Psalm 145:10-18 Commentary

Psalm 145:15 claims that the eyes of everyone look to God and when they do, God provides everyone with the food they need.  It’s a curious claim considering that as a matter of fact, the eyes of plenty of people do not turn to God when they are hungry or at most any other time for that matter as well (not sure we can talk meaningfully about animals or other creatures turning their eyes to God but maybe we can and more on that in the Illustration Idea below).  Perhaps believers in God do this in some fashion.  Our eyes turn toward God not just when we are hungry but many times both in supplication for the things we need and in thanksgiving for the gifts we receive.

In his new book Gratitude Neal Plantinga mentions that all people have occasions to feel thanksgiving arise in their hearts.  Maybe it is being moved by a grand spectacle in nature like the sight of soaring Redwood trees or a sparkling sunset over the ocean.  Maybe it is Thanksgiving Day and so, you know, people sense they are supposed to be grateful for various things.  But, Plantinga notes, a lot of people don’t know where to go with that grateful impulse.  They cannot locate a target or a bull’s eye for their thanks.  So they feel thankful in general.  But as Plantinga further notes, being thankful in general is like being married in general: something about the very concept feels decidedly off.

Just generally it might be possible to frame this section of Psalm 145 in terms of gratitude and thanksgiving even if this poem is not a specific summons to give thanks as many other psalms overtly do.  Because verses 10-18—but actually the totality of Psalm 145—are testament to the capacious sovereignty of Israel’s God.  All people and also all creatures are in God’s hands.  God is the bright center of the universe as he tends and superintends all things even as God remains faithful and steadfast and benevolent most especially to those who fear God and honor God but Psalm 145 also claims God takes care of even those who do not realize that the blessings they have in their lives are somehow ultimately connected to God.

We all owe God a debt of gratitude.  Many people don’t want to hear that of course.  In preparation for an upcoming seminar on preaching and gratitude, I have been reading up on the subject.  That includes the Plantinga book referenced above but also the book Thanks! by Robert Emmons.  Emmons and his team have done extensive research on gratitude, including what kinds of people tend to feel thankful the most and which groups seem to throw up roadblocks to acknowledging the need to be grateful.  Perhaps unsurprisingly the research revealed that one of the groups that seem most resistant to acknowledging gratitude are American males.

In a rugged pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps culture, men shy away from admitting they have what they have because of outside assistance—aid that they had best own up to by expressing thanksgiving to the source(s) of that assistance.  This feels to some men to be a sign of weakness, a sign they are not cutting it and making it on their own.  I made some similar observations years ago in my book The Riddle of Grace when I noted that the capitalist ethos undercuts an appreciation for God’s grace because Americans are raised with the Horatio Alger rags-to-riches aspiration.  As even Colin Powell once said in a speech in my hometown, “Nobody ever gave me anything.  I earned everything I have.”  No one wants anybody’s charity.  The goal is not to be dependent on anyone but to be independent, to be the Lone Ranger type, the entrepreneur, the overachiever.  Nobody would ever thrill to a document titled “The Declaration of Dependence.”  I wrote all of that in connection to the saving grace of God in Christ Jesus but of course there is a snug connection (even linguistically) between grace and gratitude.  Resist one, you will resist also the other.

But then Psalm 145 comes along to remind us that in the longest possible run, that is not how life in this world works.  That’s just not the set up.  Truth is, even those who worship God and who do acknowledge their indebtedness to God’s grace and mercy and providence can struggle with all this.  We sing “Amazing Grace” on Sundays but most of the time we’re pretty sure we get in good with God mostly via “Trust and Obey.”  If we are saved, we have the sneaking suspicion that although God’s free grace in Christ is in the mix, the real difference between my unbelieving neighbor and me is that I live better and more morally than he does and that is what earns me God’s smile of favor.  It’s not “There but for the grace of God go I” so much as it’s “I am here by the sweat of my moral brow.”

Thus if even believers in God struggle to keep all this straight and recognize how all of life is a free gift that properly leads us to reverential and grateful worship of God, one can only imagine how this goes for those who don’t much acknowledge the existence of God in the first place (much less a God who is actually involved in their day to day lives).  For all of us, then, Psalm 145 can be a bracing tonic, a reminder or even a wake-up call to see the reality of our lives before the face of God for what they are.

This particular Year B lectionary reading stops three verses shy of the conclusion of the psalm (who knows why, though verse 20 talks about destroying the wicked so that’s likely the reason).  But verse 21 is a fitting reminder of what the aim of the whole psalm is: “Let every creature praise his holy name forever and ever.”  We praise because we are grateful.  And as Psalm 145 reminds us, if we are grateful, then that is only fitting.

Illustration Idea

“All your works praise you” Psalm 145:10 claims.  And that is hardly a stand alone sentiment in the wider Book of Psalms or in the Bible generally and including the Prophets in the Old Testament.  Trees of the fields are said to clap their hands.  Mountains are said to leap in praise of God.  When birds sing and whales breach, when storm winds blow and the moon and stars do their shining thing, it all looks and sounds like a chorus of praise to God.  We tend to chalk this up to poetic license or mere hyperbole.  But the Bible passages that do this don’t seem to think that’s what is going on.   Look at Psalm 148 that makes no distinction whatsoever between exhorting people to praise God and doing the same exhortation to praise to snowflakes and sea lions.  When things just do what they were designed by God to do and to be, it is a song of praise.  Truth is, people are the ones who fail to praise God on a consistent basis.  Fields and streams and bobcats and pine trees do this as a matter of course.