Psalm 34:1-8 Commentary

Let’s say you are going through a tough season in your life.  Too much has gone wrong of late and in your head you find yourself returning again and again to that line from the hymn “Abide with Me”: “Death and decay in all around I see.”  And let’s say further that one of the things that is making life difficult to take of late is that your cries to God for help, relief, and comfort seem to be bouncing back at you off the ceiling over your head.

And then let’s imagine a friend of yours comes up to you in the midst of all that and basically conveys what we get in the first eight verses of the 34^th psalm.  How might that go for you?  Oh, probably you’d force a smile upon your lips.  You’d mumble some vague sentiments along the lines of “That’s great.  Happy for you.”  But deep in your heart you might actually be thinking “Oh shut up already!”  When life only gives you lemons and you cannot even make lemonade out of them, it can be emotionally fraught to witness someone for whom everything has been coming up roses of late and, worse yet, who credits God for all of his happiness and success and repose because your friend can’t remember the last time God failed to answer his every prayer request.

“Taste and see that the Lord is good.”  But we all have days and seasons when our only honest response to that is “I wish I could.  I really do.  But lately the only thing I taste in my mouth is bile and bitterness.”

Psalm 34 is yet another occasion to remember that there are 149 other psalms in the Hebrew Psalter and upwards of 50 of those poems are in the modality of full-throated lament.  Not every day, not every season is as sunny-side-up as the opening of Psalm 34.  Some stretches of life are like this probably for all of us at some points.  It’s not all the time and every day but when life is good and God seems to be coming through for you, the grateful praises of Psalm 34:1-8 (and actually this continues in the entire psalm) are only appropriate.  It is, as Neal Plantinga has noted, only fitting to give God the glory when God bestows blessings on our lives.  Any other response is unfitting, out of joint, rude.

In the church and in the context of our preaching, however, Psalm 34 introduces a different challenge as well.  Perhaps this wrinkle is captured by the late Lewis B. Smedes in an article he once wrote titled “The Problem with Miracles.”  Of course, we don’t usually say “miracles” and “problem” in the same breath.  Those two words seem nearly antithetical to one another.  So why did Smedes yoke them together?  In sum, the problem with any given miracle that we might want to celebrate in the church or highlight in a sermon is that not everyone gets the miracle they pray for.

If we have reason to believe that 7-year-old Susie was healed of a life-threatening illness because prayers for her healing were answered, then that surely causes us to shout “Hallelujah!”  Problem is, though, that two years ago 6-year-old Charlie was similarly gravely ill, his parents and the church prayed for healing and yet Charlie died.  How does one celebrate Susie without making Charlie’s family feel horrible all over again?  How can we talk about good things like Psalm 34:1-8 without causing those who are currently lacking such a floodtide of goodness feel like something must be amiss with their faith, with their prayers, with . . . well, with something or another spiritually since God is not rousing himself to marshal the hosts of heaven to answer our pleas the way he is answering other people’s prayerful requests.

All of which is to say that when we preach on Psalm 34 and other similar psalms of glowing celebrations of God’s unrelenting goodness, we do so mindful of how this will hit other members of the congregation.  That does not mean that we must not preach such things and celebrate such things and hear such testimonies as we get in this psalm.  But bearing in mind the pain such upbeat words may bring to the hearts of some who hear them may help us modulate our language, nuance any sermon we write on such themes so that A) Those who bear pain because they are experiencing the opposite of Psalm 34 at the moment feel seen and B) So that those in that same category are not made to feel worse in case they pick up on even a subtle suggestion that the blessed person is in his felicitous state because his faith is stronger than yours and thus his prayers are more effective than yours.  People in pain don’t need to get the feeling they are spiritual slouches and that this is behind their rugged experiences recently.

But we can recall, too, that no matter who hears a sermon on Psalm 34 or what spiritual and emotional space they may presently be in, we can also hold out the firm promise that in the long run, Psalm 34:8 will be the experience of all who love the Lord and who dwell “in Christ.”  Because of the saving work of Christ Jesus in his death and resurrection, we have all tasted at some point that the Lord is good and even though that sweet taste may wax and wane in anyone’s lived experience, at the end of the cosmic day we will forever taste and see that divine goodness.  Even this promise is not meant to be a smiley-face yellow sticker we try to paste overtop of someone’s genuine pain and it’s not a way to tell someone to stop feeling bad.  But it is nevertheless a promise to which we can all properly cling in hope.

Illustration Idea

From Lewis B. Smedes, How Can It Be All Right When Everything Is Wrong?

“If joy is our human destiny, it is also our human desire. We all want a little enjoyment. Let’s not be hypocritical, as if we were too serious to want joy in our lives. Let us admit that what keeps us going is the hope that one night the bells will ring and the Hallelujah Chorus will sound for us too. I dare say that anybody who pretends to want only to serve and never to enjoy is a slovenly person, and probably a little nasty too.” p. 11