God's Continuous and Daily Teaching in Psalm 119

The Hebrew word yarah lies in the heart of the word usually translated “law” in Psalm 119, towrah.  Towrah itself can be translated by “law, direction, teaching, principles.” These nouns cloak the dynamic nature of God’s interaction with human beings by means of the active Holy Spirit of Jesus in the world. Yarah includes the ideas of throwing, casting, pouring, raining; this active verb takes us directly to Jesus’s teachings about to sowing seed, to rain falling, to casting pearls, and immediately we understand that God is always teaching all humans, always pouring truth over us, always sowing the seeds of God’s life in us, always casting a net to bring us human fish into the boat.  Once we hear this through our awareness of the life and teaching of Jesus, we can read this aspect of Psalm 119 with the joy and gratitude and love expressed by the psalmist toward the law, the towrah, the continuous teaching of God.

The verses from Psalm 119 can be reorganized to reveal the following themes.

Wholeheartedly following the instructions of God brings happiness, peace, and a clear sense the next step to take.

1: Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the LORD!

165: Great peace have those who love your law, and nothing causes them to stumble.

Jesus taught us to recognize “the undefiled in the way” by describing those who are blessed: Blessed are the poor in spirit, beggar souls; Blessed are those who mourn, lamenters; Blessed are the meek, gentle trusters; Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, cravers of wholeness, integrity, justice; Blessed are the merciful, gracious helpers of the needy and wretched; Blessed are the pure in heart, those who are purified, made whole, pruned in soul, desire, intelligence, will; Blessed are the peacemakers, lovers and nurturers of peace, harmony, tranquility (Matthew 5).

Jesus taught us to “seek first, crave the kingdom of God, the God who is just as God ought to be, the rightness of God, and God will take care of your daily needs” (Matt. 6:33).

The psalmist wants God’s help to see and understand these instructions, and then pays attention and mulls them over.

18: Open my eyes that I may see wondrous things from your law.

34: Give me understanding and I shall keep your law; indeed, I shall observe it with my whole heart.

44: So shall I keep your law continually, forever and ever.

55: I remember your name in the night, O LORD, and I keep your law.

97: Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day.

Jesus taught in parables to separate those who could see, those who could hear from those who couldn’t (Matt. 13:13, 16). He healed the blind, an acted parable of opening the understanding. He warned those who misinterpreted the nature and function of the law by focusing on details and missing the point.  He said that he came to complete the law, to fill it up with himself, to permeate it (Matt. 5:17). Jesus came to open our eyes; after the ascension, God sent the Spirit to give us understanding (John 14:26). We are the friends of Jesus as we live into and out of that understanding.

The opposites of hearing and understanding and obeying what God teaches are dishonesty, divided loyalty, greed, pride, dullness—all interior to the self.

29: Remove from me the way of lying, and grant me your law graciously.

163: I hate and abhor lying, but I love your law.

113: I hate the double-minded, but I love your law.

72: The law of your mouth is better to me than thousands of coins of gold and silver.

51: The proud have me in great derision, yet I do not turn aside from your law.

85: The proud have dug pits for me, which is not according to your law.

70: Their heart is as fat as grease, but I delight in your law.

I think of the disciples arguing over who was to be greatest, and then dissembling when Jesus asked them what they were talking about. I think of the rich young ruler who could not part with things in order to follow Jesus. I think of the farmer who sets out to plow and then looks back. I think of the people of Nazareth saying they knew who their father was.  I think of the scribes and lawyers trying to trap Jesus with tricky questions. I think of the “children” in the marketplace complaining about the asceticism of John the baptizer and the exuberance of Jesus.  The call in Psalm 119 and the call of Jesus are coherent: love the LORD your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength; love your neighbor as yourself. These comprise the essence of the law and the prophets.  Seek with your whole heart; sell all you have to buy the field; take up the yoke, the cross, and follow.  Come with me and I will make you fishers of humanity.

People who disregard God’s teaching frustrate the psalmist; they threaten and entangle the psalmist, who asks God to intervene.

150: They draw near who follow after wickedness; they are far from your law.

61: The cords of the wicked have bound me, but I have not forgotten your law.

109: My life is continually in my hand [I am continually in danger], yet I do not forget your law.

53: Indignation has taken hold of me because of the wicked, who forsake your law.

136: Rivers of water run down from my eyes, because men do not keep your law.

126: It is time for you to act, O LORD, for they have regarded your law as void.

It is easy to remember the frustration and anger of Jesus against those who saw without seeing, who knew without knowing—the experts in the law who evaded the central teachings of the law.  They treated their parents stingily but tithed strictly; they treated the poor as law-breakers but gave them no help so they could be obedient; they turned converts into hypocrites; they took pride in obeying the purity laws but ignored the truths found in the relationships between God and human beings. Jesus could not abide the duplicity of those who were publicly religious and privately selfish. He wept over them and then went to work cleansing the temple of commercial interests.

The psalmist finds life, delight, justice, and truth in God’s instructions, and as a result trusts God for mercy, deliverance, and salvation.

153: Consider my affliction and deliver me, for I do not forget your law.

174: I long for your salvation, O LORD, and your law is my delight.

92: Unless your law had been my delight, I would then have perished in my affliction.

77: Let your tender mercies come to me that I may live; for your law is my delight.

142: Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness and your law is truth.

Jesus said that it was like a meal to him to do what God commanded and bring to completion the will of God (John 4:32). God sent him and he spoke the words of God (John 3:34). Jesus said that he spoke and acted as God told him to (John 14:10). Jesus prayed, “If it is possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will but as you will” (Matt. 26:39). The record of Jesus’s life gives us the great gift of seeing how to be human in relationship with God.  We hang on God’s every word every day, and we welcome the everyday experience of God’s continuous teaching. 

I Have Stuck unto Thy Testimonies

I grew up with testimony times in church. We opened up time, usually on Sunday evenings, for people to testify, to share their experiences with God. I remember in particular two old men who frequently testified in tandem. One told about his experience of two separate works of grace, salvation and sanctification; then the other told of his experience of both salvation and sanctification at the same moment. This created for me as a teenager a glimmer of understanding that God worked in individual lives in individual ways. I also came to understand that testifying means sharing publicly the truth one has experienced or witnessed.

This makes it interesting to think about the testimonies of God. God witnesses everything, and what God says about it is true.  Also, these testimonies are public. That’s the essential aspect of testimony—the public repetition of what is true. Two words from Psalm 119 that are translated as “testimonies” are the words ’edah and ’eduwth; both come from ’ed, which comes from ’uwd. In Psalm 119, ’edah and ’eduwth are most often translated in the KJV as “testimonies”; ’edah is translated a few times as “witness”; ’eduwth is translated once as “testimony.”

Here they are in the unvarnished King James Psalm 119:

’edah

2: Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with the whole heart.

22: Remove from me reproach and contempt; for I have kept thy testimonies.

24: Thy testimonies also are my delight and my counselors.

46: I will speak of thy testimonies also before kings, and will not be ashamed.

59: I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto thy testimonies

79: Let those that fear thee turn unto me, and those that have known thy testimonies.

95: The wicked have waited for me to destroy me: but I will consider thy testimonies.

119: Thou puttest away all the wicked of the earth like dross: therefore I love thy testimonies.

125: I am thy servant; give me understanding, that I may know thy testimonies.

138: Thy testimonies that thou hast commanded are righteous and very faithful.

146: I cried unto thee; save me, and I shall keep thy testimonies.

152: Concerning thy testimonies, I have known of old that thou hast founded them for ever.

167: My soul hath kept thy testimonies; and I love them exceedingly.

168: I have kept thy precepts and thy testimonies: for all my ways are before thee.

’eduwth

7: I have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies, as much as in all riches.

31: I have stuck unto thy testimonies: O LORD, put me not to shame.

36: Incline my heart unto thy testimonies, and not to covetousness.

88: Quicken me after thy lovingkindness; so shall I keep the testimony of thy mouth.

99: I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation.

111: Thy testimonies have I taken as a heritage for ever: for they are the rejoicing of my heart.

129: Thy testimonies are wonderful: therefore doth my soul keep them.

144: The righteousness of thy testimonies is everlasting: give me understanding, and I shall live.

157: Many are my persecutors and mine enemies; yet do I not decline from thy testimonies.

True confession: I don’t read Hebrew or Greek, so I rely on concordances like Strong’s or Young’s to help me get inside important words. One of the ways I like to explore words is to see how they are used in other contexts.

The root words make it clear that “testimonies” are public events.  In the very heart of the Hebrew words are the ideas of repetition, restoration, relief, and solemn admonishment. A public symbol of commitment to a course of action, a true statement of what one has personally witnessed (an eyewitness), the physical evidence of a shared experience, these are shared with a group and help center that group of people in their shared history and their future commitments.

In the Old Testament, the root word ’uwd shows up importantly in Deuteronomy 30, where Moses gives a final word from God to the people of Israel.  He admonishes them to be faithful and obedient to the Lord their God, and warns them that if they wander and disobey, they will scatter as captives to the nations around. The Lord promises that when they are scattered and lost, and they remember the testimony of God and return to God and obey wholeheartedly, they will be freed and brought home.  The Lord promises to change their hearts to love God wholeheartedly, which is the way to live fully. The Lord tells them that God’s commandment is very near them, even in their mouths and hearts, so that they can do what God says to do.  In verses 19-20, the choice is made plain: life or death, blessing or cursing, and they are admonished to choose life, to love, obey, and stick tightly to the Lord. “I call heaven and earth to record this day”—heaven and earth as witnesses, as testifiers to what God is saying to the people.  This word from God embeds itself in our universe, is cosmically accurate.

No wonder the testimonies of God fill the writer of Psalm 119 with delight, wonder, and joy. Choosing to love, obey, and stick tightly to God opens up just that kind of life. Jesus echoes both Deuteronomy and Psalm 119 when he says, “I come so that they might have life and so that they might have life over and above what they need, superior, extraordinary, surpassing, uncommon life” (John 10:10).  Jesus reinforces that loving God is the way into this life when he cites Deuteronomy to answer the question, “what is the greatest commandment”: to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind (Deut. 6:5, Matt. 22:7, Mark 12:30, Luke 10:27). The life of Jesus testifies that love is obedience to what God says.

Yet just as the two old men testifying about their experience raised the possibility that God moves people in many ways, just having the testimonies is not enough. The psalmist asks repeatedly for understanding; this word contains the ideas of discernment, intelligence, perceptiveness.  The request itself reveals that the psalmist needs God’s help in order to make good use of God’s testimonies.  The stone tablets of the Ten Commandments are a visual image of God’s testimonies.  In Exodus, these are the witness of God’s presence with and interest in the Hebrew people, and they are kept with honor in the ark of the covenant. It is probably too obvious to point out, but keeping the tablets in a place of honor while not obeying God in day to day actions is a travesty, yet this happened in history and happens today. 

As Paul wrote, the law is a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ so that by our faith in Jesus, we can be what Jesus means us to be (Gal. 3:24). Paul also wrote that because he knew the law, he knew himself to be a law-breaker; the law against coveting taught him to lust (Romans 7:7). His inability to obey testified to him of his need for a present savior and teacher, Jesus, to lead him in the law of the spirit of life (Romans 8:1,2).  “If any of you lack wisdom (understanding, skill in interpretation, intelligence, discernment), ask God for it; God gives openly and simply, without scolding, and God will give you wisdom” (James 1:5, my paraphrase).  “The Spirit of truth will come and guide you into all truth, telling you what God wants you to know and do” (John 16:13, my paraphrase).  Jesus lived in that Spirit, saying, “I do nothing myself, but I speak and do only what my Father has taught me.”

“I have stuck unto thy testimonies,” writes the psalmist. Paying attention to them, asking questions about them, allowing them to measure our lives are ways we stick to God’s testimonies. And when we get understanding, we need to obey.

When we love God and place every bit of ourselves we know about at God’s disposal, when we ask for guidance and then do what we hear from God, when we believe that God is true, and when we cling tightly to God, God promises us abundant, extraordinary, uncommon life, a life free from shame and condemnation and full of the companionship of the Lord, the One who is.  Since the testimony of love is obedience, we can ask God what the next good thing is to do, and then go do it. And we are then the city on the hill which people see doing good, causing them to glorify God.

“Thy Word Is a Lamp and a Light”—the Word in Psalm 119

Two of the most memorized verses in the Bible (at least for someone of my era) are Psalm 119:11, “Thy word have I hid in mine heart that I might not sin against thee,” and Psalm 119: 105, “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path” (KJV). When I learned this in 5^th grade, I had no way of knowing that the Hebrew behind “word” was so full of the immediate presence of God in the lives of God’s children.  Instead, I understood it to be referring directly (and only) to the Bible, the written Word of God.

So in order to improve on my childish understanding, I recently took a look at the ways it is possible legitimately to translate dabar and ’imrah, both translated (for the most part) by word or words. Buried in dabar are the ideas of speaking, setting in order, promising, declaring, warning, conversing and singing.  Buried in ’imrah are the ideas of saying, uttering, speaking, answering, thinking, and promising. The verbs behind the nouns communicate a relationship of conversing with God and of being conversed with by God. How wonderful to find in these words the same thing we see in the many stories of people talking with God in the Old Testament and the intimate ongoing conversation between Jesus and our Father in the New Testament. From the Garden of Eden until today, God has been showing up to talk with us, and we can without shame turn and talk with God because Jesus has shown us the way and made it clear we are welcome.

Here is a distillation of what Psalm 119 says about the “word,” and what it is like when God speaks to us.

When God speaks to the child,

the next step is clear;

When God speaks to the easily led, the naïve, the open-minded,

they gain discernment, understanding.

The sick at heart, sitting in dust and ashes,

grief-stricken, wasting away;

the afflicted and humbled, the persecuted—

these long for, wait for, and hope for God to speak.

God leans toward them, is present with them, and speaks.

When God speaks, they are restored to life and health,

they are protected, defended, delivered, rescued,

comforted, consoled. God does justly by them.

Those who love it when God speaks,

who are awed by God’s speaking,

who pay attention to and obey what God says:

they live within God’s limits with pleasure and playfulness,

take pleasure in other servants of God,

hear God’s speaking as pleasant,

rejoice when they hear God speaking.

They respond to God’s speaking,

they make their requests in God’s presence,

they trust God to champion their cause,

they meditate on God’s speaking until it comes to life in them.

They experience God’s bounty, speak God’s truth,

treasure God’s speaking with their whole selves,

receive God’s mercy.

They avoid causing harm,

are not dominated by trouble and wickedness,

they keep to the clear path, they stay whole,

they trust God to be just.

Hearing the Psalm this way strikes me like a memory.  I have heard this before somewhere.  And then I recognize these words are echoed in several things Jesus said, beginning with the Beatitudes (Matthew 5).

Blessed are the poor in spirit, beggar souls.

They rule in God’s kingdom.

Blessed are those who mourn, lamenters.

They will be called to be by God’s side, comforted, taught, consoled.

Blessed are the meek, gentle trusters.

They will own the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, cravers of wholeness, integrity, God’s approval.

They will be satisfied.

Blessed are the merciful, gracious helpers of the needy and wretched.

They will receive gracious help.

Blessed are the pure in heart, those who are purified, made whole, pruned in soul, desire, intelligence, will.

They will see and be seen by God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, lovers and nurturers of peace, harmony, tranquility.

They will be named “God’s children.”

Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, those who run for their lives, who face hostility, who are abused because they are who God made them to be, because they are just, because they live in wholeness.

They rule in God’s kingdom.

Psalm 119’s teaching on the “word” easily fits with Jesus’s teaching on who is blessed, who is happy. Each passage helps us read and understand the other. I come to see both as describing a daily conversation between God and human beings, a conversation in which what God says breathes life and health into us and thus helps us be our real and best selves. 

Your Judgments: Justice and Mercy in Psalm 119

The word judgment has negative connotations in today’s conversation.  To say of a group that “they are so judgmental” is essentially to say they are unapproachable and unattractive because they judge others to be less than themselves. But if you substitute some of the other possible ways to translate the Hebrew word mishpat, you might say that “they are so just” or “they respond so appropriately, so rightly.”  It’s clear that the idea behind mishpat is one we are actually attracted to—the ideas of justice, equity, even-handedness, fairness. It comforts us to be able to say with the psalmist,  “Righteous are You, O LORD, and upright are Your judgments” (Psalm 119:137). This can be paraphrased to show the emphasis and insistence of the psalmist: “Just are you, O LORD, and just is your justice.” The word “upright” places in mind an absolute vertical line between heaven and earth.  This stands and stands firmly. We need this to be so.

We notice particularly when we are treated unjustly. “How many are the days of Your servant? When will You execute judgment on those who persecute me?” (Ps. 119:84).  “I have done judgment and righteousness: do not leave me to my oppressors” (Ps. 119:121).  We all feel it keenly when someone harasses us, hems us in, dogs us, exploits us, violates us. Like this psalmist, we appropriately take these acts of enmity against us to God. “Vengeance is Mine, and recompense” (Deut. 32:35) and “Say to those who are fearful-hearted, ‘Be strong, do not fear! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, With the recompense of God; He will come and save you’” (Isaiah 35:4).

I confess that this is often where I have to start when I feel wronged. I start by praying for justice: “The Lord watch between us while we are estranged, while we are enemies.” Keep an eye on that person, God, and bring your justice to sort things out between us. After a time of praying this way, I often find that God shows me how I too have been unfair, have done wrong in the relationship. God does indeed sort things out fairly.  And in the word “recompense” (shillem) is not just the idea of “paying someone back,” as we so often want to do or want God to do, but the idea of removing the injury, making peace, making good, making whole (shalam). 

This hidden peace-making is emphasized overtly in Jesus’s words, “But I say to you, love your haters, wish good to those who wish you harm, act honorably to those who detest you, and pray for those who insult, abuse, and threaten you and drive you away, that you may be children of your Father in heaven, who makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:44-45). After I have prayed for justice for awhile, I come to recognize that I actually want my innocence vindicated, more than I wish harm to the other person. The words of Jesus help prevent me from escalating the conflict.  Paul gives very similar advice: “Repay no one evil for evil, injury for injury. Wherever people look, let them see you care for the honorable, the excellent, the good, the honest. If you are strong, make and keep peace with all. … Do not be conquered by evil, by what is wrong, but conquer evil with good, with what is right” (Romans 12:17-21).

“My soul breaks with longing for Your judgments at all times” (Ps. 119:20), writes this psalmist. “My entire being breaks into pieces, is crushed with longing for Your justice now and always.”  And yet, to be fair, it is not always comforting to realize God is just.  The psalmist wrote, “My flesh trembles for fear of You; and I am afraid of Your judgments” (Ps. 119:120).  “My body shivers, my hair stands on end from terror and dread; I respect and fear your justice.”  I remember learning from Rebecca Manley Pippert (Out of the Salt Shaker…) about “the myth of innocence” we carry as regards ourselves. The unbelieving shrug, palms up, of the athlete who has just been whistled for a foul is a tiny example of our inability to see clearly how we have done harm or how we have omitted doing good. It is a heavy burden to continually have to protect our image and prove our innocence; if we can lay it down and let God sort things out, we will find freedom in God’s justice.

As we pray for justice, we will soon learn to add these prayers as well: “Look upon me, and be merciful to me, as Your judgment is toward those who love Your name…Hear my voice according to Your lovingkindness: O LORD, revive me according to Your judgment…Great are Your tender mercies, O LORD: revive me according to Your judgments (Ps. 119:132, 149, 156).  “I love you, God, the One who is; be merciful, be gracious, be just to me. Hear me because you are good, kind, and faithful; sustain my life with your justice. You cherish me, you love me tenderly; your justice keeps me alive.” 

George MacDonald said that God’s mercy and God’s justice are two ways we see the same attribute of God.  He said that God will make every excuse for us that can be made, and that God will also treat us as responsible where we are responsible.  God is glad to see the muddy child run into God’s arms, and God will lovingly and tenderly scoop the child up, disregarding the dirt, and equally lovingly and tenderly wash the child clean.

As we pray for God’s justice, as we pray for God’s mercy, as we do what Jesus tells us and what Paul reinforces, we will become more just and more merciful.  People will not see us as judgmental, but as fair and kind.  “Make my whole self fully alive and whole, and I will flash forth light; your justice surrounds and helps me” (Ps. 119:175).  “Let your light shine out where others can see your good, beautiful, honorable, excellent works and celebrate the shining splendor and majesty of your Father who surrounds you and encompasses the universe” (Matthew 5:16).  

Walk this Way

I learned the first sixteen verses of Psalm 119 when I was a fifth-grader, but I’ve never really liked this psalm.  I was a missionary kid in boarding school. My life was full of rules already, so this psalm, with its continual emphasis on love for the law, statutes, precepts, commandments, didn’t comfort me at all. As the commentary in The Jewish Study Bible points out, in this psalm, unlike most other psalms, the object of adoration and love seems often to be the law rather than God’s self. I think I was (and am) hungry for relationship, rather than rules.

However, I am never off the hook with God, and I recently felt compelled to spend some time exploring this psalm about the law. I like to look inside the words for movement and life and also think about what Jesus said that might relate to the emphasis of Psalm 119.

I noticed right away the recurrence the idea of “the way.” I turned to Blue Letter Bible on the internet to help me explore the Hebrew words. The two main words are derek and ’orach. They can mean ways, road, path, direction, journey, road. Metaphorically, they work like English to stand for how I live my life. I became more hopeful.  Perhaps this will be a psalm of movement, of journeying, rather than the static law-abiding psalm I had always thought it. (The following is the New King James Version, except where I made it gender inclusive and substituted God for He.)

1 Blessed are the undefiled in the way

3 They walk in God’s ways

5 Oh, that my ways were directed to keep Your statutes

9 How can a child, a young man or woman, cleanse his or her way?

14 I have rejoiced in the way of Your testimonies

15 I will contemplate Your ways

26 I have declared my ways, and You answered me

29 Remove from me the way of lying

30 I have chosen the way of truth

32 I will run the course of Your commandments

33 Teach me, O LORD, the way of your statutes

37 Revive me in Your way

59 I thought about my ways

101 I have restrained my feet from every evil way

104 Therefore I hate every false way

128 I hate every false way

168 For all my ways are before you

If you substitute journey or road for way/ways above, the psalm reveals itself to be speaking about the movement, the direction of our lives. There are several roads:  God’s, mine, evil, falseness. God has ways, as do I. I journey toward God or toward evil and falseness. I can talk with God about my journey, asking God for instruction, for signposts, asking God to make me good and true, to help me do good and tell the truth, thinking again and again about how God is directing my journey.  This helps me, because suddenly I see the practicality of this psalm.

We can see in Isaiah the prophet another witness to the movement inherent in the word way. “Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, "This is the way, walk in it," Whenever you turn to the right hand Or whenever you turn to the left (Isaiah 30:21). This promise that God’s Holy Spirit will help us take the next steps fits in perfectly with the dynamic nature of our journey. 

Jesus refers to both the law and the ways of living or perishing that are always in front of us.  He says, "Therefore, whatever you want others to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets. Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it.  Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matthew 7:12-14). I have often heard this used to warn young people away from popular culture, or to justify an exclusive vision of Christianity.  However, the immediate context suggests a different application. Anyone who thinks that the Golden Rule is easy to do and “not enough” to qualify for the way which leads to life hasn’t tried it very often, especially on people one dislikes.

Similarly stringent are the words Jesus spoke about making things right:  “Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. Agree with your adversary quickly, while you are on the way together, lest your adversary deliver you to the judge, the judge hand you over to the officer, and you be thrown into prison. Assuredly, I say to you, you will by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny” (Matthew 5:23-26). I’ve quoted this before, but it bears repeating.  George MacDonald wrote in his sermon “The Last Farthing” (Unspoken Sermons):  “I think I do know what is meant by 'agree on the way,' and 'the uttermost farthing.' The parable is an appeal to the common sense of those that hear it, in regard to every affair of righteousness. Arrange what claim lies against you; compulsion waits behind it. Do at once what you must do one day. As there is no escape from payment, escape at least the prison that will enforce it. Do not drive Justice to extremities. Duty is imperative; it must be done. It is useless to think to escape the eternal law of things; yield of yourself, nor compel God to compel you.”

Again, anyone who thinks it easy to reconcile with a brother or sister or friend turned opponent has not tried it. It takes humility and graciousness, the willingness to share blame, and the willingness to give and accept forgiveness, the willing to change one’s mind with regard to those who oppose us.  These are hard disciplines. Yet Jesus says that our journey will include reconciliation, so do it now rather than later.

And finally, the best of all, Jesus himself is our way, our truth, our life.  "Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know. … I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know and have seen the Father" (John 14:1-7). Jesus absolutely and accurately represents our Father, the ideal Father no human can be and no human has had except for God. Getting to know Jesus is the way to God, the journey toward God, the truth about God, the true God, the vitality to move toward God, and the fullness of life within God. Through paying attention to Jesus as depicted in the Gospels and as our teacher present with us now through the Holy Spirit, we know our destination and how to move toward it.

To read Jesus back into Psalm 119 helps us see that the journey toward God is made possible by listening to what God says and obeying and by staying open and honest with God. Jesus tells us, “Walk this way.”