Before we plunge into the kaleidoscopic visions of Ezekiel, we take our final sidestep to reflect on the remaining section of the Psalms, covering Books IV and V. No less passionate than their earlier counterparts, Psalms 90 – 150 continue to display the full range of Israelite emotion. What they also provide, as do the other three books, is theology for the People of God; creative and imaginative responses to the religious world to which they belonged.

There is something about poetry that gives it a power unknown to prose. Its vivid imagery and pulsing rhythm create an emotive experience for the listener. These Psalms, whose words – intoned or sung – could rise from chilly field or sweaty synagogue, Temple Hill or desert cave, are works of art embraced by a nation and worn through by loving use. And as imaginative works of faith-thinking, their impact on Israel could only have been heightened by very fact they are poems.

Take Psalm 97, for example. The psalmist paints a vivid picture of Yahweh’s appearance on Mt Sinai. ‘Cloud and thick darkness are all around him…fire goes before him…His lightnings light up the world; the earth sees and trembles’ (2-4). In the mind of the Israelites, this event immediately conjures up a strong association with the giving of the Law. Thus the psalmist continues ‘All worshippers of images are put to shame…The Lord loves those who hate evil; he guards the lives of the faithful’ (7, 10). This psalm isn’t written to make a ‘point’, as it were; Israel was already well aware of their history. It’s through the use of the evocative imagery and punchy pace that the speaker / listener is able to imagine the power of Yahweh and his glory more convincingly and as a result feel more compellingly devoted to his ways.

But it’s not just poetic power that the psalms contribute to Israelite faith; they serve as works of theology themselves, albeit in their own creative way. Another psalm that recalls the experience of Sinai is Psalm 144. There, however, the psalmist reconfigures the imagery. No longer is Yahweh’s powerful presence spoken of in association with the Law. Here, instead, it has become an inspiration for military victory (the exception is the refrain ‘whose mouths speak lies, and whose right hands are false,’ (8, 11) but this is for the purpose of justifying the military action rather than celebrating the Law itself). In a theological move, therefore, the use of Sinai as a well-known image in the mind of the Israelites has been used to shift Yahweh from ‘Law-Giver’ to ‘Warrior.’

Another example is Psalm 104, where Yahweh is celebrated as Creator, of the heavens, the earth, its vegetation and inhabitants (including a giant sea-monster in v.26!) But saying that Yahweh is Creator is only half the story; the real message is the implicit meaning, and what it challenges.

To understand this we have to pan out a little and take a look at the whole region of the Near East. Across the various religions that covered that part of the ancient world there were a few common themes. One of the most obvious is the power of the ‘seas’ and its symbolic association with the forces of chaos in the world. In the creation myths of Mesopotamia (Babylon and that sort of area) the crowning moment is when the god Marduk slays the troublesome sea-deity, Tiamat and rids the world of her evil meddling. A similar event is recorded in the stories of the Canaanites where Baal, the storm-god, conquers Yam, the chaotic god of the unruly waters. Thus when the psalmist says of Yahweh ‘you make the cloud your chariot, you ride on the wings of the wind’ and then as part of the same stanza devotes four verses to his taming and restricting of the sea, we should not miss the obvious connection. Yahweh is not only being celebrated as Creator, he is victorious rival to Baal and Marduk. The theology of Israel’s psalms is not something that springs out of nothing; it is spoken very clearly into the competition of religious beliefs each Israelite found themselves subjected to.

The reality is that all theology, whether poetry or prose, is formed in a particular situation by particular people, and, if it is any good, will speak imaginatively to the concerns of its context. One of the challenges we have faced all year when reading the Old Testament is how to make it relevant to our time. Do we simply lift out some ‘universal’ meaning from the text and plonk it down into the 21st century? Or is the power of the Scriptures more subtle to cajole, inspire and inform? Perhaps the psalms model for us a way of thinking about faith that creatively and intelligently engages with the world around us, as much as they tell us their own story of imaginative religion.

The door is open to new possibilities. Faithful Christianity is not about simply restating what has already been said. It is the courageous task of finding new paths into the uncharted terrain of the future. That this must be done in deep conversation with the past is the reason we’re reading these texts with such devotion. But it is the future that is there for the shaping. And just as the writers of the Old Testament worked hard to shape theirs, so we can do likewise.

The world of the ancient writers was a religious one, however, and so their creativity in the field of religious ideas was pointed and appropriate. Our Western context is by contrast defined by the impact of Science, in its broadest sense. The task for a ‘religion’ to speak into this world may be its greatest challenge yet, but it is one to which the psalms bid us rise.

Questions for reflection:

1. What do you want to say about Christian life and faith? In other words, what is it about Jesus, or being a Christian that you most want to communicate? Write some ideas down, and then choose the one you feel most strongly about.

2. Work with a mind-map to connect ideas / words / images to these central theme. Record reactions – both your own and what you would expect of others – as other issues that might be raised by what you are writing. The goal of the process is to help put what matters to you a) into words, and b) within a context. That means that your mind-map should be messy – life is complicated!

3. Try to find connections between what you have written and the world you inhabit, with its assumptions, values, images, ideas etc. This takes quite a bit of reflection, but it’s truly worth it as a way to start making your faith become alive in today’s world.