Notes for  21 April 2017

Isn’t it, this remarkable admonition, is addressed to his own soul? Who is- "my soul? And if it is not me, then who "am I"?

Probably, the psalmist discovers here his heterogeneity, diversity, which each of us knows according to his experience. Maybe, he doesn’t mean yet these three-parts of man, of which the Fathers of the Church speak about already at the time of the New Testament; such classification grows up all the same from the Greek philosophy, and not from the wisdom of the Old Testament. But he is indubitably very close to such view: indeed, his "soul" casts down and disquiets, that is in the grip of negative feelings, but "I" - is where there is a firm and not depending on feelings decision to glorify the Lord. As it is important also for us that our will doesn’t tag along our humors, but feeds on faith in God and the relationships with Him, bringing us to hope in God, the hope overcoming any sadness.

Life on earth can be frightening enough as it is, but if we apply to ourselves Christ’s words addressed to the apostles, it becomes thoroughly unsettling. That is why the words “do not be afraid” are repeated so often and so earnestly in this instruction. Fear is one of the strongest human experiences, which means it can be overcome only by something even stronger. The Lord points His disciples to these “potent remedies”: trust and—strange as it may seem—fear. The trust in question is not merely the belief that “God will always help,” but the deepest, most fundamental certainty that everything is in His hands, from the little birds sold in the market for copper coins to every human life and death. The second is the fear of God: not fear of punishment, nor even fear of sin, but precisely “fear” before God—reverence and awe that make God immeasurably more real and substantial to us than any other fear.

Catastrophe is coming upon the people of Judah not so much as punishment for certain specific sins, but because in this country, called to be the place of God's presence on earth, there is simply no room left for Him. The point is not that the inhabitants of Jerusalem became some kind of dreadful villains, but that God simply became uninteresting to them. Everyone found other interests: the poor had to work, the rich had to feast, the prophets had to prophesy, the priests had to offer sacrifices... and God had nothing to do with it. And this is more terrible than any sin. Sin can be forgiven, at times corrected, and one can try somehow to find a way out of the situation; but when people forget God, forgiveness and sacrifice and prophecy lose their meaning. And when meaning disappears, death comes, the most meaningless thing in the world.

The reproaches addressed to unjust judges are severe. Of course, they apply not only to judges who hand down sentences as part of their office, but also to all of us who are quick to pass judgment. Although we often recall the famous words, “And who are the judges?”, they do not apply here. The character in “Woe from Wit” asks whether particular people have the right to judge; the psalmist, without making it personal, speaks about the problem of unjust judgment itself.

The psalmist is driven by hope that justice will be done. But here once again we encounter a difficult passage: the thirst for justice appears as a desire for vengeance, in dreams of bathing in the blood of enemies. This is difficult to reconcile with the Gospel commands of love and forgiveness; today many people are more likely to be repelled by such dreams.

That is true. But the path to the Good News has not yet been completed; only the foundation for receiving it is being laid. People of that era were far more accustomed to witnessing the bloody triumph of injustice. Therefore, hope in the triumph of justice, even when expressed so militantly, strengthened confidence in evil’s inevitable defeat.