Psalm 104:25-35 (Coverdale)
25 So is the great and wide sea also *
wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts.
26 There go the ships, and there is that Leviathan *
whom thou hast made to take his pastime therein.
27 These wait all upon thee *
that thou mayest give them meat in due season.
28 When thou givest it them they gather it *
and when thou openest thy hand they are filled with good.
29 When thou hidest thy face they are troubled *
when thou takest away their breath they die, and are turned again to their dust.
30 When thou lettest thy breath go forth they shall be made *
and thou shalt renew the face of the earth.
31 The glorious Majesty of the Lord shall endure for ever *
the Lord shall rejoice in his works.
32 The earth shall tremble at the look of him *
if he do but touch the hills, they shall smoke.
33 I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live *
I will praise my God while I have my being.
34 And so shall my words please him *
my joy shall be in the Lord.
35 As for sinners, they shall be consumed out of the earth, and the ungodly shall come to an end *
praise thou the Lord, O my soul, praise the Lord.
Balance, proportion, harmony: day and night, land and sea, boat and sea creature, all are part of the progression of images of nature in harmony. What drives imbalance in this imagined world? Only humankind can break this Eden’s heart.
And so we do. But who shall free us from these bonds of sin? Only the same Spirit that breezed across the face of the waters of the primordial sea, only the Spirit that comes upon the assembled multitude of disciples like wind and tongues of flame, only the same Spirit that took Moses up into a cloud to receive the gift of Torah, only the same Spirit that Jesus, ascending into a cloud, bestowed upon his people.
Majestic in its sweep, magical in its harmony, the 104th psalm is a song of a world made by God and dependent on God. We, all creatures, depend on God for our being.
A marriage prayer in an old prayer book addresses God as “Creator and preserver of all humankind, Giver of all perpetual grace, Author of everlasting life” and in all those modes it is the Spirit that makes God known and makes the will of the Father and the obedience of the Son efficacious in our daily lives.
We are confronted with a choice: to praise God and take our place in the natural order, or to consume ourselves with greed, ambition, folly, as we fend for ourselves – as if we could. All creatures, great and small, are part of the realm of God, made by God. Only humankind can ignore it - for a time. That is our unique freedom, a role we do not share.
Unlike the lilies of the field, that gather not nor do they spin, humans are blessed - not cursed - to have a role in their own provision, in bringing forth bread for strength, wine for joy, oil to make faces shine, as co-creators in partnership with a heavenly partner. We alone can disrupt the harmony but we can also take conscious part in the song.
That is part of the message conveyed by the psalms, especially Psalm 104.
In his visionary poetry William Blake conveys both the majesty and the mystery of God’s creative power. In one poem he calls us beyond the physical surface of things to its mystic meaning: what are the tents of Israel that shine so bright on the Red Sea shore? It seems that like the psalmist the poet sees a created world that has its source beyond itself, and to apprehend that source requires religion to mediate between other modes of perception and experience, including scientific, religious, aesthetic, and moral. That is, between cognitive - rational, emotional - affective, social-political, moral-ethical, and all other scopes of human experience, there can be one that, Spirit-infused, takes us past our own limits as creature or creatures, to apprehend in the light of divinity a purpose beyond the immediate, or indeed an inapprehensible mystery beyond the knowable.
Mock on, mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau;
Mock on, mock on; 'tis all in vain!
You throw the sand against the wind,
And the wind blows it back again.
And every sand becomes a gem
Reflected in the beams divine;
Blown back they blind the mocking eye,
But still in Israel's paths they shine.
The Atoms of Democritus
And Newton's Particles of Light
Are sands upon the Red Sea shore,
Where Israel's tents do shine so bright.
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