Here’s my message from this weeks Lectionary readings. As always, you can also listen to it on Metro Christian Centre’s YouTube page, just click here.
READING: PSALM 37
THE EATING HABITS OF OLD LADIES
There was once an old lady who swallowed a fly. We’re not sure why she swallowed the fly. Perhaps she’ll die?
But then the old lady swallows a spider—crazy! A spider which wriggles and wiggles and tickles inside her. Apparently, she swallowed the spider to catch the fly. But we’re not sure why she swallowed the fly. Perhaps she’ll die?
To make matters worse, she then swallows a bird. A live bird: feathers, beak, talons and all—how absurd! Rumour has it that she swallowed the bird in order to catch the spider, which she had swallowed to catch the fly. But none of us know why she swallowed the fly. Perhaps she’ll die…
You know this tale, and how it concludes. It’s a tale in which the absurdity keeps on growing. After the bird there’s a cat, then a dog, followed by a goat, a cow and finally a side-order of horse—which leads to the death of the old lady, of course.
It’s a ludicrous tale, but as a child, I would listen over and over again to the version performed by the legendary Burl Ives. At such a young age, the song infected me with giggles. But when I grew up, the laughing stopped, and I began to recognise the powerful message hidden within this folk parable. There comes a point when you realise that it’s not a funny story of an old lady and her bad diet, but a tragic story of someone suffering from a malign confusion; a confusion that causes her to believe that the cure to her problem is a bigger version of the problem.
When you see this, and then move your gaze from the song and onto world events, you’ll see the same confusion at work:
How do we bring peace and end wars? We have a war to “end” all wars.
How do we deal with the threat of nuclear fallout? We build bigger nuclear weapons, and use the threat of those bigger weapons to tell those with the smaller ones to get rid of theirs.
How do we quench our dissatisfaction with material goods; we’re told to grasp for newer goods through lucid advertisements.
How do we aim to develop a more inclusive society; seek to exclude those who aren’t inclusive.
How are we taught to deal with hate; we demonise the haters.
The list goes on and on, and on…
I believe our hearts are in the right place; we’re tired of hatred, we’re tired of war, we’re tired of evil, we’re tired of gossip and slander and pain and oppression and sorrow. We want goodness, not evil. We want light, not darkness. We desire justice, which is a noble desire. Our world needs justice—not in the sense of returning tit-for-tat (that’s not justice), but in the sense of things being put right. However, in a world where we swallow spiders in order to catch flies, we’ll all eventually end up choking on a horse.
When we try and cure the problems by mimicking the problems, all we are doing is becoming the problem.
STOP YOUR ANGER!
That same sense is found in the Psalm of David that we’ve just read together. He knows that there are problems in the world—oppression, abuse, violence, wickedness. He knows that there have been times, and there will come times, when his people will find themselves plagued and victimised by these very problems. And he is also aware, that when they are face to face with this wickedness, when they see that it appears to be flourishing, then they will be tempted to do something in order to stamp it out, and if they not careful in how they tackle evil, they will actually become the harbingers of evil.
The Psalmist doesn’t want his people, in their frustration with injustice, evil and oppression, to become wicked. At the start of the psalm (v1-7) and at its conclusion (v34-40), David encourages his people to continue to trust in God; to give allegiance to God; to exhibit Godliness (better understood as God-likeness) in the face of evil.
In-between that opening and end, David gives a comparison between the behaviours and consequences of wickedness and god-likeness.
We have to be careful about how we understand this part of the psalm, however. David is not advocating that the world is spilt into two groups; he’s not naively suggesting that there are a group of people called the ‘godly’ and a group of people called the ‘wicked’, and that the ‘godly’ are always the ‘godly’ regardless of what they do, and that the ‘wicked’ are always the ‘wicked’ regardless of what they do. ‘Godly’ and ‘Wicked’ are not about labels, or ethnicity, or about which creed we subscribe to… it’s about behaviour; it’s about imitating God.
In other words, the split is not ‘out there’, as if it’s something we can externalise onto others. Often, the split runs right down the centre of each of us, and we are called in this psalm to examine ourselves.
I’m saying this, because reading this passage wrong has consequences. For example, when we read something like verse 12, where it says the “wicked plot and snarl at the godly”, we could mistakenly assume that plotting and snarling are not wrong, but what’s wrong is that the wicked are doing it towards the godly. And the danger of that kind of thinking is that we could then presume that it’s alright for the godly to plot and snarl; especially if it’s towards the wicked. But it’s the plotting and snarling which reveals who are whom and exposes the real influence that we’re operating under. If that makes sense?
The Psalmist is acknowledging that there are two roads we can choose to walk along; godliness or wickedness. In other words, we either bear God’s image and act as God acts, or we don’t. In a way, all David is doing is describing what mirrors God’s image, and what doesn’t.
Notice the attributes of wickedness in this Psalm: There’s a desire to hurt others, a delight to see people fall, and even a desire to plot someone’s fall (v.12, 14). Wickedness snarls, it bares (or grinds) its teeth at others—in other words, it purposely sets itself against others (v.12). It’s stingy and greedy; it withholds and takes from people (v.21). According to v.32, wickedness is expressed in us stalking other people’s lives, preying upon them, spying on them, desperately looking for the skeleton’s in their closet, just waiting for them to trip, or fail—waiting for a moment of weakness and vulnerability—in order that we can then jump out and finish the person off.
What stands out in all of this is that it’s all rather wolf-like, predatory. David was a shepherd, and so I don’t think this is a coincidence; I can’t help but wonder that his experience in guarding sheep has given him some powerful analogies to the darker ways in which people behave towards others.
In contrast to the wolf-like wicked, the godly (those who exhibit god-likeness) are rather lamb-like. The godly are gentle and lowly (meek) (v.11). They’re content—not envious, or grasping (v.16). In fact, they’re very generous (v.21b, 26) and a blessing, and they don’t seek to harm, mislead, or entrap others, but they offer good advice (or to use the CJB: ‘they articulate wisdom and their tongue speaks justice’, v.30).
Again, the Psalmist is spelling all this out because he wants the people to be godly when faced with evil. According to the psalmist, we don’t resist evil by doing evil; we resist evil by being like lambs. And yet sadly, we often follow the pattern of the Old lady and we act like wolves.
You can always tell the difference between those who mimic a lamb-like posture from those who follow a wolf-like one: Watch who begins to bare their teeth when the smell of blood meets their nostrils. When there’s a whiff of vulnerability, weakness, honesty, openness, failure, meekness or humility, the wolves are the ones that are waiting to pounce. According to the psalmist, they’re the ones not trusting in or exhibiting god-likeness.
The proof is in our actions and in our reactions. However, we might not admit to being wolves: we may not even see that we are wolves—evil is very subtle. Simone Weil, a French philosopher, activist and Christian mystic, once warned that; ‘Evil, when we are in its power, is not felt as evil, but as necessity, even a duty.’[i]
I think she’s spot on. Most people, I believe (maybe naively), like the Old Lady in that song, are trying to put things right—we want what’s best. And sure, their (and our) idea of ‘right’ and ‘best’ could be warped, as well, which only makes matters worse. But acting out of some desire to get to an ultimate good, people unwittingly adopt the methods of evil.
No wonder the Psalmist is so stern with his warning, ‘Stop your anger! Turn from your rage! Do not envy others—it only leads to harm’ (v.8) (Or, to phrase that as some translations do, ‘it only leads to evil’). Instead, we are to commit everything to God (v.5). We are to give allegiance to God’s ways of dealing with evil, because God doesn’t swallow spiders in order to catch flies.
What does God do? Well the psalm has already told us what god-likeness looks like; it’s lamb-like! God overcomes evil by doing good! But in case we’re not convinced, Jesus makes the same point.
LOVE YOUR ENEMIES!
Jesus said this to his disciples (and I want you to see the echoes of the psalm we’ve just read):
“But to you who are willing to listen, I say, love your enemies! Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who hurt you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, offer the other cheek also. If someone demands your coat, offer your shirt also. Give to anyone who asks; and when things are taken away from you, don’t try to get them back. Do to others as you would like them to do to you.
If you love only those who love you, why should you get credit for that? Even sinners love those who love them! And if you do good only to those who do good to you, why should you get credit? Even sinners do that much! And if you lend money only to those who can repay you, why should you get credit? Even sinners will lend to other sinners for a full return.
Love your enemies! Do good to them. Lend to them without expecting to be repaid. Then your reward from heaven will be very great, and you will truly be acting as children of the Most High, for he is kind to those who are unthankful and wicked. You must be compassionate, just as your Father is compassionate.
Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn others, or it will all come back against you. Forgive others, and you will be forgiven. Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full—pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back” (Luke 6:27-38, NLT)[ii]
I hope you can see that this way of tackling evil is not the Old lady approach. Like Psalm 37, it’s lamb-like. The godly don’t return curses with curses; they bless. They don’t prey upon people, waiting for some harm to befall them; they pray for them, they lend to them, they help them. If we’re claiming to be godly, then we don’t treat our enemies like they treat us—we don’t judge them, we don’t condemn them, we don’t withhold forgiveness from them, because in doing so, all we are doing is continuing to spin some cycle of revenge. Instead, we choose to model an alternative way in the face of evil: we do for others what we would like them to do for us.
I need to stress here, that this isn’t a passive approach to evil. Living this way is not about ignoring or tolerateing violence, injustice or abuse. We are to be peace-makers, we are to be actively involved in tackling these things, and we do so by adopting nonviolent, just and non-abusive means. We are to anti-venom, so to speak.
‘If you’re willing to listen,’ Jesus says, ‘Love your enemies!’
I can see why Jesus says ‘If you’re willing to listen’. It’s not easy. It’s a way that often clashes with how we’ve been taught to handle problems. But according to Jesus, if we want to be known as the ‘godly’, if we want to be known as the children of the Most High, then we have to love our enemies, because God does.
It may seem stupid. It’s definitely risky—Jesus was crucified living this way! We may wonder then how such a tactic works, but that’s easy to answer: we’re not giving life to evil; we’re not swallowing horses in order to catch flies; we’re saying that the evil that has been done to me will not find an echo through me, nor will it be amplified through me.
Not only that, but as I said earlier, most people don’t believe that they’re acting under the influence of evil, and when we react like wolves to how they’ve treated us, then often all we’re doing is vindicating their prejudicial thought process—we are affirming their image of us and their behaviour towards us. But when we respond like lambs, then maybe they will realise that they are the ones who are acting like wolves.
Some verses in the Bible describe this method as ‘heaping burning coals on their heads.’ Proverbs 25:21-22 says, ‘If your enemies are hungry, feed them. If they are thirsty, give them something to drink, and you will heap burning coals on their head”. It’s not about literal coals, and it’s not about inflicting pain on our enemies—but there’s a sense in which our ‘lamb-like’ reaction opens up their consciousness and they become ashamed of what they have done. The Apostle Paul also picks this up too when he quotes this Proverb in Romans 12:20-21, and he goes on to add, ‘Don’t let evil get the best of you, but conquer evil by doing good.’
Psalm 37 also encourages this reaction to darkness by reminding us that, “[God] will make your innocence radiate like the dawn, and the justice of your cause will shine like the noonday sun” (v.6).
To a great extent, I don’t need to refer to Proverbs or Paul or Psalm 37 to see how this works; the Crucified frame of Jesus demonstrates it perfectly. Jesus’ lamb-like posture exposed the wolf-like traits of humanity. As Isaiah wrote (Isaiah 53:4), it wasn’t his sin that killed him, but ours. His broken body bares (and bears) the scars inflicted by humanity’s teeth and claws. But as a result of his sacrifice, the church is formed entirely out of ex-enemies of God.
I suppose it all boils down to whose methods we trust; God’s, or the Old Lady’s? One method tends towards devastation and destruction; the other is the way to blessing and to life.
Church, be careful of how you respond to the evil around you. Don’t be overcome by evil. Seek to be lamb-like. Stop your anger! Turn from your rage! Love your enemies! And be compassionate, because God is compassionate.
SCRIPTURE VERSE FOR FURTHER REFLECTION:
“Look, I am sending you out as sheep among wolves. Be as wary as snakes and harmless as doves”—Matthew 10: 16 (NLT).
ENDNOTES:
[i] Sadly, I only know of this quote and not its source. Sorry. But if you know, please let me know; I would love to explore more of Weil’s thoughts on this matter.
[ii] I feel the need to point out something that I pointed out a few years ago when I last spoke on this passage (see my blog post entitled: A World Without Lines. I’ll also be touching on this again in my forthcoming book): that the ‘do not judge, do not condemn’ sentiment is not about our relationship with God; this isn’t God condemning us or withholding forgiveness from us, but our enemies doing so because we also withhold forgiveness and mercy from them.
TRISTAN SHERWIN 
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