Sweeter Than Honey

 © John Ewing Roberts, 3/2/97

Psalm 19, Exodus 20: 1-17
March 2, 1997
3rd Sunday in Lent, Year B, Communion
INTRODUCTION

I would like to read this paraphrase of Psalm 19 from Eugene Peterson's The Message:

God's glory is on tour in the skies,
     God-crafted on exhibit across the horizon.
Madame Day holds classes every morning,
     Professor Night lectures each evening.
Their words aren't heard,
     their voices aren't recorded,
But their silence fills the earth:
     unspoken truth is spoken everywhere.
God makes a huge dome
     for the sun--a superdome!
The morning sun's a new husband
     leaping from his honeymoon bed,
The daybreaking sun an athlete
     racing to the tape.
That's how God's Word vaults across the skies
     from sunrise to sunset,
Melting ice, scorching deserts,
     warming hearts to faith.
The revelation of Yahweh is whole
     and pulls our lives together.
The signposts of Yahweh are clear
     and point out the right road.
The life-maps of Yahweh are right,
     showing the way to joy.
The directions of Yahweh are plain
     and easy on the eyes.
Yahweh's reputation is twenty-four carat gold,
     with a lifetime guarantee.
The decisions of Yahweh are accurate
     down to the Nth degree.
God's Word is better than a diamond,
     better than a diamond set between emeralds.
You'll like it better than strawberries is spring,
     better than red, ripe strawberries.
There's more: God's Word warns us of danger
     and directs us to hidden treasure.
Otherwise how will we find our way?
     Or know when we play the fool?
Clean the slate, God, so we can start the day fresh!
     Keep me from stupid sins,
     from thinking I can take over your work;
Then I can start this day sun-washed,
     scrubbed clean of the grime of sin.
These are the words in my mouth;
     these are what I chew on and pray.
Accept them when I place them
     on the morning altar,
O God, my Altar-Rock,
     God, Priest-of-My-Altar.

We need both the King James Version and Peterson's paraphrase - the familiar, reassurance cadences of the old-fashioned language, and the time honored ideas cast in new fresh images:
- God's revelation "pulls our lives together;"
- like clear signposts they "point out the right road;"
- they are "life-maps..showing the way to joy;"
- these directions are "easy on the eyes;"
- God's decisions "are accurate down to the Nth degree."

But even a translation from our time can stumble. Those who ask God to "clean the slate" need to be old enough to remember slates and those special, scratchy gray pencils which broke too easily and lost their point too soon. Instead Peterson might try the less poetic (prepare to groan!) "O Lord, reboot my computer, so I can start with a clear monitor screen."

And while God's Word may indeed be better than a diamond and red, ripe strawberries in spring, the old, more literal translation is more accurate when it compares God's Word to gold and honey.

Gold was as fixed standard of value as there was in the ancient word. Honey was the primary and for many, the only source of sweetness. Take all the goes with chocolate and sugar, add it up and you have something of the impact of honey in the ancient world. Like gold in economics, honey was the absolute standard in taste.

Take of absolutes is not easy in a age where so much seems relative. We wonder of what we can be absolutely sure. "The rock of God," was the Psalmist's answer. These poetic images of God's word and law being like honey and a rock come in one of humanity's most highly praised poems.

THE GREATEST POEM

C. S. Lewis has become fairly well known, thanks to the 1993 film Shadowlands. A member of our church, the late Dr. David J. Carver some years ago gave me Lewis' book Reflections on the Psalms [New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1985, pp. 63 ff.) Lewis, who was a professor of literature before he was a lay theologian, called Psalm 19 "the greatest poem in the Psalter and one of the greatest lyrics in the world."

The structure is elegantly simple - six verses about Nature, five about the Law, and four about personal prayer with no apparent logical connection between the movements. Lewis observed that a modern poet would pass with similar abruptness between themes and leave the reader to find connecting link. The link may be there, but one has to make the connection, or the link may be so obvious and close to the poet that he or she moves on effortlessly and without reflection.

Lewis sees the connection in the sun, part of the first six verses about nature. The key phrase is "there is nothing hid from the heat thereof." The sun pierces everywhere with its strong, clean ardor. It well may have reminded the poet of the Law.

The Law is like the sun, all-piercing, all-detecting. It too gives light and is clean. No one can improve on the sun or the Law. Both are essentially, orderly, luminous, revelatory of God. Both are severe, disinfectant, exultant. (Lewis, op. cit., p. 64)

Lewis saw the similar properties of the sun and the law as the link. But there may be another connection as well. It has to do with silent speech, articulate speech and silent reflection.

Nature speaks without speaking:

There is no speech, nor are there words;
          their voice is not heart;
     yet their voice goes out through all the earth,
          and their words to the end of the world. (vv. 3-4)

because

     The heavens are telling the glory of God;
          and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. (v. 1)

The psalm moves from describing the expressions of nature which are inarticulate yet articulate to the very articulate word of the law, the word God spoken at Sinai. This word, this law forms the basis of the unspoken meditations of the heart. "...the thought of the psalm moves from the outer reaches of the natural world to the inner recesses of the human personality, the human heart." (John H. Hayes, Preaching Through the Christian Year B [Valley Forge, Pennsylvania: Trinity Press International] 1993, p. 152)
"Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer." (Psalm 19: 14)

A PERSISTENT MISINTERPRETATION

It is easy to go wrong in interpreting this Psalm about the law. Some folks do not see the law as sweeter than honey. They see it as oppressive, cold, hard, exterior, legalistic and dry.

Some Christians have devalued the law. And with tragic consequences they have devalued Jews along with their law, justifying persecution by charging Jews with practicing a legalistic religion without grace, a religion which has no heart, no grace.

This terribly incorrect view goes something like this: "The Old Testament and Judaism are legalistic, cold, and formal in contrast to the New Testament and Christianity."

What nonsense! "Legalistic, cold and formal" are words which can be applied with equal accuracy to deviant forms of both Judaism and Christianity, but at their best neither of these religions are legalistic, cold or formal.

Consider two classic texts at the heart of the Hebrew scripture, Deuteronomy 6 and Exodus 20.

     i. The Shema and Love

In Deuteronomy 6: 4ff., in the words a devout Jew recites over and over, the Shema, Hebrew for the first word, Hear, we read: "Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words which I am commanding you today in your heart."

In the midwinter Bible study book for Southern Baptists on Exodus Page Kelley wrote:

We err if we believe that the people of the Old Testament regarded the Torah as an unbearable burden. If this were so, then how are we to explain the many references to the law as an unparalleled blessing?...Psalm 1 congratulates the man whose delight is in the law of the Lord so that he meditates on it day and night." (Page H. Kelley, Exodus: Called for Redemptive Mission [Nashville: Convention Press] 1977, pp. 108-109)

     ii. The Decalogue and Grace

In Exodus 20 before a word of the Law is given there is first grace and deliverance. "I am the Lord your God, who brought you ought of the land of Egypt." Because of this gracious, saving act which comes first, the Lord in effect says, "Therefore, because of what I have done, because of my gracious act of deliverance, you shall have no other gods before me." Grace and deliverance, then the "Ten Words" of the Decalogue.

As Christians, we should not need to be reminded that Jesus the Jew loved and observed the law. Our Scripture Sentences today from the Sermon on the Mount are his words:

Do not suppose that I have come to abolish the Law and the prophets; I did not come to abolish, but to complete. I tell you this: so long as heave and earth endure, not a letter, not a stroke, will disappear from the Law until that must happen has happened." (NEB)



MEANWHILE BACK IN PSALM 19

The Law in Psalm 19 is sweeter than honey, the ultimate delight, the absolute standard.

The Law is not hard nosed restraint simply to be obeyed out of a cold sense of duty.

The Law is not:
to be obeyed just to preserve a smug satisfaction with a clear conscience.
to be obeyed out of fear of getting into trouble.
to be studied for pride in learning its intricacies.
to be obeyed for pride in one's priggish behavior.
to be obeyed because of a compulsive drive to get one's life "just so" as in dancing a minuet. (Lewis, op. cit., p. 59)

The Law is to be obeyed because of
its beauty,
its authenticity,
its truth,
its validity,
its rock-bottom reality, rooted in God's nature, more solid that nature itself.
No wonder the Law is sweeter than honey! It's like mountain water, fresh air, sunshine after a nightmare.

US

In vv. 12-14 two sins are singled out:
(1) hidden faults - we fall short of the Law and don't know it;
(2) presumptuous sins - we go beyond the Law in our excess.

These are the sins of pride and excessive self-reliance - presumption and hidden faults.

The Psalmists asks of himself and of us, "Who can discern his errors?" (Psalm 19: 2a)

We are tempted to answer, "No one," and move on. But not so fast!

The Bible says that before we come to the table of the Lord, we are to examine ourselves. (I Corinthians 11: 28) But how can we discern the unseen? How can we spot hidden faults?

The answer comes in a wise, beautiful and ancient prayer which our Episcopalian brothers and sisters use at the beginning of the service of Holy Communion:

Almighty God,
          unto whom
               all hearts are open,
               are desires known, and
          from whom
               no secrets are hid;
     Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts
     by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit,
          that we may perfectly love thee,
          and worthily magnify thy holy Name;
     through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
                    
It is the Holy Spirit who shows us the hidden faults. It is time in prayer which moves self-examination from mere introspection into a Spirit led exercise appropriate for Communion Sunday and for this penitential season of Lent.

And this kind of self-examination in the Spirit is meant to be more than occasional, more than seasonal. It is meant to be as regular as breathing, a constant as our heartbeat. The six rhythmical doublets on the Law in verses 7-9 suggest the rhythm of beating heart - a longer phrase followed six times by a shorter expression, like a heart beat, the rhythm of the diastole followed by the systole. The Law is not only bedrock reality; it is the heartbeat in the life of God's people.

JESUS

Psalm 19 ends by calling on God as "my strength and my redeemer." (KJV)

Peterson's translation of Psalm 19 ends by calling on God as "my Altar-Rock."

The Psalmist's language about a redeemer and an altar-rock connects in a Christian consciousness with Jesus, the redeemer, and with his sacrifice on the cross. As we end the sermon and move toward the table of the Lord, our emphasis shifts from the honey image to that of the rock and the altar.

The placement of a rock for an altar, the choice of an absolute standard, is the first step in redeeming life from all that is shaky and shifting, drifting and doubting.

For Christians Jesus is the rock, his sacrifice on the cross to redeem us from sin and death the foundation to build a life, the heartbeat of our faith.

For Christians Jesus "stays the drift" of life and gives us the shelter for growing a life in the wilderness of our times. No wonder we sing:

"Beneath the cross of Jesus I fain would take my stand,
The shadow of a mighty rock Within a weary land.."
(Elizabeth C. Clephane, "Beneath the Cross of Jesus," Baptist Hymnal [Nashville: Convention Press] 1991, No. 291)

Jesus on the cross - the rock of his faith, his obedience in the face of injustice, sin and death.

When those closest to him crumbled in denial and betrayal,
when Pilate abandoned the high principles of Roman justice, and
when a handful of religious leaders deserted the high ethics of Judaism,
he remain rock solid.

Isn't it interesting that there are so many references to rocks and stones in the accounts of the crucifixion and resurrection, these bedrock events for the Christian faith?
- When Jesus' adversaries tried to silence the affirmation of the crowd while Jesus was entering Jerusalem, he warned that "if these were silent, the stones would shout out." (Luke 19: 40)
- When Jesus was crucified, it was on the stony formation that resembled a skull, Golgotha or Calvary; (Luke 23: 33)
- When he died, "the earth shook and rocks split;" (Matthew 27: 51)
- When he had been raised from the dead, the stone had been removed from his tomb. (John 20: 1)
- When Paul described Jesus to the Ephesians, he spoke of him as being "the chief cornerstone." (Ephesians 2:20)

CONCLUSION

There are so many word pictures for helping us appreciate this absolute reality, this fundamental structure of existence. We have spoken of the Law, the Word, something sweeter than honey, something rock solid. Similar wonderful, wide-ranging images appear in our hymns.

Now we close by singing another hymn about the word, and the word pictures come now from other realms:

Thy Word is like a garden, Lord, With flowers bright and fair;
and ev'ry one who seeks may pluck A lovely cluster there.
Thy Word is like a deep, deep mine; And jewels rich and rare
Are hidden in its mighty depths For ev'ry searcher there.

Thy Word is like a starry host; A thousand rays of light
Are seen to guide the traveler And make his pathway bright.

Then the hymn ends with the lovely prayer:
O may I love Thy precious Word, May I explore the mine,
May I the fragrant flowers glean, May light upon me shine. Amen.
(Edwin Hodder, "Thy Word Is Like a Garden, Lord," Baptist Hymnal [Nashville: Broadman Press] 1956, No. 182)

©John Ewing Roberts
Woodbrook Baptist Church
(Formerly Eutaw Place Baptist Church)
Baltimore, Maryland

[This sermon is for circulation within the Woodbrook congregation and may not be reproduced without permission.]