“TODAY IF YE WILL HEAR HIS VOICE”: THE ROLE OF PSALM 95 IN MATTINS, II

The Temptation on the Mount by Duccio di Buoninsegna. Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

Part II

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article is the second half of a two-part series You can read the first part of this post here.

The Venite serves as an entry into daily Mattins because by singing or saying it together (or hearing a choir sing it on their behalf) the dearly beloved people of God are called to praise “the strength of their salvation,” to kneel in prayer for their own needs and those of others, and to hear the word of God. This action of hearing is the heart of the office — the bulk of the time spent in the office is devoted to the scripture readings. Unfortunately, the 1789 American BCP replaced the last four verses of the psalm, which contains this third invitation. What the Venite has to say about hearing is not insignificant.

We tend to think of communication as simply a matter of decoding language. The activity of the subject hearing the words is often disregarded. In pre-modern thought, communication is understood in more active terms. A word spoken does not simply mean something, it does something for particular hearers. Scripture reflects this emphasis: “the word… is living and active” (Hebrews 4:12, immediately following the discussion of Psalm 95:8-11). Jesus, likewise, draws attention to hearing subjects: “Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand” (Matthew 13:13). This focus runs straight through all of the scriptures: “To whom shall I speak, and give warning, that they may hear? Behold, their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot hearken” (Jeremiah 6:10). The vivid metaphor of circumcision indicates humility and reverence are necessary for profitable hearing. So too, the Venite exhorts God’s people to hear in a certain way: “harden not your hearts.” This is not unlike Leviticus 26:41-42:

[I]f then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity: Then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land.

Thus, Mattins begins with confession of sin to situate participants properly before God before they “hear his voice” in the lessons. The declaration of absolution, recognizing that we cannot circumcise our own hearts, asks the “merciful Lord” to grant “true repentance, amendment of life, and the grace and consolation of his Holy Spirit” (BCP 1979, p. 42). The longer absolution of the older editions makes this clearer,

[L]et us beseech him to grant us true repentance, and his Holy Spirit, that those things may please him, which we do at this present; and that the rest of our life hereafter may be pure, and holy.

Those thus situated are then bid, in Psalm 95, to “sing unto the Lord,” to “full down and kneel before the Lord” and to “hear his voice” with unhardened hearts.  A narrative follows, a reminder of Israel’s forty years in the wilderness. Freed from Egyptian bondage, they passed through the Red Sea on dry ground; after they saw Jehovah Sabaoth triumph over Pharaoh’s hosts they fed on manna from heaven. Yet time and again, they doubted God’s provision, longing for Egypt: “We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely,” they complained, “the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick: But now our soul is dried away: there is nothing at all, beside this manna, before our eyes” (Numbers 11:5-6).

The relevance of this narrative, as White maintains, is not limited to the Jews, nor does it tell us something unique about their character. This narrative reflects the nature of all the sons of Adam and daughters of Eve. One of the sentences with which the daily office begins says, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (p. 38; 1 John 1:8). We still need to hear of the day of temptation in the wilderness; as Paul says, “whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Romans 15:4). The Venite is not intended to discourage us; on the contrary, it is to give us hope, to soften our hearts, that we may hear what the Lord says to us today. With this narrative fresh on our minds, we then read the other psalms appointed for the day, listen to the lessons read, and respond in joyful song. The lessons culminate in the Benedictus,

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, *
for he hath visited and redeemed his people;
… To perform the mercy promised to our forefathers, *
and to remember his holy covenant. (BCP 1979, pp. 50-51)

The elements of the morning office form a carefully crafted sequence.

I have heard it argued that the last four verses of the Venite are inappropriate for Christian worship because they prompt fear of judgement, but 1 John 4:18 says “There is no fear in love.” Perhaps this is what Bishop White had in mind. Surely talk of temptation and wrath do not belong in our worship because we have already been redeemed by Christ. This argument, however, runs quite contrary to what Paul wrote to “the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints” (1 Corinthians 1:2),

I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; And did all eat the same spiritual meat; And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ. But with many of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the wilderness. (1 Corinthians 10:1-5)

Does Paul lack confidence in Christ’s finished work? By no means! On the contrary, those who are in Christ who are properly situated to hear such warnings and to hear them effectively. For those who have been baptized, life is a daily baptism, as Luther said.

That chrysostom of nineteenth-century England, Charles Spurgeon, said the Venite, “has about it a ring like that of church bells, and like the bells it sounds both merrily and solemnly, at first ringing out a lively peal, and then dropping into a funeral knell as if tolling at the funeral of the generation which perished in the wilderness.” Why do we need to hear these bells today? Because (as another of the opening sentences puts it) “we have rebelled against him; neither have we obeyed the voice of the Lord our God, to walk in his laws which he set before us” (p. 38; Daniel 9:9-10). And so, today and each day, we need to hear the bells again, for they tell us God’s mercies are new every morning. Particularly now, during these forty days of fasting, to sing of the “forty years long” in which God was grieved by his people, whose faces constantly turned back towards slavery, as are ours. In his forty days in the wilderness, Christ was tempted by the world, the flesh, and the devil, but the Word of God prevailed. If today, in our temptations, we hear his voice and turn to him, we may rest in his victory.