No Bartering Required
Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19
May You honor the people at Your right hand. May You honor the nation You have raised up for Yourself. Then we won’t turn away from You. Give us new life [and we] will worship You. Psalm 80.17-18 (NIRV)
Like many of us, I have favorite Psalms, but the ones I like least are what I call Psalms of Barter. They acknowledge God’s greatness, ensure God understands how desperate and dire things are, and then make conditional promises: “We’ll do this for You, if You’ll do this for us.” Psalm 80 is one of them: “God, You’re all-powerful. You can save us if You will—and why wouldn’t You? And if You’ll save us, we’ll worship You forever.
I dislike Bartering Psalms because they’re empty offers to do what God’s people should have already been doing. We’ll stop straying and start worshipping You if You’ll…. Maybe I dislike them, though, because they confront me.
We barter picking up a Bible, praying every day, attending worship every week, inviting someone to church if God will…. There’s something altruistic about bartering for peace to reign or pandemics to end. Then there’s the peace at this year’s Christmas gathering or enough money to purchase just-the-right presents. Peace and harmony. More than enough. All the makings of joy.
I was told of an aged woman who, like most in her tiny Italian village, hobbled down a steep hill every day to the village square. The villagers didn’t have much and lived lives most of us reading this would consider desperate and dire; yet they had no dearth of joy. When asked what could possibly bring them such joy, the woman responded, “You find joy when you get what you want; we let joy find us.”
No bartering required. One of Christmas’ secrets had found the villagers: there’s only one Giver of Joy, who can’t be bought or bribed.
Dr. Kris Tenny-Brittian
Adjunct Professor, Center for Ministry and Lay Training
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