When God subjected himself

“And he [Jesus] went down with them to Nazareth and was obedient to them.” Luke 2:51

One of the hardest things for human beings to do is to learn to obey. I won’t go into the theological reasons why this is so. In any case, we have to admit we struggle not to resent subjecting ourselves to someone else’s will. That’s a good thing, too, most of the time. Following just anybody’s directives without thought to his or her intentions can be dangerous. Even so, it’s good for our well-being that the majority of us U.S. citizens obey the basic laws of this land. At the least, it keeps us from killing each other off.

Still I for one am a little squirmy when I read in Deuteronomy God commanding the people to obey and serve him, not once, but 20-plus times. Why does God make such a big deal out of serving him? Well, for one, he, not we, is the All-wise Creator who has made us for his purest love. He designed the world to work in harmony when we love and serve him. Period.

Yet there is another big reason for the command to obey. Humble to the utmost, God has subjected himself to us. This truth was highlighted in last Sunday's service as we celebrated the feast day of The Holy Family. The key verse from the Gospel reading is quoted at the top of this post.

Jesus was twelve. He scared his mother and step-father half to death wandering off by himself to the temple in Jerusalem to discuss theology with Jewish scholars. When Mary and Joseph finally find him, it would have been natural for a 12 year old boy to smart off when chastised for worrying them. “Hey, I’m an above-average kid, I’m impressing the big guys. Why do I need to listen to you anymore?” No, Jesus not only returned with them to back-water Nazareth, he, the Creator of all the earth, lived under their guidance until he came of age.

So, as an adult, Jesus could say of himself without any false tone, “For the Son of Man came not to serve, but to serve and give his life a ransom for many.” If he had not served us with his very body and blood, where would be the source of our salvation?

So, what reaction would God desire to such great love? Our reciprocity.

The only one moral infantcide

In my parish, we follow a 30-day cycle of reading all 150 Psalms. At this Saturday’s Vespers, in honor of our bishop’s visit, our choir will be leading the congregation in singing the Psalms appointed for the 28^th of the month. They happen to include Psalm 137 (Hebrew numbering).

Over the years, I have belonged to several Protestant faith traditions, all devoted to singing portions of Scripture. But we never thought of singing all of Psalm 137 during a church worship service. In fact, at music practice, we Orthodox choir members shot up our eyebrows. “Why are we singing this?”

Why, indeed? Psalm 137 is absolutely no fun. It has no words of praise to the Lord, but of lament and violence.

The original setting for the psalm is one of ancient Babylon’s water ways. Some exiled Israelites musicians of the sixth century B.C. are sprawled, weeping by the bank, and have hung their harps on low-hanging willow trees, too homesick to sing.

A group of Babylonians happen by and torment them, “Sing a song of Zion!”

“How can we sing the LORD’s song in a foreign land?” they reply.

Yet, they do sing. The song evolves into a devotion to Jerusalem, now lying in ruins. The writer thinks back on how their neighbors, the Edomites, gloated over the disaster. Worse yet, they lurked at escape routes in Jerusalem’s walls, rounded up fugitives, and handed them over to the Babylonians (Obadiah 12-14).

The anger wells up so greatly in the psalmist’s heart that the last of the song is a horrible curse:

Happy the one who takes
and dashes your infants
against the rock! (v. 9)

How in the world do we Christians of the 21^st century handle this? Wouldn’t it be best to discount it as one of those texts of an unenlightened people before the coming of Christ and modern civilization?

The Orthodox Church handles this psalm by boldly incorporating it into her liturgy. This is not because she endorses anything remotely like literal, human infanticide. Rather, she interprets this and other imprecatory psalms in the light of Jesus Christ.

Thus, for followers who take our cue from Jesus to, “Love your enemies,” there remains only one category of enemy that we must actively fight against. This category is the demonic forces of evil (Eph 6:12).

Psalm 137 becomes a lament of our exile in this dark world, as we long for the physical kingdom of God to come. It is an imprecation against our tempter and accuser. With this understanding, St. Benedict revolutionized verse 9 in a most practical way for us today.

“Lord, who shall dwell in your tabernacle?

He who takes the evil spirit that tempts him; . . . who grasps his evil suggestions [in their infancy] and dashes them to pieces on the rock that is Christ.”[1]

[1] The Rule of St. Benedict, Justin McCann, trans., ed., (Ft. Collins, Colo.: Roman Catholic Books), 9-10.