If you look up our psalm for today – Psalm 25:1-8, you might discover some interesting observations from Biblical scholars. Comments on the 25th Psalm include –
“Lacks a clear structure and organization.”
“Does not display a clearly developed train of thought.”
“Lurches awkwardly.”
Psalm 25 is “all over the place.”
These scholars’ descriptions of Psalm 25 sound a little like the notes a really blunt English teacher might write on a student essay. One commentary even calls this psalm the “ugly duckling” of the psalms.
Let’s listen again to those first eight verses:
1 To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul; my God, I put my trust in you; let me not be humiliated, nor let my enemies triumph over me.
2 Let none who look to you be put to shame; let the treacherous be disappointed in their schemes.
3 Show me your ways, O Lord, and teach me your paths.
4 Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; in you have I trusted all the day long.
5 Remember, O Lord, your compassion and love, for they are from everlasting.
6 Remember not the sins of my youth and my transgressions; remember me according to your love and for the sake of your goodness, O Lord.
7 Gracious and upright is the Lord; therefore he teaches sinners in his way.
8 He guides the humble in doing right and teaches his way to the lowly.
I won’t read the rest of the psalm, but if you turn to it in your Book of Common Prayer at any point, you’ll find that it continues on in this way. This psalm has been called a psalm of candor – a psalm of complete and vulnerable honesty. And if we remember that the psalms are prayers, then this is an honest, vulnerable prayer emerging from a soul that is troubled, grieving, struggling to keep the faith, insecure, feeling a sense of threat, perhaps even violence. The psalmist seeks God and God’s goodness yet lives in anxiety and shame. The psalmist asks God to foil the plans of his enemies, but also admits that he is a sinner himself. The psalm jumps from one idea to another, from one plea to another. The psalmist is talking to God and then talking about God; the psalmist is asking God for protection, asking God to forget about all the terrible things they have done, asking for guidance. It is a prayer that is honest, emotional, and wide open.
The scholars who call this psalm an ugly duckling aren’t completely wrong perhaps. This psalm is, as they say, a bit of a hot mess – at least at first glance.
And in fact, at second or third glance, in its original language, there is some order, there is some organization to this mess – in the Hebrew, in the original, it was written as an acrostic, as some psalms are – so each verse begins with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet in order. It’s a structure that gets lost of course in English translation.
But even beyond that, there is more to this ugly duckling psalm than an alphabetized torrent of mixed emotions.
Benedictine poet Kathleen Norris reminds us that the psalms are both individual and communal. They speak both to our individual experiences and, because of that, to our shared experiences. There is a reason why we speak them or sing them together, all of our voices combined on Sunday mornings. The prayers of the psalmist are the prayers of each of us, and they are the prayers of all of us. Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann reminds us that the psalms “make us human and keep us human.” They speak to and of our joys, our fears, our angers, our sorrows. They give voice when we cannot find words to understand and respond to the unnerving and sometimes tragic events of our lives.
These eight verses of the 25th Psalm ask three things of God: to protect, to teach, and to remember.
To protect. The psalm begins with words of trust. To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul. The word for “soul” in Hebrew is nephesh – it means all of me. So the psalmist is saying, to you, O Lord, I lift up all of myself, my life, my strength, my soul. My God, I put my trust in you. And then it goes to a phrase that we might struggle with a little bit: do not let my enemies triumph over me. We might think of those enemies as the forces and situations that break us apart. Perhaps those enemies are people, but they may be grief or self-doubt, illness or anger. Protect me, the psalmist prays. I trust you. Protect us, God. We trust you.
The psalmist next asks that second question, that second plea – for teaching, for guidance. Show me your ways, O Lord, and teach me your paths. This isn’t just asking God, please help me do the right thing, help me follow these laws, these rules. It is a deeper invitation, a greater request: God, walk with me. Be present with me while I follow these roads, this way of living that you are showing me. Be my map, my guide, my compass. I am alone without you. We are lost without you.
And the psalmist asks one more thing of God: Remember. Remember me. Forget the sins of my youth and my transgressions. Instead, remember me as I am, not for the wrong things I have done, but for the person I am, beneath the mistakes, the weaknesses and the fears, the person created and beloved by you. Remember your love for us, and forget our human transgressions, because your love and compassion are everlasting.
The prayers of the psalmist are the prayers of all of us. And I don’t think a hot mess is a bad thing for a psalm to be. In its messiness, in the whirl of its emotions, this psalm, and many of them, remind us what prayer is – and they remind us what life is. Life is a hot mess. Emotions are messy. Prayers can hold the mess, can hold the unexpected, can hold the griefs, the torrent of emotions, the disorganized, disconnected ugly ducklings of our lives.
Walter Brueggemann also writes that the psalms are about hope and that that “hope is rooted precisely in the midst of loss and darkness, where God is surprisingly present.” Grief, regret, fear, loss, doubt – the shadows that we move through are not the end of the story – and it is in those shadows that God is steadfastly with us, bringing grace and hope and healing. Amen.
— The Rev. Cara Ellen Modisett, Curate, Trinity Episcopal Church of Staunton
Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost, October 1, 2023
Reading: Psalm 25:1-8
