Tag Archives: Joy

Songs for Pilgrims (20th Sunday after Pentecost, 10/26/2025)

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Readings (Track 2)

Today’s readings include Psalm 84. Since it’s perhaps not one of the more familiar psalms, let’s ease into it by recalling Psalm 23 (BCP 612):

1 The Lord is my shepherd; *
I shall not be in want.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures *
and leads me beside still waters.
3 He revives my soul *
and guides me along right pathways for his Name’s sake.
4 Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I shall fear no evil; *
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
5 You spread a table before me in the presence of those who trouble me; *
you have anointed my head with oil,
and my cup is running over.
6 Surely your goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, *
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

Psalm 23 is often described as a psalm of trust, of pilgrimage. The goal’s at the end: “the house of the Lord;” the psalm describes the pilgrimage, the Lord’s reliable shepherding. There are dark moments (“the shadow of death,” “those who trouble me”), but these do not get the last word.

Now, Psalm 84:

1 How dear to me is your dwelling, O Lord of hosts! *
My soul has a desire and longing for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and my flesh rejoice in the living God.
2 The sparrow has found her a house
and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young; *
by the side of your altars, O Lord of hosts,
my King and my God.
3 Happy are they who dwell in your house! *
they will always be praising you.
4 Happy are the people whose strength is in you! *
whose hearts are set on the pilgrims’ way.
5 Those who go through the desolate valley will find it a place of springs, *
for the early rains have covered it with pools of water.
6 They will climb from height to height, *
and the God of gods will reveal himself in Zion.
7 Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer; *
hearken, O God of Jacob.
8 Behold our defender, O God; *
and look upon the face of your Anointed.
9 For one day in your courts is better
than a thousand in my own room, *
and to stand at the threshold of the house of my God
than to dwell in the tents of the wicked.
10 For the Lord God is both sun and shield; *
he will give grace and glory;
11 No good thing will the Lord withhold *
from those who walk with integrity.
12 O Lord of hosts, *
happy are they who put their trust in you!

It’s not hard to recognize Psalm 84 as another psalm of trust, of pilgrimage. Here the goal (“your dwelling”) is at the start (vv.1-3); the rest of the psalm is mostly a description of the pilgrimage. Again, no lack of potentially dark moments (“the desolate valley,” plenty of heights to climb), but these do not get the last word.

There are differences. Psalm 23 so focuses on the shepherding that the “I” sounds pretty passive. Psalm 84 pays more attention to the Lord’s empowerment during the pilgrimage (“whose strength is in you,” “they will climb”). And the speakers are more obviously making choices: better “to stand at the threshold of the house of my God / than to dwell in the tents of the wicked.” And notice Psalm 84’s repeated “happy”:

3a Happy are they who dwell in your house!
4a Happy are the people whose strength is in you!
12b happy are they who put their trust in you.

In passing, while ‘happy’ isn’t a bad translation, the problem is that English doesn’t have a word that matches the Hebrew ´ašrê. It’s ‘happy’ in the sense of well-positioned. Happy is the one whose house is built on rock. The Common English Bible offers “truly happy.”

One commentator writes “Enthusiastic joy in YHWH, the theme developed in the first strophe of our psalm (vv.2-5), and unshakable trust in him, the essential statement of the third strophe (vv.9-13), are the two basic attitudes on the basis of which human paths succeed, because they kindle in the human person an inner strength that empowers to withstand obstacles and overcome them” (Zenger in Psalms 2, 358; verse numbers reflect Hebrew text).

How might we hear this psalm today? Two suggestions. First, to talk of joy and trust is not to go full Pollyanna. The psalm’s well aware of the desolate valleys, the heights that look unclimbable. We daily make choices about what we focus on, what we dwell on, that nurture or not our capacity for joy and trust. What’s the first app I open in the morning, the last before calling it a night? There’s a reason our Book of Common Prayer starts with the daily offices (and bless the folk that created the apps that save us the constant turning of pages!).

That said, joy and trust work differently. Trust is anchored in who we are as a people. Jews trust the God who brought them out of Egypt. So the big annual celebration is Passover, and, no longer being under Pharaoh, the Sabbath means working six days a week, not seven. Christians trust that same God who raised Jesus from the dead. So we gather every Sunday to celebrate Jesus’ resurrection, and remember that whatever the situation, God bats last.

Joy is more complicated. Paul: “Rejoice in the Lord always” (Phil 4:4), but joy’s not evident in long stretches of his letters. The largest group of psalms in the Psalter: they want joy, they look forward to joy, but at the moment: Help! After all, were joy more often in the present, we’d talk less about trust.

Second, after all the talk in our psalms about the temple, since the Romans destroyed the temple in ad 70, where does that leave us? From our brothers Peter and Paul:

Peter: “Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 2:4-5)

Paul:“In [Christ Jesus] the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God. (Eph. 2:21-22)

No need for a single temple in Jerusalem when there are parishes (temples!) scattered around the world, even in Beaver Dam. So we should expect to experience something of the pilgrim’s joy described in Psalm 84 as we come together here? That seems to be the idea, despite the fact that as we and the apostles know (recall Paul’s letters to the Corinthians!) parishes can generate great pain as well as great joy.

The potential for good and evil in every parish is one of the reasons our Eucharistic Prayers ask our God for not one, but two transformations. From Prayer A:

“Sanctify them [the bread and wine] by your Holy Spirit to be for your people the Body and Blood of your Son…
Sanctify us also that we may faithfully receive this holy Sacrament, and serve you in unity, constancy, and peace…”

Being the temple implies no less!

And this is perhaps the appropriate moment to notice today’s Gospel. Jesus is working multiple agendas: how to pray, what attitudes make entry into God’s kingdom easier or harder, and also—with Psalm 84 ringing in the ears—what behaviors are appropriate or not in the temple.

We’re social animals. And in this culture, as in many others, the default is to sort out the pecking order, no matter where we are. The Pharisee’s prayer is a classic example of that sorting out. But the problem isn’t just some Pharisees; Jesus’ own followers are just as capable of the same behavior. There’s not much distance between “God, I thank you that I am not like other people” and what Paul was hearing in Corinth: “’I belong to Paul,’ or ‘I belong to Apollos,’ or ‘I belong to Cephas,’ or ‘I belong to Christ’” (1 Cor. 1:12).

What of the tax collector’s “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”? That’s an essential part of our liturgy. The pause between the invitation to the general confession and the confession itself is for us to remember, individually and collectively, that we’re dealing with more than words on a page. The Eucharistic Prayer (and remember, ‘Eucharist’ is simply the transliteration of the Greek word for ‘thanksgiving’) is our thanksgiving for God’s mercy to us sinners. But the point is not to stay there, but to enter more deeply into the joy and trust of Psalm 84.

What is life? Not just one darn thing after another, but a pilgrimage to the living God. With David: “You show me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy; in your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Ps. 16:11).

Jesus, making the Father’s Name known (7th Sunday of Easter, 5/12/2024)

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Readings

In eight days we celebrate the Feast of Pentecost, and already today’s readings are setting us up for it. The reading from Acts picks up from Thursday’s Ascension Day reading, and brings us to the end of the 1st chapter; chapter 2 opens on the Day of Pentecost. The Gospel narrates the heart of Jesus’ prayer for the disciples: Protect them! Sanctify them (Make them holy)! And the Father’s response to that prayer is chiefly in the gift of the Holy Spirit.

To appreciate what’s going on in Jesus’ prayer, recall the scene toward the start of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Two Towers in which Gandalf the wizard and Pippin the hobbit are in conversation: “Pippin glanced in some wonder at the face now close beside his own, for, the sound of that laugh had been gay and merry. Yet in the wizard’s face he saw at first only lines of care and sorrow; though as he looked more intently he perceived that under all there was a great joy: a fountain of mirth enough to set a kingdom laughing, were it to gush forth” (1965, 34).

“[A] great joy: a fountain of mirth enough to set a kingdom laughing, were it to gush forth.” Something like that same combination of care, sorrow, and joy is present, I suspect, in Jesus’ face and certainly in his words. Here he is, hours away from Judas’ betrayal and the tender mercies of the Roman garrison, talking about “my joy made complete in themselves.”

The joy is intimately connected to God’s Name: “I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world.” Now that’s odd: they didn’t know God’s name? What’s going on here? It turns out that Jesus making God’s name known is multi-dimensional, each dimension inviting us to joy.

The fundamental revelation of God’s Name up to this point occurred when God through Moses brought Israel out of slavery. In that first conversation at the burning bush, God has announced his intention to deliver Israel from Egypt, and we get this interchange:

—If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?
—I AM WHO I AM.… Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’

“I am who I am” or “I will be who I will be.” The most frequent form of the name was probably pronounced “Yahweh” (in some older translations, “Jehovah”). In its abbreviated form it’s the ‘Jah’ in ‘Hallelujah’. Whatever the form, the Israelites learn the meaning of this Name in God’s actions for their liberation. They start out slaves; they end up free; that’s what ‘I am’ means. And periodically in the Old Testament we encounter this I AM again, particularly in the Greek translation with which Jesus and the NT writers —specifically John— would have been familiar:

See now that I AM. There is no god besides me. I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and no one can deliver from my hand. (Deuteronomy 32:39; my translation)

You are my witnesses, says the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I AM. Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me. (Isaiah 43:10; my translation)

In the Gospel according to John, Jesus takes up this name “I AM” in a whole series of statements, including:

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” (6:35)

Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” (8:12)

So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep.” (10:7)

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” (10:11)

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live…” (11:25)

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (14:6)

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower.” (15:1)

And in case we’re thinking “well, talk is cheap,” recall that Jesus says “I am the bread of life” after the feeding of the 5,000, “I am the light of the world” after giving sight to the blind, and “I am the resurrection and the life” just before calling Lazarus out of the tomb.

Nor did “I AM” always come with a predicate. Recall Jesus’ “Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I AM.” (John 8:58 NAB). Again, when the disciples in a small boat in the middle of a big storm cry out in fear as they see Jesus walking towards them over the sea, Jesus responds, “I AM; do not be afraid” (John 6:20 my translation).

Yes, Jesus has made the Name known to the disciples. Jesus’ actions, Jesus’ words, Jesus’ very being have taken that divine name revealed to Moses to a whole new level. The Israelites were filled with joy when finally out of the Egyptian army’s clutches; as we remember the liberation God has accomplished for us through Jesus, a greater joy can be ours.

There is a second dimension to this “I have made your name known.” The first is the presence and power of “I AM;” the second is Jesus’ distinctive use of “Abba,” the Aramaic word children typically used to address their fathers. We have no evidence of Jesus’ contemporaries using the word to address God; it probably would have seemed far too intimate. Most of the time the Gospels translate it into Greek. Its one appearance in the Gospels during Jesus’ prayer at Gethsemane —“Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want” (Mk 14.36)— is a window on Jesus’ customary usage. And the intimacy with God Jesus experienced —evident also through today’s Gospel text—is offered to the disciples. Here are the other two appearances in the New Testament:

For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, through which we cry, “Abba! Father!” (Romans 8:15 NAB)

And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” (Galatians 4:6 NRSV)

So Jesus making God’s Name known to the disciples isn’t simply about giving them —us— information, but about inviting us to participate ever more deeply in God, God our Abba, God the “I AM” who can bring out of any situation life, freedom, and joy.

There is a third dimension to this “I have made your name known.” Jesus sends us out into the world to baptize in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. By the end of the New Testament, that is clearly the Name of God that Jesus has made known to the disciples. Our God, not a monolithic unity, but a community of love and joy into which we are invited to enter. Who is the God in whose presence we live? A loving Father, whose two arms, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, are constantly extended to strengthen, guide, embrace us. “The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”

You see, today’s Gospel text is pretty dense. I have tried to go for the core, the many ways Jesus has been revealing God’s Name —God’s reality, God’s character— to the disciples. Grasp this, and the rest falls into place: the deep gratitude in Jesus’ words, the awareness that all that he has is gift, Jesus’ trust in his Father’s continued care for the disciples, and the sense of passing the baton: You sent me into the world; I am sending them into the world. The world —the many ways we organize ourselves to shut out God— will do its worst, but will not succeed, any more than closing your eyes real tight, clenching your fists, and wishing real hard will keep the sun from coming up.

But all that falls into place only if we start with God. “I have made your name known…” Jesus said. Do not settle for anything less here. Do not get sidetracked. Life is too short to settle for anything less than “great joy, a fountain of mirth enough to set a kingdom laughing.”