Sunday Morning Meds--on Psalm 57:1 (again)

“. . .for in you my soul takes refuge. 

I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings 

until the disaster has passed.”

Some  years ago, Minnesota had another bizarre gubernatorial candidate, someone who claimed to be a vampire.  Among the other promises he made to the electorate is one we can be confident no one else was taking:  Jonathan Sharkey claimed he will personally impale convicted murderers and child molesters on the steps of the statehouse—sure to draw a crowd.  He was a Satanist, he said, but he didn’t hate Jesus, only God the Father for the violence he sanctioned throughout the Old Testament, including, presumably, and pre-Creation, tossing the Devil out on his ear.

Anyway, if Mr. Sharkey wasn’t just messing with us—which is possible—then I’m going to assume that his profession was honest, which suggests that when he is confronted with mountainous problems, as is David in Psalm 57, he goes to Satan for refuge, and not God, not Jesus, not Mohammed, not druids, booze, dope, romance novels, or, well, work.  I’m going to assume that his only comfort in life and in death was that he belonged, body and soul, to Satan.  If he were writing Psalm 57, he’d be talking to the Devil.

In 1867, Matthew Arnold started a poem with the line “The sea is calm tonight,” and ended with the assertion that, in the demise of faith, we can find refuge only in being true to one another—“I’ve got you, babe,” which is, of course, but another kind of faith.       

In America, we say, “Hey, that’s cool—whatever floats your boat.”  There are tons of faiths all around and myriad ways of finding refuge—or so it seems to me. 

It’s taken me some time to deal with the opening lines of Psalm 57 and the whole concept of “refuge.”  I’ve heard tons of testimonies in my life, I’ve felt refuge myself—God is, after all, our refuge and our strength. 

But I think it’s fair to say that people find refuge all over the place, don’t they?  And that’s why it seems to me that refuge may not be the story here; I wonder whether the real story isn’t David’s complete and full assurance.

“I trust him so much,” my catechism says, “that I do not doubt he will provide whatever I need for body and soul, and he will turn to my good whatever adversity he sends me in this sad world.”  That’s the answer to the question which reads “What do you believe when you say  ‘I believe in God the father, almighty, maker of heaven and earth?’”  I think King David would like that answer.

The moral of the opening lines of Psalm 57 isn’t, simply, that good Christians take refuge in God, as David does here.  People find refuge all over the place. 

What’s remarkable is David’s absolute assurance that God will deliver him.  He’s convinced that God will help him, totally convicted.  “Please have mercy on me,” he says, then repeats himself.  But then he delivers the confession:  “. . .for in you my soul takes refuge. I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed.”

The real story—the one to take home—is that, despite his human fear that God is not in the building, David, dangerously pursued by an enemy who has sworn to kill him, still has full confidence that that same God will deliver him. The real story is David’s gargantuan faith. That’s the lesson to take home, or so it seems to me.

But why does he have it?—and why do I?—and why not Jonathan Sharkey? 

Such questions remain, to me, a mystery of eternal proportions.