February 13, 2025
| This week a message from our bishop Diana Akiyama: Dear Friends in Christ, Recently the phrase “Please, Lord, don’t fail me now” popped into my head. I couldn’t place where I’d heard it first, so I looked it up. Those words are from Psalm 25 in The Living Bible (TLB), a paraphrase of the American Standard Version of the Bible by American author and publisher Kenneth Taylor. Some of us remember the popularity of The Living Bible in the 70s. Evangelicals embraced it because it was easy to understand and made the Bible accessible and less opaque. Psalm 25:2-4 is paraphrased as such in The Living Bible: 2 Don’t fail me, Lord, for I am trusting you. Don’t let my enemies succeed. Don’t give them victory over me. 3 None of those who have faith in God will ever be disgraced for trusting him. But all who harm the innocent shall be defeated. 4 Show me the path where I should go, O Lord; point out the right road for me to walk. The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) translation of Psalm 25: 1-4 reads: 2 O my God, in you I trust, do not let me be put to shame; do not let my enemies exult over me. 3 Do not let those who wait for you be put to shame; let them be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous. 4 Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths. These verses from Psalm 25 drew me into reflection on this prayerful request to God and how differently we might grasp their meaning and intent depending on the interpretation. If you compare these two versions of the verses, you will notice the omission of the word “shame” in the verses from The Living Bible. This was obviously not significant to Mr. Taylor, whose personal paraphrases comprise TLB. But the word “shame” is significant to many translators of the Bible. One reason an understanding of shame as a cultural dynamic is key to these verses is the way in which it assumes relationship and connection. The absence of shame in TLB version gives the reader a very in/out or good/bad frame by which God’s presence is understood. God is with the winners and the losers are assuredly not favored by God. The NRSV translation offers a much more complex and, yes, opaque way of understanding God’s presence. The relational dynamic of shame, however disquieting and unfavorable, implies that while we may find ourselves at fault for our neighbor’s suffering, God has not abandoned us. With God, there is always a path out of the treachery that we have wrought. Having grown up in family and culture in which shame was a powerful dynamic, I don’t intend to soften the manner in which humans can turn a form of behavioral correction into cruel othering. Yet, I do think it is possible to imagine the Psalmist’s use of shame as an expressed desire that the cruel and unjust are made to feel the desolation wrought by ignoring God’s call to compassion and mercy. Shame in this context is a temporary state; one can return from it by confession, reconciliation and forgiveness. It can be likened to a kind of spiritual hunger. God has created us to respond to the hunger by returning to Christ in whom no one is a stranger, nor an outcast, nor covered in shame. If we could choose a verse from this Psalm to pop randomly into our thoughts, let it be verse 4 of Psalm 25. May its wisdom guide us in these days: Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths. Blessings, |
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Give us, O Lord, a steadfast heart, which no unworthy thought can drag downwards; an unconquered heart, which no tribulation can wear out; an upright heart, which no unworthy purpose can tempt aside. Bestow on us, O Lord our God, understanding to know thee, diligence to seek thee, wisdom to find thee, and a faithfulness that may finally embrace thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.