How Can One Believe Such Things?

  (Lectionary for February 5, 2017)

A quick and facile reading of Ps. 112 may lead one to shout something like, “Fat chance, dude! Just what world are you living in?” In the world I know, far too many righteous folk, at least those judged to be righteous by biblical standards, are too often not “remembered forever” (Ps. 112:6), their descendants are too often not “mighty in the land” (Ps. 112:2), they too often do not “look with triumph on their foes” (Ps. 112:8). They may have “given freely, given to the poor” (Ps. 112:9), but “their horn (power) is not regularly “exalted in honor” (Ps. 112:9). And Ps. 112:10 defies all belief as it claims that “the wicked see it (all this righteous behavior and its supposed grand success) and are angry; they gnash their teeth and melt away; the desire of the wicked comes to nothing.” Hardly! Far too often wicked folk, at least those judged wicked by the standards of biblical religion, do not in fact melt away, but stand at the pinnacles of power and adulation. In the face of the world we know, how can Ps. 112 be taken at all seriously?

This is a crucial question for those of us who want to discover guidelines for living our lives in the pages of the ancient scripture. Those who deride the Bible often look at claims like these in Ps. 112 and throw up their hands in horror, laughing at the foolish naiveté of any who can read such twaddle with a straight face. Well, how can we take Ps. 112 as a serious bit of religious proclamation?

One way believers have attempted to appropriate such writing is in my mind a dangerous failure. They have claimed that pronouncements like those of Ps. 112 are in fact to be fulfilled in some reward and punishment afterlife. Ah yes, they say, the wicked may gloat now, but in a very hot Hell, they will rue for eternity their refusal to live the life of the righteous, suffering the rewards of the wicked, poked and prodded by the pincers of the Devil and his minions. Meanwhile, the righteous, so often abused and ridiculed in life, now find their heavenly mansions, their fabulous golf courses, shooting sub par rounds, their infinity pools where they lounge and play for all time, casting an occasional glance downward at the sufferers below, perhaps saddened by their fate, but unable to help them any more. After all, they had their chance, but blew it! Too bad! Please pass the mustard!

Such a tale is literally hellish and not just for those trapped in the caverns of some monstrous Hell. It is equally hellish for those who claim that they are on a one-way ticket to paradise, because they hate their fellow humans so much as to imagine them pinned in Hell forever while they enjoy the fruits of their supposed righteousness, singing out of one hymnal or another while those they knew in life suffer torments beyond endurance forever. Is this any way to imagine the eternity of human beings: a brief life of certain choices leading to an unending eternity of bliss or horrors? I am no psychologist, but I can readily see in this scenario a deep sickness and a raging desire for revenge. Still, it seems certain that the drama of heaven and hell, in the mode made vivid by Dante and Milton, are the result of the deep-seated human desire to get even, even in some imagined eternity. This plainly will not do! It satisfies neither the theology of a loving and forgiving God, nor the demand that God makes for all the creation to exemplify that loving and forgiving reality. We simply cannot rely on some kind of imagined reward and punishment in some sort of glorious heaven and nasty hell to recapture what Ps. 112 is trying to say.

Well, what then? Just what are we to do with this psalm’s claims? Perhaps the very first word of the poem may help us. That word is ‘asher, “happy” (NRSV) or “blessed” (more traditional translations). “Happy are those who fear (or “worship” or “stand in awe of”) YHWH, who greatly delight in God’s commandments.” At the same time that they are happy, they are at the same time blessed. In short, there is finally something intrinsically right and joyful about doing deeds of righteousness, about being “gracious, merciful, and righteous” (Ps.112:4), “dealing generously” with others, conducting “their affairs with justice” (Ps.112:5), “distributing freely” and “giving to the poor” (Ps.112:9). There is here not a single hint that such behavior will be easily or readily rewarded immediately. It is merely stated that “their hearts (their will and intentions) are steady; they will not be afraid” (Ps.112:8). Righteous and just behaviors are here their own reward in steadfastness and freedom from fear. There is no implication of heaven or hell; righteousness is simply the thing to do.

But for many that was plainly not enough motivation; there just had to be some tangible reward, some eternal medallion, some heavenly trophy that would indicate exactly who was righteous and who was not. It is to me one of the greatest gifts of the Hebrew Bible that there was in fact no indication at all of some sort of eternal place of reward until very late in the second century BCE in the 12th chapter of the book of Daniel, the Hebrew Bible’s last written book. Of course there were hints of a life beyond this one in certain psalms (Ps.139, for example) or perhaps in the poetry of Job (see Job 19), but at none of these places does one see any sense that reward and punishment were involved. In fact, in the book of Job the entire point appears to be that God simply does not operate like that at all. Despite the babble of Job’s so-called friends (more fiends than friends, I fear) about Job’s supposed evil that has lead him to the ash heap, the speeches of YHWH proclaim with a distinct clarity that God does not act like that, does not reward and punish for human behavior. It is telling that Eliphaz is rebuked by YHWH precisely for what he has said about God (Job 42:7)!

In short, the ethics of the Hebrew Bible are built on following the commands of YHWH simply because they are right, simply because they lead to a steady and successful life, a life free from fear. Are these poets and writers so simple-minded as to imagine that this is always the case? Of course not! Their claim is that such a life is far superior to its opposite life of wickedness and selfish actions, because YHWH commands it. “Do this, and you will live,” claims Deuteronomy, and so you shall. But expect no easy rewards, either now or in some fanciful future. Martin Luther King was correct and deeply biblical at the same time when he announced that the “arc of justice is long, and it bends toward justice.” Expect no quick rewards, but expect the righteousness of God to prevail and live accordingly. There is the essence of the claims of Ps. 112. Not a bad rule of living, I think.