Psalm 85: 1-13 (links validated 6/5/24a)

The philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff published his 1981 Kuyper Lectures from the Free University in Amsterdam under a title borrowed from Psalm 85: Until Justice & Peace Embrace. In one part of the book, Wolterstorff ponders and defines shalom thus: The peace which is shalom is not merely the absence of hostility, not merely being in right relationship. Shalom at its highest is enjoyment in ones relationships . . . Shalom in the first place involves right and harmonious to God and delight in his service. Secondly, shalom incorporates right, harmonious relationships to other human beings and delight in human community. Thirdly, shalom incorporates right, harmonious relationships to nature and delight in our physical surroundings.

This may seem to be a stretch but for some reason the personification of things like love, faithfulness, peace, and righteousness at the end of Psalm 85 reminded me of the delightful Pixar movie Inside Out. Much of the film takes place in the brain’s emotional control room of a young girl named Riley. There the core emotions of Joy, Anger, Sadness, Fear, Disgust, and Sadness are all personified and they interact with one another to help Riley navigate her way through a tumultuous time in her young life. We don’t usually isolate our feelings or think of them as having an existence of their own yet this fun movie plays around with that idea. Similarly to the things personified at the end of Psalm 85: we think of these things as traits a person might have but not as beings in their own right. Yet in Christ, as noted above in this commentary, they do come alive and can very nearly be seen as being active agents. These things are alive in Christ and alive in us as we gain conformity to Jesus through our baptismal union with Christ.

The seeming pastiche of ideas that Psalm 85 seems to contain—the perhaps spiritual ups and downs reflected in the experience of this psalmist—reminds me of a couple things. First, it reminds me of what the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship has identified as the “Vertical Habits” that are at the core of Christian worship. When it comes right down to it, worship consists of really just a few basic elements including simple, almost child-like language that says “Thank You” and “I’m Sorry” and “I Promise.” But something of the spiritual ups and downs reflected here also reminds me of writer Anne Lamott who once said that once you strip away all the specifics, her prayers to God come down to basically just two prayers: “Help me, help me, help me!” and “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

The seeming pastiche of ideas that Psalm 85 seems to contain—the perhaps spiritual ups and downs reflected in the experience of this psalmist—reminds me of a couple things. First, it reminds me of what the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship has identified as the “Vertical Habits” that are at the core of Christian worship. When it comes right down to it, worship consists of really just a few basic elements including simple, almost child-like language that says “Thank You” and “I’m Sorry” and “I’m Listening.” But something of the spiritual ups and downs reflected here also reminds me of writer Anne Lamott who once said that once you strip away all the specifics, her prayers to God come down to basically just two prayers: “Help me, help me, help me!” and “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

The seeming pastiche of ideas that Psalm 85 seems to contain—the perhaps spiritual ups and downs reflected in the experience of this psalmist—reminds me of a couple things. First, it reminds me of what the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship has identified as the “Vertical Habits” that are at the core of Christian worship. When it comes right down to it, worship consists of really just a few basic elements including simple, almost child-like language that says “Thank You” and “I’m Sorry” and “I Promise.” But something of the spiritual ups and downs reflected here also reminds me of writer Anne Lamott who once said that once you strip away all the specifics, her prayers to God come down to basically just two prayers: “Help me, help me, help me!” and “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

Isaac Wardell’s “O God, Will You Restore Us” cleverly integrates Psalm 85 with Isaiah 58, which both center on themes of restoration, blessing, and social responsibility, even using similar word pictures. The refrain is based on the plea of Psalm 85:6–7, the heart of the psalm...

This verse also brings to mind one of my favorite movies, Babette’s Feast, by Isak Dinesen, the pen-name for Karen Dinesen Blixen. It’s based on one of the greatest works of Danish literature, which I’d like to share with you briefly here this morning, to honor the Danish heritage of this congregation. The central characters in “Babette’s Feast” are two aging sisters who live on a remote fjord in Norway. Each sister is named for one of the two pillars of the Reformation: Martine for Martin Luther and Philippa for Philip Melanchton. Early in the short story we find that the two sisters had been “very pretty” in their youth and each had had an opportunity to marry but given them up to stay and help their father, “the Dean,” to run their little mission church. The story picks up many years later, with their father long gone, and one other woman who has come into their household: a French maid named Babette, who’s a Parisian refugee from the Franco-Prussian wars of the later 19th Century. The central event in the story is the upcoming 100th anniversary of their late father’s birth, but as they are beginning to plan it something very unexpected happens. Babette wins a lottery worth ten thousand francs, and so she says that she would like to host the Dean’s anniversary dinner herself, paying for it out of her winnings. Martine and Philippa consent. In the course of the great dinner, we find out from a special guest, a general who has fought wars in Europe, that Babette had in fact been the chef at the best restaurant in all of Paris. She uses her winnings to throw the sisters the most expensive, lavish meal she had cooked in that restaurant. Spurred on by some of “the noblest wine in the world,” the General rises to speak at the end of the great feast (take note of yet another translation of Psalm 85:10):...

Contrast the perfect unity and harmony of God’s person with the shocking chaos of human persons. After that 64-year-old Nevadan slaughtered 59 people and wounded over 500 hundred in the Las Vegas massacre, the shooter’s brother said with horrified incomprehension, “But he was just a guy. Just a guy.” A guy who seemed normal to everyone, but inside were other forces, desires, thoughts that led to the horror. God is not like that. In God, all the multi-faceted aspects of God-ness are unified, integrated, focused on blessing even troublesome humans.

Scroll down the page for this resource.

Scroll down the page for this resource.