Israel's Praise: Doxology Against Idolatry and Ideology

I recently finished Walter Brueggemann's book, Israel's Praise: Doxology Against Idolatry and Ideology. I found it interesting and challenging. Brueggemann takes a look at Israel's liturgy and praise, namely the Psalms. Through the Psalms he tracks the various reasons that these Psalms were formed. It is all about world-making. Some of the Psalms are made in response to the deliverance God has affected for His people. They are specific in their nature, describing God as One who acts. Some Psalms are later employed to legitimate royal authority. God is described but seems to have no action. The royal authority renders God as one who legitimates their authority and does not act to overthrow the status quo. There is a tension that grows between these two uses of the Psalms. Psalms threaten to break out against authority that has become abusive and oppressive. It threatens to overthrow regimes of malevolent power. The use of the Psalms to maintain the status quo seeks to secure the realm and maintain itself through the use of liturgy. Brueggemann's final chapter then goes to expound some of the ways that the American church has fallen into some of these same traps. We allow the culture to shape our liturgy rather than our liturgy to shape our world. We render God an idol rather than an untame God that we cannot control and that might call for us to change. Are the Church and Christians willing to live in relationship with a God who acts and calls us to act? Or, are we simply going to bow the knee to those principalities and powers that seek to keep us under thumb so that God's Kingdom is not made known but is subverted? True praise remembers a God that delivered us from the depths of bondage so that we might not return to that bondage but live gloriously free lives that reflect and honor God in all we do! When this happens, the world is changed dramatically.

In thinking about Sabbath, perhaps it serves a similar function in our own lives. It is doxology that keeps us from simply accepting our culture's idolatry and ideology. Rather, it is an imaginative discourse with God and the community in order that God's Kingdom might come to fruition within our world. Sabbath is ignored and pushed to the side because it is truly dangerous. It threatens those authorities and powers that seek legitimacy over our lives. Sabbath undermines the status quo that renders the weak and the powerless vulnerable. Instead, Sabbath is interacting with a living God (not an idol) that is continuously transforming us so that we are Christ-like in our world. And, if that is true, we cannot remain idle (idol?) as the Christian community in our world. Is rest a part of reclaiming true worship? Without a doubt! There is a significant difference between rest and idleness.

Sabbath as Liturgy

“Liturgies or worship practices are rituals of ultimate concern that are formative of our identity – they both reflect what matters to us and shape what matters to us” (Desiring the Kingdom 93). They are the practices that grab hold of our love and direct it to some “ultimate” end. As I have said earlier, I believe that our telos is Love. There are many “liturgies,” acts that shape our desires, to be found within the Church (and outside the Church).

James K. A. Smith notes, “This liturgical affirmation of materiality is commonly described as a sacramental understanding of the world – that the physical, material stuff of creation and embodiment is the means by which God’s grace meets us and gets hold of us” (Desiring the Kingdom 141). The sacramental imagination, as such, is the intuition that God meets us here in the material reality and we are called to respond in material ways. It is through these practices that God shapes us to embody the Kingdom of God back into the world.

“These are habits that play a significant role in shaping our identity, who we are. Engaging in these habit-forming practices not only says something about us, but also keeps shaping us into that kind of person” (Desiring the Kingdom 82). We must be intentional and cautious about participating in ritual without a proper understanding of that ritual. Otherwise, we engage in traditionalism, which places highest priority upon the act, not the end goal. However, ritual is important in that it keeps us continually in remembrance of our calling, which is a constant call for the Israelites in Deuteronomy. We often forget what God has done and are swayed to follow foreign gods.

The idea of time plays a prominent role in the worshiping community. The Christian calendar calls our attention upon Christ. The aspect of time indicates and shapes our entrance into worship. The colors, the smells, and the lighting all demonstrate a posture that we take in worship. Whether it be penitence or rejoicing, the Christian calendar calls us to respond to the work of Christ, rather than being fixated on obscure, trivial realities. Nor, do we orient ourselves in the world by the world’s understanding of time. Rather, we find Sabbath rest. In this, we come to appreciate and understand the significance of our lives, which is not wrapped up in production.

Sabbath, as Brueggemann argues, plays a vital role in our liturgies. Brueggemann writes: "The reason that Sabbath is a radical discipline is that it is a regular, disciplined, highly visible withdrawal from the acquisitive society of production and consumption that is shaped only by commodity. Work stoppage and rest are public statements that one’s existence and the existence of one’s society are not defined by the pursuit of commodity, and that human well-being is not evoked by commodity but precisely by the intentional refusal of commodity" (Mandate to Difference 59).

Sabbath reminds us who we are and who we belong to. Thus, we are called to live in the world as a particular type of people in a particular way. We are not the world’s and we do not need to live in the world on its terms. We understand relationships to be of primary importance, even at the expense of our person.