You have given me an open ear

The season of Lent is upon us, and this year I have decided to approach it a little differently by adding instead of taking away: adding disciplines which I don't do regularly but wish I did, like memorize poetry and scripture, one poem or scripture passage every week of Lent.

This coming week's project is Psalm 40, which I have long counted among my favorites, but have never memorized. You may think it's a little ironic that my Lenten psalm of choice includes "Sacrifice and offering you have not desired," but the main reason this psalm pressed itself on me is the next phrase, "but you have given me an open ear." The note in the ESV says that the Hebrew is literally "ears you have dug for me." Commentators I have encountered recently do not believe this has anything to do with piercing a slave's ear with an awl as a mark of ownership, which was rather the popular explanation I grew up with, but they link it to the subsequent images in the psalm of allowing the word of God to penetrate deeply, into the ears and seeping right down into the dark and stubborn will. That sounds like a Lenten project tailor made for me this year.

Sacrifice and offering you have not desired,
but you have given me an open ear.
Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required.
Then I said, "Behold, I have come;
In the scroll of the book it is written of me:
I desire to do your will, O my God,
Your law is written within my heart.

This combines rather well with project number one, a wonderful penitential poem of John Donne. I've been imbibing this poem since Ash Wednesday, for which service my church choir sang a wonderful setting. We will sing it again tomorrow. As usual, I knew the tune before I knew the words, but now I know the words by heart too, and I'm so glad.

Wilt thou forgive the sin where I begun,
Which is my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt thou forgive that sin through which I run,
And do run still, though still I do deplore?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
For I have more.

Wilt thou forgive the sin which I have won
others to sin, and made my sins their door?
Wilt thou forgive the sin that I did shun
a year or two, but wallowed in a score?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
For I have more.

I have a sin of fear, that when I've spun
my last thread, I shall perish on the shore.
Swear by thyself, that at my death thy Son
Shall shine, as He shines now and heretofore.
And having done that, thou hast done,
I fear no more.

God's Voice

Psalm 29 offers an extensive description of the voice of the LORD.
“The voice of the LORD is over the waters;
the God of glory thunders, the LORD over many waters.
The voice of the LORD is powerful;
The voice of the LORD is full of majesty.
The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars;
The LORD breaks the cedars of Lebanon…
The voice of the LORD flashes forth flames of fire.
The voice of the LORD shakes the wilderness…
The voice of the LORD makes the deer give birth.
He strips the forest bare, and in his temple all cry, “Glory!”
…May the LORD give strength to His people.
May the LORD bless his people with peace.”

I wonder if David was thinking about Mt. Sinai when he wrote that Psalm. Exodus 24 tells us God spoke with Moses, and that Moses wrote down all the words of the LORD. Not only that, but he read them aloud: “He took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, “All that the LORD has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.” And then Moses sprinkled them with the blood of the covenant. All this seems a profound shadow of the Word that would be made flesh. And then Moses went up the mountain, and Psalm 29 describes what the people heard, quaked at, and felt “Glory” in terrified awe rushing to their lips.

I almost wish I didn’t know how quickly they forgot, how quickly they worshiped a god of their own making. I do know, I know from experience.

We who are washed in the blood of the New Covenant would do well to remember these sounds and their fearful response. The Word made flesh is not a lesser manifestation of the Glory but a greater, and a nonchalant or ambivalent response is inappropriate. This creates a deep hunger in me for a more extensive and thoughtful palette of sounds in our Christian worship gatherings, and for shepherds who are about teaching us to listen, not just enabling talented parishioners to use their gifts!

I’ve been teaching my Art of Listening class the powerful music of the Romantic tradition, music that terrifies, that overwhelms with authoritative majesty, and then, oh blessed reprieve, the delicate music of France, tender enough to attend the miracle of birth, to strengthen the faint, and emit peace: we need it all! All of it reveals the full spectrum of God’s voice, and were it not for His image in us, we would not be able to create any of it. If it were not for my being a musician, I’m trying to think how I would know any of these sounds. They so rarely make it into church; some churches have never heard them. The very real risk of making music into “a god of our own making” is ever present, but to be without a full spectrum in our aural imaginations when it comes to hearing the voice of God, runs the terrible risk of producing desensitized Christians, ostensibly deaf: no more able to hear the still small voice than the thunder and lightening that breaks mighty cedars into matchsticks. I wish I could teach my Art of Listening class as a Sunday School class. There would be so much richness there.

Give Ear

Grumbling was the Israelites habitual vocabulary, and it is too often mine, not thanksgiving. Grumbling bubbled out of their hearts against their leader, but repeatedly Moses warned them that they were grumbling against God, for the things they were grumbling about Moses had no power to change and he was suffering all the same deprivations of basic needs as they were.

God answered Moses’ cry for help at Marah by giving him a log to put in the impotable water and it became sweet. At that point, the moment of provision, it says The LORD tested them, saying “If you will diligently listen to the voice of your LORD your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, your healer.” And then it says they came to Elim, where there was an abundance of water and palm trees for shade. God’s instruction was sealed by a luxurious provision, a healing balm from their wilderness hardships and an impetus for their faith, a sign that he would always provide. The Garden of Eden all over again: they were provided for and God gave them a rule to see if they would they would love Him as their God or focus on their creature comforts. The LORD tested their hearts again a little later using food, by providing food for them with instructions for exactly how they should gather it, to see “whether they will walk in my law or not.” Even without knowing the details, you know they flunked. The people quarreled with Moses again at Rephidim, over water—again—and Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the LORD?”

So the LORD tests us to see if we will give ear to his commandments and trust him, whether regardless of circumstances, we will look to him with expectant thanksgiving. Humans test the LORD by challenging his authority, his Godness, and doubting his love.

The LORD’s testing me is good and right, and apart from his provision of a Saviour, I fail.

My testing the LORD is sin.

“Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our sins…” among others, sins of withholding my ears instead of giving them over to his commandments and his healing; sins of lifting up a voice of grumbling and quarreling instead of thanksgiving. The moment of provision is at once the moment of healing and the moment of testing. I have occasion to “give ear” if you will, at least three times a day! And so many more.