Psalm 18 reprises David’s speech from 2 Samuel 22, which celebrates his deliverance from the hand of Saul and his enemies. In both versions, the Psalm and David’s speech, I was struck that David hands perilously over the waters of the deep after God’s intervention. David later comes to take on God’s action in the world, seemingly meting out vengeance on every last living child of his enemies. So I returned back to God’s dramatic and physical arrival on scene and asked what happened.
Read MoreOn and off through the pandemic, I’ve turned to the Psalms either individually, or as part of the Morning Prayer. In December, I decided to join CBST Synagogue’s daily Psalm Text Study. For each Psalm we create our own offering, if we want, in reaction to what we felt, learned, or even hated in the Psalm. After sitting out two Psalms offerings, I delved into Psalm 16. I envied the Psalmist’s trust in redemption, in forgiveness, in a path. I wished I could hear the Psalmist’s invocation of God as a model. Instead, I only heard the funny ways those close to us use our goodness to harm us, how we harm in return, and these cycles of past harms try to dictate who we can be. Yet, trusting, as this Psalmist did, in Divine grace, I choose new life.
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The summer of 2019 I worked at Lab/Shul for my supervised ministry. Intense, might be the only word to describe it. I’m so proud of the work we did to launch Partnerhood, the new community membership program.
Coming back to my blog, I’m realizing I never published a mini-sermon I gave at our Pride Shabbat Queen. Rabbi Amichai asked me and a couple others to speak about our ‘pride moment’. Mine was about Black and Queer Pride.
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Throughout the book of psalms, and really the whole Bible, we find oracles of lament, or hope, or woe. While the formats vary, generally, these include a invocation, a reckoning, and an acknowledgement of the ultimate goodness of God. In this oracle, I kept to the overall structure, while challenging our expectation of the format and tone.
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The opioid epidemic took away my cousin much too soon. As the fuzzy childhood memories of Bradley’s goofiness flooded my brain, I wrote his obituary. But after I wrote it, I felt conflicted. What do we say about the awful stories of our lives that respects the dignity and personhood of those whose voices are silent? I wrote about the experience for my course on Gender and Sexuality in the Hebrew Bible which explored these kinds of questions.
Read MoreSorry Admiral Ackbar, but there’s a heterosexist trap in the Book of Proverbs and you stole Lena’s line.
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