Tuesday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time
June 9, 2020
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 4, a lament written to be sung with stringed instruments.
The psalmist expresses confidence that God rewards the prayer of the just, warning the “dull of heart” to wake up!
When I call, answer me, O my just God,
you who relieve me when I am in distress;
Have pity on me, and hear my prayer!
Men of rank, how long will you be dull of heart?
Why do you love what is vain and seek after falsehood?
Surely, the psalmist’s sentiments echo in our hearts:
- We all pray, in these conflicted times, for the grace to wake up to the justice and mercy of God.
- We pray, like the psalmist, to see the face of God in ourselves and in our neighbor.
- We pray to finally be able to break through the falsehood of racism to the Presence of our Creator in every person.
The poem I offer today was written by Shane McCrae, an American poet and recipient of a 2011 Whiting Award. McCrae earned a BA at Linfield College, an MA at the University of Iowa, an MFA at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and a JD at Harvard Law School. He currently teaches at Columbia University.
In this poem, the poet and his young daughter trace faces in the waves, the way many of us have in waves or clouds.
Like all great poems, this one allows us to find our own meaning within it. I see a father looking to find the reflection of his own face in our representations of God, and hoping that his little child might do so a well. We sense their hopes disappear in the waves and in a culture that has enthroned God’s image as a white male.
Still When I Picture It the Face of God Is a White Man’s Face
Before it disappears
on the sand his long white beard before it disappears
The face of the man
in the waves I ask her does she see it ask her does
The old man in the waves as the waves crest she see it does
she see the old man his
White his face crumbling face it looks
as old as he’s as old as
The ocean looks
and for a moment almost looks
His face like it’s all the way him
As never such old skin
looks my / Daughter age four
She thinks it might he might be real she shouts Hello
And after there’s no answer answers No
Music: The Whole Book of Psalmes: Psalm 4, “Oxford Tune”
written by – Thomas Ravenscroft (1588 – 1635)
rendered here by Richard Muenz
The psalmist promises to witness to God’s faithfulness by singing with the lyre. In his letter today, Paul charges Timothy to do the same thing (sans lyre):
Beware of the scribes, who like to go around in long robes
Lavish Mercy 