Community and the Psalms
March 12, 2024 | By Sharla Moody YDS ‘25
image description: flowers amid rays of sunshine in a greenhouse
While a book or text may hold special value to one person and not another, some writing is meant to be read and understood together. Take the Psalms. That the liturgical practice of singing and reading the Psalms communally has endured for centuries in both Catholic and Protestant denominations demonstrates the importance of sharing faith and life with others.
The unevenness of life and experiences is readily apparent in the Psalms, which alternately praise God, lament tragedy and sin, and call upon God to honor His promises. In any moment of life, any trial or celebration, an applicable Psalm can be found.
A friend of mine often led “Psalm-sings,” where friends would gather and request different Psalms and sing them together. While participating in one such meeting, I began to understand that the gift of the Psalms isn’t limited to my individual reading of them. While I may not fully understand a friend’s depression or physical illness, singing, “Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am languishing; heal me, O LORD, for my bones are troubled” [1] can help me respond to Paul’s exhortation to “[b]ear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” [2] Likewise, turning together to God to shape “the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart to be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer” [3] unites us with the perennial wisdom of the Psalms and with Christians through the ages who sought to be more holy through prayer to God.
As the lives of the congregation vary, so too do the Psalms. “If I ascend to Heaven, You are there!” the psalmist writes, “If I make my bed in Sheol, You are there!” [4] And as the Psalms oscillate to capture the joys and agonies of life, they continually return to praise the Author of reality and of our lives. While studying the Psalms individually yields tremendous fruit, we might turn to them together to tend to the garden of God’s people.
References:
[1] Psalm 6:2
[2] Galatians 6:2
[3] Psalm 19:14
[4] Psalm 139:8