A Verse A Day (Day 11, I write other things on Fridays so I skipped day 10)

I’m still digesting the 22nd Psalm’s recognition of both the specific location of the psalmist – self-identifying as part of the people of Jacob/Israel – and the universal scope of the psalmist’s outlook – “all the ends of the earth,” “all the families of the nations.” Of course, the psalmist’s own location between the local and the global corresponds with the theology at play here. God is, for the psalmist, both “our God” before whom the “offspring of Jacob” stand in awe, and the God to whom dominion over the nations belongs. So universal in breadth is God that even the dead and the yet unborn will offer praise as part of the “great congregation.” 

If we can describe the life of faith as “us before God and God before us,” then there seem to be four quadrants at play in the life of faith. There is (1) the human in both the specific location; (2) the human in the general location; and there is (3) God as specifically perceived; and (4) God as universally perceived. 

(1) European idealists strove mightily to explore the specific location of the human identity, beginning with Descartes’ famous dictum, “I think, therefore I am.” 

(2) The African philosophical concept of Ubuntu offers a counterpoint to the extreme subjectivity of the European quest. Ubuntu means, “I am because we are.” 

(3) The existence of different religions, different sects or denominations within different religions, and the personalistic experiences of salvation, contemplation, prayer, commitment, and so on – all point to the possibility of God or the divine being experienced by and expressed from a specific perspective. 

(4) Almost every religious expression has a universal scope in view, either implicitly through its language regarding the divine or explicitly through its mission or witness to the world. 

Many things have been and can be said regarding these four quadrants, including questioning whether “quadrant” is the right term to express them. It strikes me that the 22nd Psalm does not presume to select one over the others, but struggles to live faithfully by fluidly moving in and out of each of them. That will be my thought throughout this day.