Strife

One of the oft quoted and oft misrepresented verses in the Bible comes from Psalms 46. The way you probably memorized it is – “Be still and know that I am God.” But a more accurate translation probably reads, “Cease striving, and know that I am God.”

People that know me from way back, meaning seminary and before, know that I’ve always been a big fan of that mystical hooligan, Meister Eckhart. At a time that the Church needed something out of the box to challenge papal authority, Eckhart carefully dismantled it and ripped again the veil of religion held up between man and God. Eckhart was a big time fan of silence and of Eastern concepts like ‘emptying’ the soul in order that the goodness of God might refill it. I love the guy and all the reasons I love him put him on trial for heresy so I figure I’m likely in good company because the same psychology nailed Jesus to a cross and burned the best minds of many generations at the stake.

As good and as wonderful as silence and “being still” may be, to interpret Psalms 46:10 as some kind of Eastern spiritual thing just doesn’t come close the absolutely stunning and painful context of the saying. Let’s look at Psalms 46 in the context in which it was written:

8 Come and see the works of the LORD,
the desolations he has brought on the earth.
9 He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth;
he breaks the bow and shatters the spear,
he burns the shields with fire.
10 "Be still, and know that I am God;

Or more accurately put, cease striving and know that I am God.

Like so many of the Psalms, this one is about theodicy, or the problem of evil in the world. Here’s the kicker (and if you’ve read much of my apologetics, getting kicked in the groin is a metaphor I use often, so please forgive if you’re the easily offended type, and don’t get miffed if in learning you are easily offended I intentionally place a few kicks there… it’s a character flaw that I’m working on); so here’s the kicker: This “be still” stuff is written into a context of both divine depravity dispensed upon mankind while simultaneously coupled with its removal.

You might remember from Genesis, and it matters not what you take literally and what you don’t, that God asks a parenthetical question, “How long am to strive with man?” The answer that gets churned out is “about 120 years.” (Genesis 6)

Super. So let’s strive. You vs. Me… It’s on baby. And what I can’t finish, I will leave to my kids, and grand-kids, and great-grandkids, and as history seems to indicate, to generation after generation. Strife. Religious strife, theological strife, scientific strife, political strife… pick it and strive.

I can’t say I loved the movie, but I certainly loved the closing lines of Legends of the Fall:

“I was wrong about many things. It was those who loved him most who died young. He was a rock they broke themselves against however much he tried to protect them.”

So it is with strife when you choose an Eternal opponent who refuses your definitions. He becomes the rock you break yourself against.

The thing I like best in Psalms 46 is verse 8. David, the likely poet who wrote these words, doesn’t even bother with an argument against God’s goodness. He does that in other places. Instead, he acknowledges “the desolations God has brought upon the Earth.” Buber once stated that nothing can doom a man but the belief in doom. Our faith pays homage to the medley of the gods... biology, chemistry, physics: gods which offer liberation from magic and superstition in exchange for the laws of entropy and decay. I guess I fail to see the difference, both are indicative of strife.

Stop striving, the Psalter says. The bows will break, and the shields will burn.

I think the hardest lesson for me to learn – one I still struggle with daily – is the fact that I clothe my strife under the banner of “justice.” And that at the end of the day one truth remained: I loved justice more than I loved God. He knows this about me. And we strive.

“Being still,” at least for me, is about much more than just the silence.