Reflections on Psalm 139

A while back Chad invited us to reflect with him on Psalm 139, as he prepared to preach. Apparantly his sermon went well-- the Lord gave him some good things to share! (See his June 27, 2007 blog entry).

Meanwhile I have been chewing on it, and I've come to the conclusion that while this psalm has often been used by pro-lifers in the abortion controversy, I think it also speaks about our spiritual formation.

Verses 1-6: Cozy Confines

In a culture where all boundaries exist only to be broken, this psalm presents us a powerful and currently controversial image: just as a fetus develops physically inside the womb, so we develop spiritually in this world. Just as the Lord watches over the fetus, so He watches over us.

What a different perspective the psalmist has from ours! He doesn't seem the least bit panicked that God should know him so completely or "hem him in." If anything, he seems grateful and in awe that God should be so intimately involved in his life. (Imagine how a Nietzsche or a Sartre or a Paris Hilton would write these verses, if they would even be written at all!)

Verses 7-12: The Psalmist's Thought Experiment

These verses challenge the prevailing (worldly) wisdom that freedom is an absolute value (freedom being understood as the ability to break through all boundaries in order to have one's way.) We may like to think we can be God, carving out our own reality, but we are mistaken. The psalmist acknowledges that this notion of freedom is ultimately an inconceivable absurdity.

Verses 13-16a: The image of physical development in the womb

In premodern times, when children were taken as gifts from God and signs of His blessing, the womb was most often viewed as a mysterious but secure place, a place of life. The existence of the fetus depended on God's mind and will. In our own day, when children are no longer viewed as gifts but as projects for our own production, the womb is a dangerous place. Pregnancy is even treated as a disease. The existence of the fetus now credited to human choice and human technology.

How to span the difference in world views here? That will essential if contemporary listeners are to be able to hear it. Underlying the Psalmist's worldview is the narrative order of Genesis: "In the beginning God;" then the world, then finally humanity. Today's narratives profoundly reverse the order or dispense with God entirely, so that self alone reigns supreme. If we are to be formed spiritually by this Psalm, we cannot read it using the lenses of our time.

Verse 16b-24: Our spiritual development in the world

Life is growth.

Physically, we develop from zygote to blastocyst to embryo to fetus to child to adolescent to adult.
Jean Piaget described four stages of intellectual development : sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, formal operational.
Erickson described eight stages of psychosocial development and Kohlberg describedsix stages of moral development .

The Psalmist understands this, and celebrates the fact that the Lord who is so painstaking regarding our physical development is also intimately involved in our spiritual development. Just as the fetus floats in the waters of the womb, so the psalmist is bouyed by God's revelation, through nature and through His word. Though God's thoughts are inexhaustable and deep, He graciously permits the psalmist to trace them-- enough so that the psalmist knows how precious they are. But the more he searches them out, the more he realizes he can never fully fathom them. (As Josef Pieper has written, reality is mysterious because it is intelligible.)

Then another moment in our spiritual development is described, in verses 19-22. Just as little boys sometimes imitate their fathers by pretending to shave, and little girls sometimes imitate their mothers by playing with lipstick, so the psalmist imitates God by identifying with His rejection of evil. In a mirroring of Ruth's confession, "Your people will be my people, your God will be my God," the psalmist cries "Do I not hate those who hate you O Lord?" God's enemies will be the psalmist's enemies.

Finally the psalmist moves to the ultimate stages of spiritual development: what if Pogo is right? What if we have met the enemy, and he is us? Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn put it this way: "The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties, but right through every human heart---and through all human hearts."

If the image of God is to grow in the psalmist, he cannot avoid permitting the Lord to scour his soul.

Only then will he be spiritually mature; only then will he/we find the path of life that leads to the vision of God.

Only then will we be all God means us to be.

Only then will Thy will, and not my will, be done.