Psalm 131

Read Psalm 131.

[Note for Collective Leaders: There is a lot of content in todays notes and questions. Almost certainly more than you will be able to cover in one evening. So, I suggest you pick the questions which you think will be most useful for your Collective, rather than attempting to get through them all.]

1.     Did anything immediately strike you, either on hearing Hannah’s message on Sunday or in reading this passage?

2.     In verse 1 the psalmist speaks of his heart, his eyes and, by implication, his legs (the expression, ‘concern myself’ is the Hebrew word, halak, meaning ‘to walk,’ ‘go on,’ or ‘go after’). Hannah said this was a ‘war on pride’ – (i) That it starts as we search our ‘innermost being.’ (ii) She spoke of the need to remove any ‘posture of pride’ – how we look at other people, but the verse may also speak of how we focus our gaze – of not looking too high. (iii) She spoke also of not over-reaching in ambition – the things we go after. 

-        How well do we know our own hearts? How do we even recognize the pride in ourselves?

-        How do we guard against ‘looking too high’? 

-        Our culture encourages and rewards ambition, so how do we stop ourselves reaching for too much, too far, too high? Can we ever be content?

3.     In his book, The Holy Longing: The Search For Christian Spirituality, Ronald Rolheiser wrote about the need to guard against three things which sound very similar to the Psalmist’s concerns: Narcissism – “excessive self-preoccupation”; Restlessness – “excessive greed for experience”; and  Pragmatism – “excessive focus on work, achievement, and the practical concerns of life”. He continued, “we are so habitually self-absorbed by heartaches, headaches, and greed for experience that we rarely find the time and space to be in touch with the deeper movements inside of and around us.”

-        Do you recognise anything about yourself in this description?

-        This age is marked by YOLO and FOMO (‘You Only Live Once’ and ‘Fear Of Missing Out’). Meanwhile, events of 2020 have left many feeling they are hardly living at all and are missing out on everything. We are all generally more anxious. What can we do to bring about change? How do you go deep instead of striving to go high?

4.     Commenting on verse 2, Hebrew scholar, Robert Alter, writes, “The person content with his lot, who does not aspire to grand things, is able to give himself the kind of reassuring calm that a loving mother gives the weaned child whom she comforts.” He translates the verse as: “I have calmed and contented myself like a weaned babe on its mother – like a weaned babe I am with myself.” (The Hebrew literally reads, “like a weaned babe I am on myself.”) This is not the desperate cry of a hungry infant, but the quiet repose of a child calming themselves with a mother. It is that form of prayer which Roland Rolheiser describes as “relaxing into God’s goodness.” 

-        We are used to thinking of God as Father. In fact, this is the only instance in the Psalms where God is portrayed using the feminine imagery of a mother. Do you find that helpful in the way you see God, or a little awkward and unfamiliar?

-        Is there something you may need to be weaned from?

-        When the disciples were caught in a storm on Galilee (Matthew 8:23ff), they found Jesus calmly asleep in the boat. He was a ‘non-anxious presence’ in the midst of their panic. How do you think Jesus was able to “calm and quieten himself”? 

-        How can we do the same?