The Act of Becoming- Psalm 118 and the Movement of Palm Sunday

I’ve gotten busy at work (not a bad thing), and realized that this space was very much neglected over this past week.

Which means I’ve got an endless stream of thoughts and stories running through my mind at the moment. This is the shape of life. I’m reminded of why this space is important, as not only do these thoughts end up cluttering my mind and my spirit when I’m not writing them down, they start to get lost and muddled and confusing as they continue to wrestle for my attention.

Figured, what better place to really put my Lenten read to practice. It is called Pause: Spending Lent With the Psalms after all (by author Elizabeth Caldwell). For Palm Sunday and Holy Week, the reflection is on the traditional 118th Psalm. As she points out, this Psalm, or indeed song, was sung and used in processions to the temple, beginning and culminating with the phrasing “O give thanks.” It is the last of a series of interconnected Psalms beginning with Psalm 113 and ending with this song of thanksgiving.

Caldwell encourages us to see this as more than simply a Psalm of Thanksgiving. In context it is meant to bind the individual to the whole. The person to the shared community, and the shared community to the story of God’s faithfulness. This becomes especially aware and powerful when considered against the backdrop of the Exodus, which the refrain in verse 14 calls us back to directly- “The Lord is my strenth and my might, He has become my salvation.”

I’ve been compelled by this word “become.” This Psalm is littered with intentional contrasts between what is and what becomes:

• “Out of my distress” becomes “The Lord answered me and set me in a broad place.” (verse 5)
• “With the Lord on my side” becomes “The Lord is on my side.”
• “All nations surround me” becomes “I cut them off.”
• “I was falling” becomes “The Lord… has become my salvation.”
• “The Lord has punished” becomes “He did not give me over to death.”
• “Open to me the gates of righteousness” becomes “this is the gate of the Lord.”
• “The stone the builders rejected” becomes “the chief cornerstone.”
• “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord” becomes “We bless you from the house of the Lord.”

Here’s the thing about becomming that stuck out for me- it rings with the notes of an invitation. An invitation to move forward in the midst of  the contrary voices and forces and experiences, into this becomming. God becomming our salvation is shaped both by our story and our participation in this story- we participate IN this salvation. That’s what the Easter story is about. That’s what shapes it according to the primary distinctives of the Gospel- transformation and life.

This past Sunday my Church walked through Luke 19:28-48, a passage Scot Mcknight calls “Redemptions Arrival.” My pastor noted the curious absence of the many elements we commonly associate with Palm Sunday, and instead hightlighted the intended direction and eventual arrival- Jerusalem. Or more specifically, “the house of God”, or the temple, which Jesus specifically defines as being “a house of prayer” which has BECOME a den of robbers.

In this the house will be transformed through the story of Jesus, and in so doing the house will dwell in the lives of the people (in Christ we are the temple of God). Thus, it becomes interesting to consider that for the ancient Israelites making this journey, this progression, this Psalm is a prayer that carries them forwards. That frames the transforamtion that would come through this progression and eventual arrival. Here the invitation meets with God’s promise to move out into the whole of the world by way of the transformed people of God. This is the story.

One last thought, looking back at verse 5. What does it mean to be set on a broad place? Is this imagining a shift in physical space? A shift in spiritual and mental space? Both? However one imagines this, the becoming in this passage reflects a shift from a narrow space to a broad one. A space that is no longer restrricted to the reality that is, but is free to become. A space that is no longer restricted to narrow sightlines, but to broad perspectives and points of view. A space where we are free to move and live and breathe in the freedom that Christ brings- the invitaiton to experience the transformed life.