Shalom Seekers: A Third Meditation on Psalm 34:14

"Swerve from evil and do good, seek peace and pursue it."

The first couple meditations focused in on refraining from evil, engaging in good, and finally we end with this last phrase: "seek peace and pursue it." The word for peace in Hebrew is "shalom" which although it does mean peace, the peace spoken of here is on a much grander scale than the peace we might imagine. We see peace as the lack of conflict or war, while the shalom of the Bible is a peace that entails a wholeness, a rightness. Not just a wholeness for the individual, but also for his relationships and for the whole world he lives in. With the fall of man in Genesis 3 we saw a multi-layered curse issued because of it, clearly seeing its fruits throughout the world today. This curse affected the relationships between man and God, man and woman, and man and nature. God's desire is for a large scale shalom movement, re-newing and re-novating that which has been incomplete and fractured for thousands of years.

So what does it mean for us today to seek peace? I would argue it entails seeking wholeness in our lives. The first "rightness" we must find is a rightness in our relationship with God. We need what Jesus called a "new birth", or a "second birth". Jesus came to earth, died on the cross, and rose again to bring us from a place of separation from God to a place of union with God. He came to correct that which we were utterly incapable of correcting. In Romans 5:1, Paul declares that we have peace with God through Jesus Christ. This vertical peace spoken of in turn leads to a desire for a horizontal peace, a rightness of relationship with others and with nature. We are taught by God to be good stewards of our friendships, our jobs, our city, and our environment.

The final encouragement is the same in the verb at the end of the verse: "pursue it". It's a reminder that shalom seeking is not always an easy thing to do. In fact, it's just the opposite: very hard and discouraging at times. We see an "anti-shalom" that permeates the earth and even our hearts. It takes the gospel of Jesus transforming our fist-shaking rebellion towards God into clean submitted-hands that work to carry out the very things that Jesus's hands did on the earth. We follow him towards a global shalom. It takes discipline and an intentional focus on the things we hope to see happen, regardless of the initial outcomes. It takes what Nietzsche called "a long obedience in the same direction":

"The essential thing 'in heaven and earth' is... that there should be long obedience in the same direction; there thereby results, and has always resulted in the long run, something which has made life worth living."

Let it be so.

Swerving: A Meditation on Psalm 34:14

I read this in Robert Alter's "The Book of Psalms" yesterday from Psalms 34:14.

"Swerve from evil and do good, seek peace and pursue it."

Other translations say "turn from evil" (NIV), "depart from evil" (NASV), and "turn your back on sin" (The Message). Such a short sentence, but intense in content. As I was thinking through and meditating on it yesterday, I had a few mental jaunts on the particular words David used here. I'll split them up into a few blogs but hopefully there are some inspiring thoughts and practical ways of responding to and living this text in our every day lives. The first meditation will focus in on the initial phrase, "Swerve from evil" and address 3 thoughts that branch out from it.

1) First, this phrase implies there are such clear things such as good and evil, and God gives us an ability to choose or un-choose those things in our lives. He will hold us responsible. We aren't just animals of instinct that have don't have the ability to say "no", but rather are creatures that possess wills and self-control. Evil is not just a subjective assessment determined by individuals who look through the lenses of their upbringing, culture, or life experience and then label something good or evil. It's ultimately determined by God. He created us, and knows the very things that serve to build his image in us and the things that tear down and distort his image in us. God desires that we turn from evil things, things that are anti-God and anti-human for that matter (see pg. 19 of Rob Bell's "Sex God" for some interesting thoughts on this). We are not the final judges, God is. This takes a massive amount of humility to admit and even submit to. It feels wrong at times because we've been fed the exact opposite. We love being told "our reality is the ultimate reality", "we're in charge" and "we call the shots". We don't. We never will. God does. God always will.

2) The second thought I had was connected to the imagery of swerving. When I was in college, we took a trip and had a four hour drive home from San Francisco airport to San Luis Obispo. On our way south, we stopped at a friends house in San Jose for a quick hot tub break. Part of the effects of a hot tub that I had forgotten about was how relaxed and sleepy it makes you after. Unfortunately I had the next slot to drive, and sure enough after a few minutes it was evident I was struggling to stay awake. Not only was I struggling, but everyone else in the car fell asleep except for me and a friend. Luckily, she kept asking me questions to keep my mind active, but at one point she asked me one question and I didn't respond. Not only did I not respond, but the car was set in cruise control veering off the road heading towards a concrete wall. She screamed, "Joel!!! Joel!!!!!!" and a I woke up and was confronted with a decision: drive straight into the concrete wall and crash into it or swerve left back onto the road and miss the concrete wall and ultimately drive to where we were heading in the first place. I didn't set off thinking, "I really want to drive into a concrete wall!" but rather was confronted with that and had a choice to make. For many of us, we don't start off headed in the wrong direction, but by the grace of God are awakened along the way and have to make a decision. "To swerve or not to swerve." Would I remind you all that sin always tastes good for a season, but also yields fruit in season. It might not be immediate, but its seeds are planted and they grow and will bear its fruit of death in your life.

3) The last point I wanted to make regarding this phrase is connected to the passion it shows we should learn to take against sin. Our response to sin shouldn't just be a "oh, I'll guess I'll turn away" but rather a passionate, "I'm not wasting any time" turning. It brings up the memory of Joseph in Genesis 39, who while being enticed by Potiphar's cougar of a wife would say, "How could I do such a wicked thing and sin against my God?". It got to the point where she was tearing his off his clothes (in true cougar fashion) and he had to sprint away. Joseph swerved. He turned away from short-term gratification and ran towards long-term joy. He hadn't just connected his sin to wronging Potiphar his boss, but the big deal for him was sinning against God and followed through with his convictions. We'd hope he'd get his reward immediately from God for his obedience, but was actually thrown in jail for something he didn't do. That doesn't seem like a just scenario, but in the end, Joseph's character was being shaped and God would use him for amazing things.

What do you need to turn away from that you'll eventually crash into? What do you need to swerve from? Who can you talk to about that to hold you to the things you're feeling stirred to turn away from?

Would we be a swerving people.

Tasting The Psalms

Over the last couple weeks, I've been taking some time reading through the Psalms first thing in the morning. I've tried a couple morning rituals (ie Divine Hours, Sacred Space, etc.) and am continuing to explore different ways of praying. I haven't gotten super far yet, but it's been life giving. Basically I've been starting with a Psalm a day, reading through it and meditating on it, praying it back in my "own tongue". I've been using a couple tools as I've done this:

1) Robert Alter's "The Book of Psalms".


2) Eugene Peterson's "Answering God: The Psalms As Tools For Prayers"


Robert Alter is a biblical scholar and author who taught Hebrew and Comparative Literature at UC Berkeley, and has translated a lot of the Hebrew Scriptures. Alongside his translation are his commentaries on various passages, why they're hard to translate or understand, or shed some interesting light on words/phrases. I've enjoyed some of the poetic ways he's unfolded some of the psalms. Check it out if you get a chance.

I've also been reading through Eugene Peterson's "Answering God" and have been loving it. I read it a few years ago, but I'm blown away by the stuff I'm re-reading. I highly recommend it, even just for the first 5 chapters. The way he lays out the heart of the Psalms and even explaining the story & rhythm of the psalms is so helpful and encouraging. Here are a few of the quotes:

"All prayer is prayed in a story, by someone who is in the story. There are no storyless prayers. Story is to prayer what the body is to teh soul, the circumstances in which it takes palce. And prayer is to story what the soul is to the body, the life without which it would be a corpse. Prayers are prayed by people who live stories. Every life is a story. We are not always aware that we are living a story; often it seems more like a laundry list. But story it is."

Here's another:

"Spiritualized prayer is denatured prayer, prayer in which all the dirt and noise of ordinary life is boiled out. It is a prayer that cultivates exalted feelings and sublime thoughts. It is prayer that is embarrassed by the coarse subject matter that intrudes itself into most twenty-four hour periods, but takes great pleasure in aphorisms. It is escapist prayer, with scheduled flights to the empyrean. The psalm editors, knowing our weakness for these fantasies, use titles to tie the balloon of prayer to people in a story: for life is always and necessarily lived in detail, and the details are often inconvenient and regular."

I love this thought of story and how the psalm editors placed titles on 116 of the psalms because it reminds us that these prayers are connected to "place, time, and people". That should be a greatly encouraging thought. I'd love to keep on going, but need to get ready for class.

If you ready & pray through the psalms, what disciplines have been helpful for you to engage in meaningful, heartfelt ways? Books?