Sweeter Than Honey
“Sweeter Than Honey” by Pastor Rosanna McFadden
Good morning! What a good Sunday to be at Creekside. I’m sorry that those of you who are joining us by livestream can’t experience what some of us will have in terms of breakfast this morning and a special fellowship time in honor of World Honeybee Day. It’s a good day to thank our beekeepers, and special thanks to Jan Nicodemus, who I believe is responsible for the food for Fellowship time. All of this and a beautiful week of things being planted and growing and flourishing adds up to a pretty great week. It also fits in very nicely with our text today, one of my favorite psalms, Psalm 19. I had Karen read only the second half of it for us; if you have a Bible with you, I invite you to turn to Psalm 19 so you can see the entire thing.
In my study Bible, there is a sub-heading under the psalm number which says “God’s Glory in Creation and the Law.” That heading was a later addition by way of explanation, but Psalm 19 is perhaps the clearest illustration we have of God’s glory in Creation and the Law. This is the Celtic Christian concept of the Big Book and the Little Book. The Big Book is not a book in the literal sense, it is the story of God’s creation, written in the heavens, in the woods, in the fields, in the rocks and trees and everything which God created — including women and men, all of whom bear the image of God. The psalmist says “The heavens are telling the glory of God . . . there is no speech, nor are there words, yet their voice goes out through all the earth.” In other words, the glory of God doesn’t need words. The glory of God is all around us in awesome and even ordinary ways. Things which happen only rarely – [Slide 1] like this sunset rainbow which Larry Ford captured over Creekside on Wednesday evening — and things which happen pretty often, [Slide 2] like this little Roma tomato plant which is already putting down roots in our Seed to Feed garden. God’s glory is happening regardless if we’re paying attention. If you were indoors on Wednesday evening, as I was, you missed that rainbow. God is writing the Big Book all the time. It is as reliable as time itself, and as new as every day. That’s the Big Book which is described in verses 1-7 of Ps 19.
And then the psalmist makes a pivot to the Little Book; that is, the book of God’s teaching and instruction. Of course, at the time that this psalm was written, this was not a book, either — not in the sense of bound pages like our Bibles are today. Not only was it not in the form of a book, it didn’t include any of the material about the life and teachings of Jesus Christ or letters to the church which we call the New Testament. For the psalmist, the Little Book would have been the books of the law, or Torah, which are the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament, history which had been passed down as stories, and maybe some of the songs and worship material of the psalms. It is the tone of this description of the Little Book which captivates my attention. The law is not only perfect, clear, reliable, and true, it is desirable and sweet. It is the sweeter than the sweetest thing the psalmist can imagine — sweeter than honey. Honey is not only sweet, for ancient cultures and today, it is wholesome and healing. Honey is a salve for injuries and a treatment for sore throats and colds and a whole host of other things. What if we loved the Little Book and used it in the same ways which we use honey?
Some of you will recognize the name Eugene Peterson; he taught theology at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia, and he is responsible for the paraphrase of the Bible called The Message. He’s also written Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading. It’s a memorable title. In the first chapter, Peterson talks about a family dog who had a fondness for large bones. They lived in rural Montana, and this dog on his rambles would find a deer carcass and drag home a shank or a rib bone to display to his human family. The dog would prance and play and show off, but eventually he would drag the bone off to a quiet spot to gnaw and turn it over and lick it. Sometimes he would growl at the pleasure of having this bone. After a few hours he’d bury it and then go back the next day and start all over again. The average bone would last a week. (p1-2)
There is a Hebrew word, hagah, which is usually translated ‘meditate,’ or its noun form ‘meditation,’ as in verse 14, May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart. Peterson suggests that hagah is much more like what his dog was doing with a bone — working it over, gnawing it, making possessive sounds about it — than what we imagine with meditating; sitting still in a quiet place and trying to clear our minds of intrusive thoughts. For Hebrew readers — mostly listeners, really — the ideal for hagah is to savor and enjoy God’s law, and of course, to aspire to live that instruction.
The word ‘law’ is a bit deceiving in this regard. The kind of law which I am most familiar with, like say, obeying the speed limit, is neither aspirational nor sweet. I get respecting other people on the road and being mindful of their safety. I know I’m not above the law but I sure would like to get where I’m going just a little bit faster. If this makes me a bad person there are others out there who are a lot worse, let me tell you. This kind of law is not like honey; it’s maybe like Brussels sprouts — you know they’re good for you and you should probably eat them, but you’d rather not. And if you do, you hope someone notices so you don’t have to do it again any time soon.
God’s law, at least in the Hebrew understanding, is different than a list of do’s and don’ts. Certain interpretation turned the Torah into a litmus test for insiders and outcasts, and this was part of what Jesus was pushing back against with the Pharisees. What the psalmist is talking about is a record of God’s relationship with humanity; gracious instruction which puts the human world in its proper alignment with God — just as the sun and the moon and the heavens are in the proper order of Creation. This is the way that things are intended to work, and when the whole system works together, all the parts run without friction. God created this beautiful system and we should delight in being a part of making it work.
That, of course, is the ideal of the law and not the reality we struggle with — often unsuccessfully — of trying to do the right thing or feeling guilty that we don’t read our Bibles more. In the past 3,500 years or so since this psalm was composed there have been different approaches and expectations about how believers will read and savor God’s instruction. I want to highlight one of those approaches — briefly — because this is its anniversary year. This is the five hundredth anniversary of Anabaptism, the tradition of believer’s baptism of which the Church of the Brethren is a part. One of the values of Anabaptism is community, and especially reading and understanding the Bible in community. This does not discount the value or the possibility of individual study or inspiration, but our reading and understanding and even our delight in God’s Word is deeper when we share it with others. This understanding of the Bible is a model of a community working together [Slide 3] more than of a dog going off to enjoy his own bone by himself. As you know, bees make honey — we do not make God’s Word, but when we experience those words and share them and sing them and wrestle with them in community, we start to make containers to hold them and share them, and pass them along to future generations. That is the work which we are about; making meaning in community around the Little Book and giving praise to God for the glory of the Big Book. When that work is shared and tested and celebrated in the community of believers, it is wider and deeper and more satisfying than anything we could do on our own. It is sweeter than honey. [Slide down]This morning we will offer the service of anointing. We take this service from James 5:13 which says, “Are any among you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise. Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord.” We have much to be cheerful about in our life together. You heard about some of these things at our meeting this morning, and it is right for us to sing praise to God. But we know that there are some among us, and some whom we wish could be among us who are in need of prayer for strengthening of faith, confession of sin, and healing of mind body or spirit. If you would like to be anointed you are invited to come up and sit or stand in a front row at the beginning of our final song. When everyone has been anointed, we will invite others forward to lay hands on you, and I will close with a prayer of blessing.