The Daily: Friday November 24, 2023

Daily Lectionary Reading: Psalm 95:1-7a (NRSV, The Message); 1 Chronicles 17:1-15 (NRSV, The Message) Revelation 22:1-9 (NRSV, The Message)

Come, let us sing joyfully to God!
Raise a shout to our rock, our deliverance!
Let us come into God’s presence with thanksgiving,
and sing our praises with joy.
For YHWH is a great God,
the great Ruler, above all gods. Psalm 95:1-3
_{Priests for Equality. The Inclusive Bible, p 1300. Sheed & Ward. Kindle Edition.}

As we approach the Sunday designated as "Christ the King" in many Christian traditions, the lectionary turns to these royal images of the Divine. Reading this Psalm, I was reminded of a worship song we sang growing up in church, "O Come Let Us Sing." It was a beautiful song I loved to sing. 

Seeking a non-patriarchal, non-hierarchicial practice of our faith, many of us now consider the language of God as king problematic. God as the "king" we are rooting for to defeat all of the others (the above album is "Mighty Warrior!" Yikes!) is harmful.

However, God as an ordering principle for our lives, the recognition of something we can describe as an ordering principle for the cosmos is a helpful part of my understadning of my spiritual work and journey. How do we express that, how do we sing that, how do we worship that without the hierarchical language?