Act One, scene one:

“You have a fine baby girl,” says the doctor.

Doctors still say that, even though the father is in the room,

and the cameras are recording and everyone can see it’s a girl.

But what else are doctors going to say?

As soon as it can be—as soon as the newborn is wiped clean and in a blanket,

they hand the child to her mother, who holds the baby close to her heart,

where she will always remain.

In those first moments of life, the first time they touch,

what does the mother say?

Act Two, scene two:

They stand facing each other,

almost underneath the wings of the giant military transport plane

this father and son.

The boy is holding his duffel bag, which will supply his trip to Iraq.

The father is holding his car keys, which will return him home.

They both are holding back tears.

They have about a minute before the soldier boards—what do they say?

Whatever they say, it is a time of prayer,

for God is so strongly present,

or we wish God’s presence so strongly

that even if say, “You be good, now.” prayer is the only thing to call it.

That’s what the Psalms are for.

In holy moments,

in times that matter, when words become so important

or in times when words dry up, and there isn’t anything to say,

faithful women and men turn to the Psalms as the most helpful resource

for conversation with God about the things that matter most.

The Psalms do this so fully and so well

because they articulate the entire gamut of our experiences in life

and the gamut of what we want to say to God,

from profound praise to unspeakable anger and doubt.

They also convey the words of God to us,

the words of God who meets us

both in the depths of need and the heights of celebration.

Better than any preacher—

even if that preacher has the inestimable advantage

of learning from his father, the preacher—

better than any preacher, the Psalms put things into words.

To hear those words, you have to understand what words do.

In our world, words describe and report what already is.

The best words are precise and unambiguous.

That blouse—what color is it?

Would you call it taupe or mauve?

“Well you could call it taupe, but it has a little more purple in it,

so I might say it’s…”

The best words offer the best descriptions:

“The ball lies in the fairway, 163 yards from the green, another 17 ft. from the pin.

He has a downhill lie with a bunker on the right and wind gusts from the NE.”

In our world, words report what is.

In the Psalms, words don’t just describe, they evoke—they birth things into being.

“Let there be light” are among the very first words of scripture…

“And there was light.”

“I will not be afraid” says the child when the scary parts of the movie come…

and the child has courage.

“I have a dream,” he proclaimed,

and those powerful words helped the dream come true.

Matt’s first tee-ball practice. “We have a ball-player.”

I don’t know what he’s told you, but he was not drafted by the majors.

But he did play baseball as long as leagues were available,

then he played softball,

now he’s into fantasy leagues.

All of this because one day a coach said the words, “We have a ball-player here!”

Sometimes words call things into being.

Words describe what already is, but sometimes words give birth;

they call into being.

They do not call just any-old-thing into being.

The Psalms are not the magicians “abracadabra” magic words

that make a rabbit pop out of the hat.

Words in the Psalms call into being things that are already there,

but not quite there, not quite visible.

“He’s in recovery,” reports the surgeon after a long procedure.

“It went well, but he’s not out of the woods. The next 24 hours are crucial.”

“You’re going to make it,” whispers his family,

bending over his bed in ICU.

“You’re strong, and you’re a fighter, and you’re going to make it.”

The words are true: he is strong and he is a fighter

and he does indeed make it into full recovery,

and those words played no small part in making this happen.

When you read a Psalm, always ask, “What world is this Psalm calling into being?

What is there that is almost, but not quite, reality

until the words are spoken to make it real?

The 8^th Psalm, for example.

“O LORD, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!...

When I look at your heavens,

the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars that you have established…” (vv 1,3)

This Psalm tells of a world made by God—

a well-ordered, reliable, life-sustaining system

because God made it that way.

God is in control in heaven and we are in the right place.

There is a scheme of things, because God made it so.

Psalm 1 tells how we can fit into that scheme of things.

We can get with the system.

We can play our part in calling God’s world into being.

Look at the images:

v. 1) “Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked,

or take the path that sinners tread,

or sit in the seat of scoffers.”

Camden, Tennessee sits on the bank of the Tennessee River,

the epitome of small town south.

The Courthouse sits in the middle of the town square,

with benches outside the courthouse

where the old men sit and pass the hours.

When we visited my grandma in Camden,

we loved to go to the town square,

to walk through the feed store, and the Woolworth’s

and to take in the double-feature at the movie theater.

But my mother never went to the town square.

My aunts and my grandma hated to go to the store on Saturdays.

The men who sat on those benches observed the women who passed by,

and made comments about them,

and the comments were never kind, never neighborly.

They often contained a double-meaning that provoked laughter.

As a boy, I was allowed to go to the town square,

but I was not to sit on the benches in front of the courthouse.

“Do not sit in the seat of the scornful,” I was taught.

The message was clear: be careful of the company you keep.

v.2) “…but their delight is in the law of the LORD,

and on his law they meditate day and night.”

Resist the image of a pale, thin Jewish boy,

with his yamaka, his earlocks, his thick glasses

pouring over the Hebrew of the Torah.

This is fun?

He should be outside playing with the other kids!

Instead, go with this picture:

They’re in love, and the wedding was set for last May,

but his unit was called to active duty in January, so wedding is on hold.

He gets his turn in the post computer room for a half hour every Tuesday afternoon.

He logs on and downloads his email.

Every week, seven messages from her, one per day.

He reads them hurriedly, then prints them.

Then he reads them again as he walks back to his barracks,

then again sitting on the side of his bunk.

Then he folds them into his pocket.

He carries them in his pocket, in his mind, in his heart.

and he reads them again, 3 or 4 times a day.

He isn’t analyzing grammar or correcting punctuation;

he’s “meditating on them, day and night.”

Serving in the jaws of hell, his delight is in the words of their relationship,

and on their love he meditates day and night.

It is his background music and his source of joy.

v. 3) “They are like trees planted by streams of water…”

In desert country, a stream is called a “wadi”.

A wadi never flows with water, like the Chattahoochee;

a wadi fills with flash flood after a sudden storm,

which is followed by long dry spells.

Trees grow up alongside these wadis,

but the only trees to survive are those with deep roots.

They don’t get a constant supply of fresh water,

each day dawns another morning of “all is well” blessing.

Trees planted by streams of water need deep roots.

Do you see the world this Psalm is evoking?

This Psalm places an umbrella over the world and over life.

It gives you a protected space, like a down comforter during a winter storm.

Chaos and disaster are not allowed in.

There is a structure, a system to life;

this can be relied on,

because it is guaranteed by none other that God’s word.

That guarantee stands over us,

it endures beyond us,

and it surrounds us behind and before.

Only one problem: the Psalm isn’t true…

at least not always.

It wasn’t true that terrible Friday in Atlanta

when the honest judge and the conscientious court stenographer

were gunned down by the enraged escapee.

It isn’t true in Zimbabwe,

where President Robert Mugabe sits in corrupt power,

his storehouses filled with grain from the UN shipped in aid,

while children of villagers continue to starve.

Was it true on one of the top floors on the World Trade Center,

where several workers gathered

for a before-work Bible study on the morning of 9/11?

In the Psalms, there is no room for ambiguity;

it’s all black-or-white,

the righteous or the unrighteous,

prosper or perish.

In the world, life can be ambiguous;

it can also be puzzling.

Psalm 1 is very beautiful, inspiring, simple and clear;

but is it true?

What do you tell your children about Psalm 1?

Tell them that no one passage of scripture contains all the truth.

Don’t sew scripture up so tightly that one missed connection

between righteousness and prosperity unravels the whole thing,

one failure to connect the dots between goodness and blessing destroys it all.

“An apple a day keeps the doctor away” is true.

However, I once knew a person who ate an apple every day but got sick.

Is the saying, therefore, not true?

What do you tell your children: “A Twinkie a day…”?

No. It means your diet affects your health. Pay attention to what you eat.

Do the words of Psalm 1 mean that if you follow God,

you’ll be healthy, wealthy, and a major winner on American Idol?

No. It means you’ll be like a tree, planted by streams of water.

Tell them it means there will be dark nights of the soul, sleepless nights.

There will be days so filled with tears that the righteous will cry out,

“My God, my God, why…?

You need not feel guilty about doubts, pains failures.

You have not destroyed the truth of Psalm 1.

Tell them those who’ve prayed this Psalm at funerals,

from prison cells,

in the midst of tragedy,

know it most of all to be true.

“Blessed is the one who walks in the ways of God.”

We’re on Huck Finn’s raft, set off on a long journey on the Mississippi river.

We encounter swirls and eddies that flow directly upriver.

Sometimes the wind blows north, dead against us.

This Psalm is not about the winds and the eddies;

it is about the current underneath.

This is God’s word and it is truth: there is a strong current underneath.

We are—all of us—bound for New Orleans.

Tell your children about the current underneath.

Teach them that those who row with the current

will find the trip much less exhausting. ... Amen.