Psalm 22:24-30
Some of you may know the parable of the blind men and the elephant. It’s not one of the parables in our sacred scriptures. It comes from the Indian subcontinent, where apparently it occurs in several variations with various morals. It became more well known in the west after 19th century American poet John Godfrey Saxe wrote a poem about it. So since we’re just on the heels of “National Poetry Month,” I thought I’d share that version with you.
It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.
The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
"God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a WALL!"
The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, "Ho, what have we here,
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me 'tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a SPEAR!"
The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a SNAKE!"
The Fourth reached out an eager hand,
And felt about the knee
"What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain," quoth he:
"'Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a TREE!"
The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: "E'en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a FAN!"
The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a ROPE!"
And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!
The elephant, in all of its elephant-ness doesn’t change. But each man only experiences a portion of the elephant and assumes that his partial experience defines the full reality of the elephant.
Believe it or not, it is today’s portion of the psalter that brought to mind for me the parable of the blind men and the elephant. No, there is no mention of an elephant in the psalm. But did anyone raise your eyebrows listening to the portion of the psalm that we prayed today? Words of hope and praise. But this is psalm 22. Psalm 22!
Psalm 22 begins:
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
and are so far from my cry and from the words of my distress?
O my God, I cry in the daytime, but you do not answer;
by night as well, but I find no rest.
Jesus’ words from the cross. And words which express one human experience of God. A dark and profound experience of loss. The voice of the first man of Indostan. Especially as I think of the psalm and the parable in parallel, it seems like Psalm 22 expresses a list of very different human experiences of God.
Psalm 22 continues:
Our forefathers put their trust in you;
they trusted, and you delivered them.
They cried out to you and were delivered;
they trusted in you and were not put to shame.
The second man of Indostan is angry with God. He experiences God as apparently capricious, seeming to deliver some people, but not others.
Yet you are he who took me out of the womb,
and kept me safe upon my mother's breast.
I have been entrusted to you ever since I was born;
you were my God when I was still in my mother's womb.
Be not far from me, for trouble is near,
and there is none to help.
Yearning. A sense of God’s presence, God being woven in with all of life, and a heartfelt yearning to be with God, to know God’s presence.
Then Psalm 22 continues with words of extreme helplessness. Vivid images that express human nothingness without God.
Many young bulls encircle me;
They open wide their jaws at me, like a ravening and a roaring lion.
My mouth is dried out like a pot-sherd…
Packs of dogs close me in
and gangs of evildoers circle around me…
And yet, the psalmist persists in trust, perseveres in the conviction that God can and will rescue him. What are we up to? The fourth man of Indostan? The fourth different human experience or reaction to God. Perseverence. Calling upon the Lord. The conviction that God will save.
Be not far away, O LORD;
you are my strength; hasten to help me.
Save me!
Save me!
Then finally, we are coming into the portion of Psalm 22 that we prayed today.
Praise the LORD, you that fear him;
stand in awe of him, O offspring of Israel; all you of Jacob's line, give glory.
For he does not despise nor abhor the poor in their poverty;
neither does he hide his face from them;
but when they cry to him he hears them.
My praise is of him in the great assembly
All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD
My soul shall live for him;
my descendants shall serve him;
they shall be known as the LORD'S for ever.
They shall come and make known to a people yet unborn
the saving deeds that he has done.
Words of deep hope and praise. Another piece of the human experience of God. Unbridled praise and reassuring hope even for a people yet unborn.
Looking at Psalm 22 this way leads me to a couple of reflections. One is a warning to beware of cherry-picking individual verses of Scripture. Just like each of the men from Indostan experienced only a portion of the elephant, individual portions of this psalm only express very partially the human experience of God. God’s reality, God’s presence, are always there. But our experiences of God are always partial. A sense of abandonment… feelings of anger… yearning… hope and praise… all of these are part of a faithful life.
Be wary, in particular, of anyone who suggests that a “real” or “true” Christian will always be full of hope and praise.
I’m also aware, as some of you may remember, that we read all of Psalm 22 on Good Friday. When we stand at the cross confronting Jesus’ crucifixion but looking forwards towards Easter, we read all of Psalm 22. There is a path from despair to hope, from anger to praise. That trajectory is the Christian promise. We are on that journey. Our own relationships and experiences of God are not static, but are moving towards praise and hope. That’s not to say that individual journeys won’t loop around and back track from time to time. They will. But persevere. We are all ultimately headed towards hope and praise.
