All Together Now

I once had the privilege of attending a rabbi’s training college. Along with aspiring church ministers, mullahs and rabbis, we gathered to hear what other religious traditions believed about rites of passage (birth, marriage and death). It was fascinating and memorable. The sessions were led by male and female rabbis who were part of the college’s teaching staff. And whenever they narrated the great stories of Judaism and the Old Testament in particular, they used words like “us” and “we.” These were their stories; they were fully identified.

This psalm articulates the experience of being a faith community under attack. It was probably sung on the way to the temple in Jerusalem during one of the major festivals. The first verse starts in the first person (“Often they attacked me…”) and then follows a kind of stage direction (“let Israel now say…”). In other words, “I” becomes “we.” The group owns and expresses a deeply felt and personal sense of pain and we too may be familiar with this approach. Many modern worship songs are written in the first person but sung by congregations. But how many carry the emotional force of this psalm? When was the last time we voiced together the darker sides of discipleship?