Clergy/Leaders’ Mail-list No. 3-033 Sunday 16 Feb 2003

Reading: Psalm 147 – PRAISE, FIT FOR WHAT?

‘Father God your love and care is overwhelming, and we are so undeserving. We praise you.’

A new-born baby, with umbilical cord still attached, is found in a shopping bag. What confusion, what loneliness could lead a mother to do such a thing? In German she might be called a Rabenmutter, a raven mother, because of a very old legend that suggests ravens abandon their offspring.(J Limburg, Psalms)

Run your eye again over all the verbs in this psalm of which God is the subject, reminding yourself of his ceaseless, caring providence. Then look again at the objects of his actions: stars, heavens, horses, snow – and ravens! The scope of God’s caring is astonishing. For example, between 9,000 and 12,000 stars are visible to the naked eye if you include both the northern and southern hemispheres, but only a few hundred have specific (mostly Arabic) names that were given to them between 500 and 2,000 years ago. God, however has named every one of them (v 4).

What are we to conclude from this verbal fireworks display? At the centre of this psalm (v 9) are young ravens crying for food. Jesus also drew attention to ravens.(Luke 12:24; compare Job 38:4)

There are two reasons why praise is fitting. Implicitly we gather that if God manages the universe down to the needs of squawking raven chicks, can we not trust him to care for us? More obviously, as verses 15 and 18-20 remind us, we trust in a speaking God. Animals use fixed sound signals – the Japanese Macaque monkey uses 30. Only human beings use speech: God has ‘revealed his word to Jacob, his laws and decrees to Israel’ (v 19). In attention to our God’s good laws lies our perfect freedom.

Mirror the psalmist’s God-centredness by using every phrase in this psalm beginning ‘He..’ as a vehicle for your praise, changing ‘He…’ to ‘You…’.

– Howard Peskett

Copyright Scripture Union, 2003

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