Psalm 123

More than enough contempt

Read/pray the psalm. (Full text at bottom.)

Solomon Northup, abolitionist whose 1853 autobiography, Twelve Years A Slave, was made into a 2013 film, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor

• It starts with “I,” but this Song of Ascents then moves to the collective “we”—they are still experiencing “scorn” and “contempt” as a people.

• Let’s look more at the fractal nature of the journey:

  • God is “enthroned in the heavens.”

    • The faithful wait patiently for God-in-heaven to act on their behalf:

      • Like a male servant looks to his master.

      • Like a female maidservant looks to her mistress.

  • But the Almighty and Omnipresent God has also chosen to dwell forever in a geographical location—Jerusalem.

• And that is where all we pilgrims are going—the New Jerusalem, a geographical location.

So…

• They were originally from West Africa, which had no knowledge of the Bible, but enslaved peoples in the United States recognized themselves in the story of the Jewish people, and became Christians—more Christian than their tyrannical masters—claiming that story of hope as their own.

• Listen and join your spirit (2 minutes):

Or, John Legend version, from the same movie (3 minutes):

Psalm 123
Ad te levavi oculos meos

1	Unto you I lift up my eyes, *
		you who are enthroned in the heavens.
2	Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their masters, *
		and as the eyes of a maiden to the hand of her mistress,
3	Even so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God, *
		until he show us his favor.
4	Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us, * 
		for we have suffered more than enough contempt.
5	Long has our soul suffered the scorn of the wealthy * 
		and the spitefulness of the proud.


New Coverdale Psalter