Preaching Essay Archive

PREACHING THE PSALMS

For those of us in traditions that employ the Lectionary, the psalms are part of every liturgical celebration. They are always "there" ---found after the first reading. Sometimes sung, sometimes recited. But, I dare say, often neglected as the basis for a preaching. What a shame, for the psalms, in their varied and profound response to God, are such rich sources for the preacher. Their language often expresses deeply felt emotions, as the psalmist turns to God speaking from the highs and lows of life.

Psalms were an integral part of public worship. While Israel used no images to depict God, when the psalms were prayed, the community was before God in a special way. Every human response can be found in the psalms. They express trust, meditation, hymns, thanks, grief, joy, praise and complaint. They remind us that God is concerned about all we feel and all that happens to us. A third of the psalms are laments, indicative of the very difficult historical situations of the Israelites who prayed the psalms. No wonder so many today still turn to the psalms for personal prayer throughout the seasons of their lives. No wonder too, that the church has found them an eminently suitable prayer for its public worship.

Psalms belong to the genre of poetry and are pitched higher and with more intensity than prose. As poetry they address the imagination and lend themselves to frequent repetition, as in worship. Many psalms have been put to music, which intensifies their poetic characteristics of rhythm, vivid images, compact ("tight") language, sound, repetition, etc. Thus, to respect the psalms' poetic nature, the preacher would do well to do as the psalms do---avoid the didactic and address the imagination. I think this is good advice for any kind of biblical preaching; but the psalms reinforce the need for the preacher to let the creative "juices" flow.

The psalms may not initially strike us as poetry. There isn't the usual dependence on rhyme and meter that we are accustomed to in our own poems. But psalms are Hebrew poetry and this type of poetry primarily uses parallelism. In this poetic method, one line utters a statement that is repeated, elaborated or even contradicted by the second. The possibilities for variation are endless. So, for example, in Psalm 40:10 (from the Second Sunday of Ordinary time), the first statement, "I announce your justice in the vast assembly," is repeated but nuanced in the second,

"I did not restrain my lips , as you, O Lord, know." A single thought or sentiment is expressed in the first line and a related thought or sentiment in the second---but in a different way. In other words, the second line echoes the first. Sometimes this second line speaks a contrast or comparison. While other poetry makes use of rhyme and meter, Hebrew poetry relies on balancing ideas. Awareness of the poetic features of the psalms will help the preacher better grasp what the palmist is expressing. The preacher may not use parallelism in the preaching, but understanding its poetic effects will help us grasp what and how the psalmist is communicating.

The psalms are brief and focused. Each has a unique quality and deserves patient and prayerful reading to grasp its beauty and uniqueness. When preparing a preaching from the psalm, give its poetry a chance to speak. Spend unpressured time with the psalm and stretch the time out over several periods of reflection and prayer. Let the individual verses speak through the different activities of the day. Listen to the world around you and hear what the psalm is saying in response.

I once was at a retreat when, after a day of reflection and prayer on several psalms, we gathered for evening prayer. Newspapers were distributed and the opening paragraphs of news items were read aloud. We followed each reading with silence. Then participants were invited to respond to a news item with lines from a psalm. Sometimes the psalm offered consolation, other times complaint to God, gratitude, praise, awe, etc. Besides being a moving prayer service, I was struck by how the psalms continued to have something to say to our modern lives and the world's joys and struggles.

As you continue to prepare the preaching, sound the words of the psalm out loud. Feel the moods the psalm evokes. Play with the images in your imagination. E.g. What do you feel, remember and see when you read, "God is a rock," "gather my faithful ones," "out of the pit of destruction," "sin speaks to the wicked in their hearts," "the heavens proclaim God's justice," "the hand of the Lord sustains them," etc.? Take breaks and let these images brew inside you. Free associate. I like to write in a stream of consciousness on a blank page. As I play and juggle the images of the psalm, I list what comes to mind from daily life. I look for contemporary parallels in the world around me that the psalm is helping me name. I ask, what moral, social or political situation does the psalm address? I listen for parallels to the psalm's poetic expressions in other forms of poetry, contemporary songs, advertizing slogans, popular sayings, headlines, my life and other people's lives, etc. The liturgical rite and season will also have their influence. The fact, for example, that Psalm 85 appears in the eucharistic liturgy for the Second Sunday of Advent (B), will influence how I hear it and what I think it might be saying to people who are supposed to be waiting for the Lord's return.

Then, after a good amount of brewing time, when a central message has emerged, I go to the commentaries for elaboration, clarification, background and word study. It is important to let the biblical scholars and theologians assist us in saying what we have already heard. Their task is to help us preachers speak accurately from the fruits of our own contemplation; but not to determine what we preach. That is why we hold off before consulting them until we ourselves have something we want to say. The scholars are there in the wings, waiting till we call them forward for help.

Knowing the psalms are poetry and being sensitive to the poetic devices they use, will keep the preacher from being tripped up by his/her own presumptions. When we read something, we expect logical development of thought and subject matter. But in the psalms we need to lend ourselves to the Hebrew way, which may dash our usual logical expectations, but open our heart and mind to God's expansive ways. We must let the vivid figures of speech and hyperbole break through our reserve and swoop us up in prayer and surrender. When we have moved through the moods of the psalm and have let it speak our words to God and God's word to us, we can invite the congregation into a parallel response. Through the psalm's voicing of regret, joy, sorrow, praise, lament, awe, etc., we can address the personal and comunal mood of our congregation and stir up a readiness to hear and receive God's response in our liturgical celebration.

The psalms make excellent material for preaching in their eloquent and powerful expression of the human situation. They speak of need, gratitude for God's support, grief, complaint, joy over creation, contrition for sin, feelings of guilt, a sense of being abandoned by family, friends and even by God. What they say, we hear repeated in our own hearts and the voices of those to whom we minster. They speak about what life feels like with and apart from God. They name daily human struggles and celebrations that bridge the thousands of years between us and their original authors. In other words, preaching from them, will help us speak to the concrete realities of those in our congregations and isn't that what we preachers are supposed to do?

-----Jude Siciliano, OP

Promoter of Preaching, Southern Dominican Province, U.S.A.

 

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