Today’s Scripture Reading (June 7,
2016): Psalm 97
For much of
human history, faith has been defined by those in political leadership. The
people tended to serve the God or gods of the political head of the government.
Sometimes governments were obliging and inclusive. They widened the pantheon of
gods to include all of the gods of the people. And sometimes the kings actually
became the gods that were to be included in
the pantheon. They were not normal people – they were gods. This was the
reality during the first century and the Jews under Roman rule. Those in power
had no objection to adding Jehovah and even Jesus to the pantheon of the gods. After
all, they were steadily adding others to the pantheon, including the Caesars. The
problem was that the Jews and the Christians insisted that their God was the
only god of the Pantheon – and limiting
the pantheon was an action that the Romans refused to do.
But all of
that changed when Constantine took control of the Empire in early in the fourth
century. Suddenly Christianity and the Christian God was thrust into the prime
worship position for the empire. The Emperor decreed that the empire would be
Christian. But that didn’t necessarily stop all of the discussion. As the
empire attempted to adjust to Christianity, the question that dominated the
discussion was what this Christianity was going to look like – or even what
kind of Christianity was going to dominate the new Christian Empire. For the
next few years, the Empire would
vacillate in belief between the Nicaean faith which stated that Jesus was of
one substance with God, essentially that he was God
and an Arian belief Jesus was a created being subordinate to God, and at one
point even flirted with going back to a Roman style paganism. But whatever the
Emperor believed became the law of the land – and the people followed the law.
This was a story
of Israel and Judah knew well. The people seemed to willingly follow, at least
nominally, the faith of their king. And so the Psalmist directs his comments
straight at those who ruled over the people. These are the ones that the
Psalmist refers to as “gods.” These people were so removed from average person
that they seemed to almost be a different race. So the Psalmist begs the
rulers, the kings and those in administrative control over the people to leave
the worship of idols and images, and begin to worship God. Because if they
would worship God, then it was likely that the people would follow.
Today it is
no longer necessarily our political leaders that we follow. But that doesn’t
mean that there are not people who influence us – our gods. And the reality is
that each one of us likely holds influence over someone in our circle of
acquaintance. We may not even know that these people look to us for their
understanding of the world. And so, the psalmist’s words apply even to us – go and
worship him, all you gods.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Psalm
98 & 99
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