinners to follow

Divine Hours Prayer: The Small Verse
The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; on those who live in a land of deep shadow a light has shone. — Isaiah 9.1– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle

Today’s Readings
Ezekiel 12 (Listen – 4:26)
Psalm 51 (Listen – 2:19)

Read more about Rend Your Hearts
When we rend our heart in community with others, we invite God’s power to work in us for redemption and restoration.

Rend Your Hearts

Read more about The Radical Procedure of the Gospel
It’s lovely to think of God giving us a new hear…But it is terrifying to admit to the diagnoses that would lead to such a radical procedure.

The Radical Procedure of the Gospel

September 3, 2020August 22, 2020

A Hymn of the Oppressed—Throwback Thursday

Scripture Focus: Psalm 44.23-26
23 Awake, Lord! Why do you sleep?
Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever.
24 Why do you hide your face
and forget our misery and oppression?

25 We are brought down to the dust;
our bodies cling to the ground.
26 Rise up and help us;
rescue us because of your unfailing love.

Reflection: A Hymn of the Oppressed—Throwback Thursday
By John Tillman

When the founding documents of the United States were written, the chief form of religious persecution with which the founding fathers were concerned was not an encroachment of Islam, or secularism, or Marxism. They had in front of mind religious persecution of Christians by Christians.

Despite his popularity as a hymnist, Isaac Watts was a nonconformist who suffered persecution by the Church of England. Like other nonconformists, he suffered exclusion from the best universities and from many employment opportunities, both secular and religious. Watts’s poetic rewrite of Psalm 44 reveals hints of the kinds of persecution he patiently endured.

Psalm 44, Isaac Watts.

Lord, we have heard thy works of old,
Thy works of power and grace,
When to our ears our fathers told
The wonders of their days.

How thou didst build thy churches here,
And make thy gospel known;
Amongst them did thine arm appear,
Thy light and glory shone.

In God they boasted all the day,
And in a cheerful throng
Did thousands meet to praise and pray,
And grace was all their song.

But now our souls are seized with shame,
Confusion fills our face,
To hear the enemy blaspheme,
And fools reproach thy grace.

Yet have we not forgot our God,
Nor falsely dealt with heav’n,
Nor have our steps declined the road
Of duty thou hast giv’n;

Though dragons all around us roar
With their destructive breath,
And thine own hand has bruised us sore
Hard by the gates of death.

PAUSE.

We are exposed all day to die
As martyrs for thy cause,
As sheep for slaughter bound we lie
By sharp and bloody laws.

Awake, arise, Almighty Lord,
Why sleeps thy wonted grace?
Why should we look like men abhorred
Or banished from thy face?

Wilt thou for ever cast us off,
And still neglect our cries?
For ever hide thine heav’nly love
From our afflicted eyes?

Down to the dust our soul is bowed,
And dies upon the ground;
Rise for our help, rebuke the proud,
And all their powers confound.

Redeem us from perpetual shame,
Our Savior and our God;
We plead the honors of thy name,
The merits of thy blood.

When we read of persecution, either in the scriptures or in history, we tend to think we ought to learn to be like the heroic victims. This is a worthy goal. However, history might be very different if rather than idolizing the martyrs, we could study how not to become the oppressors.

*Poem from The Psalms of David Imitated in the Language of the New Testament:

Divine Hours Prayer: The Greeting
My mouth shall recount your mighty acts and saving deeds ll day long; though I cannot know the number of them. — Psalm 71.5– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle

Today’s Readings
Ezekiel 6 (Listen – 2:49)
Psalm 44 (Listen – 2:44)

Read more about What Is Persecution?
It is a sign of great uncharitableness and cruelty, when men can find in their hearts to persecute others for little things — Richard Baxter

What Is Persecution? :: Throwback Thursday

Read more about Complete Our Joy — Guided Prayer
Joy permeated the church despite the pervasiveness of persecution and the pressures of the surrounding culture.

Complete Our Joy — Guided Prayer

August 28, 2019August 21, 2025

A Discipline for the Anxious :: Readers’ Choice

Selected by reader, Melissa from Texas
Praying in this way has helped me. I really appreciate the comparison of meditation to inoculation rather than an antidote.

Scripture Focus: Psalm 77.2-3
When I was in distress, I sought the Lord;
at night I stretched out untiring hands,
and I would not be comforted.
I remembered you, God, and I groaned;
I meditated, and my spirit grew faint.

Reflection: A Discipline for the Anxious :: Readers’ Choice
Originally published September 25th, 2018
By John Tillman

We live in distressing times. If there are corners of our world not touched by division, aggression, worry, and angst, you probably can’t get email there.

Anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues are on the rise—especially among younger adults. National Survey of Children’s Health researchers found a 20 percent increase in diagnoses of anxiety among children ages 6 to 17, between 2007 and 2012. The American College Health Association found that anxiety, rather than depression, is the most common reason college students seek counseling services and that in 2016, 62 percent of undergraduates reported “overwhelming anxiety” in the previous year. (An increase from 50 percent in 2011.)

Studying this, science is discovering things that are not exactly new under the sun. A recent Harvard study found that church attendance paired with spiritual disciplines such as meditation and prayer have a beneficial effect on mental health. In a Forbes article, study author Ying Chen noted that being raised religiously, “can powerfully affect [children’s] health behaviors, mental health, and overall happiness and well-being.”

The psalmists would not express surprise at these findings. Though we think of our society as facing pressures unknown to humanity until now, we would be mistaken to think of ancient times as idyllic and calm.

David and the other psalmists certainly knew what it was like to live under threat, under financial pressure, under the constant weight of political instability and the wavering loyalty of an unpredictable government.

Amidst such pressures, they had a safe haven. Their help for the stresses of life was meditation and prayer.*

The psalmist writes of being “too troubled to speak,” yet he cries to God. He writes of insomnia, yet he rests in God. He writes of doubts and of feeling that God has rejected him, that his love has vanished, that he had forgotten to be merciful. Yet in the midst of doubts and fears, he remembers God’s faithfulness in the past. He meditates on these memories in the heated moment of stress.

Although the benefits of meditation can help in a crisis, meditation is not a quick fix. It is not a fast-acting antidote for the world’s venom, but an inoculation to be taken ahead of time.
When beginning (or returning to) meditative prayer, start small and short. Use the prayer provided at the end of this devotional (Psalm 119.147) as a start. Spend two to five minutes simply re-reading the prayer with an expectant heart, asking God to be with you.

*We are in no way implying that meditation should be pursued in lieu of proper medical treatment. If you are in need of counseling and professional services, please consider the following resources:

Mental Health Grace Alliance
Not A Day Promised Resource Page
Life Recovered (Resources for Ministers)
Suicide Prevention Lifeline
Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention
Suicide Prevention Resource Center

Divine Hours Prayer: The Request for Presence
Gladden the soul of your servant, for to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul. — Psalm 86.4

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
1 Samuel 20 (Listen – 6:42)
1 Corinthians 2 (Listen – 2:26)

Thank You!
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Read more about The Practice of Meditation :: Running
One way of thinking of meditative prayer is exercise to expand your spiritual lung capacity, allowing you to breathe in God’s spirit more naturally at any time—including during a crisis.

The Practice of Meditation :: Running

Read more about The Practice of Meditation :: Tea
Allow the scripture to soak in your mind, repetitively dip it in your thoughts as you would a tea bag into warm water.

The Practice of Meditation :: Tea