FOR THE DIRECTOR of music. Of David.
1In the LORD I take refuge.
How then can you say to me:
“Flee like a bird to your mountain.
2For look, the wicked bend their bows;
they set their arrows against the strings
to shoot from the shadows
at the upright in heart.
3When the foundations are being destroyed,
what can the righteous do?”
4The LORD is in his holy temple;
the LORD is on his heavenly throne.
He observes the sons of men;
his eyes examine them.
5The LORD examines the righteous,
but the wicked and those who love violence
his soul hates.
6On the wicked he will rain
fiery coals and burning sulfur;
a scorching wind will be their lot.
7For the LORD is righteous,
he loves justice;
upright men will see his face.
Original Meaning
THE PSALM IS an expression of confident trust in Yahweh in opposition to the pessimistic advice of those who think the present evil circumstances presage the imminent crumbling of the “foundations” of world order, so that the psalmist should flee to the hills in order to escape. The psalmist’s reply in this psalm takes the following form: (1) In verses 1–3, he establishes a contrast between confidence that “refuge” is available in Yahweh (11:1a–b) and the fearful counsel to flee offered by his contemporaries (11:1c–3); (2) verses 4–6 constitute a description of Yahweh as righteous judge, examining both the righteous and the wicked and measuring out appropriate judgment on each; (3) the psalm concludes (11:7) with the affirmation of Yahweh’s essential righteousness and love of justice, which provide the continuing basis of hope and a strong motivation for the “upright” to endure.
The Heading (11:0)
THE HEADING CONTAINS no new terms but is referred to “the director of music” and attributed to David.1 The latter reference reestablishes the consistent Davidic character of the first book following the minor interruption occasioned by the lack of a heading in Psalm 10.
Refuge or Flight (11:1)
HOW THEN CAN you say to me? The psalmist establishes the confident tone of the psalm by creating a studied contrast between the consuming fear generated by those who counsel flight and the psalmist, who takes refuge in Yahweh. We have encountered the theme of refuge in Yahweh before in Psalms 2 and 7; it will appear regularly throughout the rest of the psalms (see comments on 2:12). Here the psalmist’s confident reliance on the protective care of Yahweh in the face of trouble provides a calming center in the midst of the chaotic description that follows. As we will see later, his hope for refuge in Yahweh is related to the concluding observation that the “upright . . . will see his face” (11:7).
Flee like a bird. The fearful counsel the psalmist seeks to counter comes from those who expect the worst. It is unclear whether those who speak are themselves afraid or are sarcastically attempting to undermine the psalmist’s confidence. The use of the phrase “to my nepeš” (NIV “to me”) reflects an attempt to address and influence (here negatively) the deepest needs, desires, and hopes of an individual (see comments on 3:2). This supports the idea that the speakers are opponents rather than cosufferers of the psalmist; their purpose is not genuine concern for the psalmist’s well-being but sarcastically chipping away at the foundation of his confidence and hope.
The sentence structure in the Hebrew text is difficult, terse, and spare, employing neither the preposition or the comparative structure reflected in the NIV translation. Woodenly rendered the text says, “Flee [to] your mountain, bird!” with the opening imperative appearing in the consonantal text as a masculine plural (but read in the marginal notes and by the vowels inserted as a feminine singular); the pronominal suffix on mountain is masculine plural, and the noun “bird” is feminine singular. A number of textual emendations have been attempted to smooth out the roughness. Most separate the masculine plural pronominal suffix (Heb. -kem, “your”) from the phrase “your mountain” and understand these letters to be the freestanding preposition kemo (“like, as”). The resulting translation, “Flee [to the] mountain like a bird” is a modest and mostly reasonable emendation. It does, however, leave us with the problem that the imperative is either feminine singular (awkward unless the psalmist is a woman!) or masculine plural (in which case the quotation must be understood as taken from speech directed to the larger community rather than the psalmist in particular, as v. 1 seems to indicate: “to me”).
A last possibility remains. Rather than separating the pronominal suffix as a freestanding preposition, some understand the letters of this suffix as a confusion for an original masculine plural ending on “mountain” (hrym [“mountains”] rather than hrkm [“your mountain”]). In this case, one can read the feminine singular imperative as responding appropriately to the feminine singular noun ṣippor (“bird”) and render the phrase as a rather sarcastic remark directed to the singular psalmist: “Fly away to the mountains, [little] birdie!”
What Can the Righteous Do? (11:2–3)
SHOOT FROM THE shadows. The reason for the counsel to flee is elaborated in verses 2–3: The wicked are preparing an attack to destroy the upright. The metaphor employed is that of a sudden attack by an archer hidden in the dark. The “wicked” (plural) are viewed collectively as a unified assassin, bending a single bow, setting a single arrow to a single string, and releasing a destructive dart out of the darkness—a sudden, unanticipated attack. The real nature of the attack on the upright is left unstated, with the rest of the psalm implying only some miscarriage of justice that Yahweh is expected to examine and set right.
The upright in heart. As a designation for the faithful, “upright” (yašar, yešarim) occurs eighteen times in the psalms.2 Of these occurrences, seven3 add the additional qualifier we find in this verse: (lit.) “upright of heart [leb].” That the two phrases (“upright” and “upright of [in] heart”) are synonyms for the same group of faithful followers of Yahweh is evident by their use at the beginning and end of our psalm (11:2, 7) for the same group of supplicants.4 The term derives its meaning from the root idea of straightness—the opposite of crooked—that can be applied to straight, smooth roads or straight, direct persons. These people whose ways and hearts are “straight” are those attacked by the wicked but who will ultimately be justified by Yahweh.
When the foundations are being destroyed. The counsel to flee concludes with a pessimistic rhetorical question that all but admits defeat. The situation of uncontrolled violence on the righteous is so dismal that the pessimistic advisor understands the very foundations of society to have been laid in ruins. There is nothing left to rely on and no course of action left in the circumstances but to flee for one’s life. In a world and society run amok, where the dignity of life is casually ignored and raw power rules in the place of justice, righteousness, and equity, what can a righteous person hope to do? In the face of such overwhelming odds, the advice is: “everyone for himself or herself.” This is the ultimate reflection of self-interest and despair. “How little you are! How little (almost nothing) you can do! Take care of yourself first!”5
Yahweh the Examiner (11:4–6)
THE PANICKED DESIRE to flee in the context of the muddled and violent circumstance of the psalmist’s present is countered by the resolutely calm description in verse 4. Yahweh is “in his holy temple,” seated “on his heavenly throne.” This picture serves two purposes. (1) It shows Yahweh enthroned, in control, and unperturbed by the apparent chaos unleashed in human affairs. This is not to say God is unconcerned by injustice and violence; his concern is amply illustrated in the rest of the psalm. But he is not undermined or panicked by the disorder and destruction that dismay humans; instead, he remains unshaken and eternally in power. This provides the psalmist and reader with a growing sense of confidence to counter the pessimism of the advisors.
(2) The psalm pictures Yahweh as a divine judge and examiner. As in 9:7–8, he sits down as judge and establisher of justice. From his vantage point in the heavens he is able to examine the chaotic human events on the earth and render righteous judgments. Nothing escapes his gaze.
The dual description of Yahweh as “in his holy temple” and “on his heavenly throne” is significant. The former is an indication of God’s immanent presence among humans (most particularly the faithful), while the latter emphasizes the transcendent power and authority that separates him from the chaotic futility of human power. God is at once among his people, strengthening, empowering, and saving, and at the same time above all humans, ruling, examining, and rendering righteous judgment.
He observes . . . his eyes examine. Employing two less common verbs (ḥzh [“see”] and bḥn [“examine”]), both of which occur far more frequently in the prophetic books than elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible,6 the psalmist begins to shift the discussion away from the resolute presence of Yahweh in the face of human violence and its resultant chaos to a description of God’s righteous judgment exercised over both the upright and wicked. From his heavenly vantage point God “observes” human affairs—in much the same way as he did before the Flood in Genesis 6 or at the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11—and “examines” them.
The prophets use ḥzh to describe the visionary process by which some of them receive divine communication and understanding regarding the circumstance and future of Israel. Nominal forms of this same root describe prophetic “visions” and in some occasions the person who received them.7 Precisely how the prophetic aspect of this term might be operative in Psalm 11 is unclear, especially since it is God who “sees” or “observes” here. Perhaps the intent is to stress observation with perception or understanding as opposed to just seeing. How often do we see common items before some set of circumstances brings a sharper focus that adds a new and deeper understanding to our vision? When God sees humans, he perceives and understands what is going on and its deepest implications for life.
God’s clear understanding and perception is brought out even more clearly by the term bḥn. The term signifies testing and examination and is used on at least one occasion to describe the “proof” of precious metals by smelting (Zech. 13:9). There is a certain scrutiny intended here that brings to light the good and distinguishes it from the bad.
The LORD examines the righteous. The righteous do not escape this examination. The NIV translation somewhat obscures the balance intended in verse 5. A better rendering in my opinion is: “Yahweh examines (both) the righteous and the wicked.” His reaction to his examination of the wicked is immediately described in the second half of verse 5, while the fate of the righteous is delayed to the end of the psalm.
In response to the wicked the psalmist sets up an ironic tension through wordplay. Those (wicked) who “love violence” inspire hatred in the innermost defining being of Yahweh (“his soul” [nepeš]).8 While the attribution of hatred in God may raise uncomfortable questions for us as Christians who focus on the abundant and forgiving love of God poured out for all in Christ, we should not lose sight of two important considerations. (1) This very human insight about God reflects the very human nature of the psalms in their origin. These are the words of anguished human beings poured out honestly before God, so the selection of words and the attribution of negative human emotions to God begins in this human perspective. However, before we excise or consign to oblivion any description of God with which we feel uncomfortable (that is a pretty slippery way to define and understand God!), we need to acknowledge that these human words were transformed when they were recognized as the authoritative Word of God. Here the community of faith understood God to be speaking to them in ways that even the original authors of the psalms may not have understood or fully intended. We need, then, to be careful not to simply reject the uncomfortable but seek to understand it within the whole context of Scripture.
(2) There is a sense, is there not, that God does stand forever in an inimical relationship to those who “love violence”? Psalm 5:4 cautions us that Yahweh is “not a God who takes pleasure in evil; with you the wicked cannot dwell.” Because of his essentially holy nature, God has no love for those who align themselves with evil. In the contrast between the “upright” and the “wicked,” between those oppressed and those who love to oppress by violence, God is always on the side of the oppressed faithful and against the violent wicked. That is his nature; to expect differently would be to unweave the fabric of creation and to let in a chaos infinitely greater than that brought about by rebellious human violence. If in this contrast God loves the upright, what is left for the wicked but “unlove”? By this phrase, then, the psalmist affirms what we already know about God—he is adamantly and eternally opposed to those who use violence to oppress others and to further their own power and control.
Fiery coals and burning sulfur. Our analysis of the Hebrew verbs ḥzh (“see”) and bḥn (“examine”) led us to think of the Flood and the Tower of Babel narratives in Genesis. The destructive consequences poured out on the wicked as a result of this examination reminds us of another Genesis account: that of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 18–19), where God destroyed those wicked cities by raining down fire and sulfur on them.9 Here in Psalm 11:6 the violent wicked are expected to receive the same divine judgment as Sodom and Gomorrah—the epitome of perverted wickedness in the tradition of the Old Testament.
In addition to the obviously divine judgment suggested by the fire and sulfur raining down, the wicked will also experience the destruction of a “scorching wind” (11:6).10 This devastating wind—perhaps equivalent to the modern sirocco—withers crops and dries up fragile water sources necessary for both animal and human consumption. The judgment is one of discomfort, which threatens life and well-being; this is the appropriate “portion of their [the wicked’s] cup” (NIV “their lot”). Kraus refers this phrase to the contrasting “cup of salvation” and “cup of wrath” poured out by God on the righteous and wicked respectively.11 This seems a proper background for the context of Psalm 11:6. Yahweh pours into the cup of the wicked the wine of his wrath, which they are forced to drink to the dregs with all the attendant destructive consequences (cf. Ps. 116:13; Isa. 51:17, 22–23).12
Affirmation of Yahweh’s Righteousness (11:7)
OUR PSALM CONCLUDES by affirming Yahweh’s righteousness and his love of justice. These twin attributes are in the foreground to provide the basis of the psalmist’s confident hope in the face of the pessimistic undermining of the alternative voices in the psalm. Although the upright are under violent attack (11:2) and the foundations of society and order are crumbling away beyond the control of the righteous (11:3), the psalmist trusts in the established righteousness of Yahweh to examine all humans, whether righteous or wicked (11:4–5), and to deliver appropriate judgment to each (11:5–6). For this reason he can affirm Yahweh as “refuge” (11:1) in the midst of chaos and trust expectantly that the “upright . . . will see his face” (11:7b).
Bridging Contexts
Verse 3 poses the central reflective question of this psalm: “When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?” It is clear that in the psalmist’s mind there are only two responses to this question: Either one can flee to the mountains as the counselors suggest, or one can take refuge in Yahweh. Let’s take a look at how Israel as a nation, or individuals within Israel, responded to the shaking of their foundations in both ways.
Flee to the mountains. Perhaps we ought first to ask what it means to “flee to the mountains.” It is unlikely, given the metaphorical nature of this comment (in which the psalmist is asked to take on the role of a bird) that actual, physical flight was intended. It is possible to flee either inwardly or outwardly. I remember hearing a teenage girl who had been sexually abused over a number of years by an uncle describe how during each incident she floated out of her body and observed what went on almost dispassionately from a safe spot near the ceiling of the room. That is a classical description of disassociation—an emotional withdrawal from experiences too painful to bear—when one simply departs within oneself to a place that is more bearable, more safe. I wept when I heard this girl’s story. I wept not only because of the destructive consequences of the horrific abuse she had suffered in her young life, but also because I myself had fled inwardly to escape fear and pain I had been unwilling to face.
If, then, we are not just thinking of physical flight, what are some examples of how Israel fled when her foundations were threatened? To go to the very beginning, Adam and Eve fled into denial, accusation, and recrimination. Because of their disobedience, the foundational relationships of the creation were twisted and broken. Relationship to God, relationship between humans themselves, and relationship between humans and the other creatures were perverted into self-seeking attempts to manipulate and control others for personal benefit. When confronted by the reality of their sin, Adam and Eve sought to cover up with a bunch of fig leaves and hid themselves from God in the shrubbery. Then when face to face with God, they tried to deflect attention and responsibility from themselves by pointing fingers at one another and even at God.
King Saul saw the foundations of his hope for a dynasty passed on to his son Jonathan crumbling under the weight of the people’s preference for David as well as Jonathan’s selfless love for David. Saul’s fear that David would take the throne and bring his dreams to an end led him to anger, to violence, and ultimately to depression and madness. Unwilling to submit to the clear will of Yahweh, Saul sought violently to take matters into his own hands and to snuff out the life of his supposed opponent.
Called by Yahweh to prophesy against Nineveh, Jonah fled twice; first he ran physically on a ship from Joppa as far from God and Nineveh as the Mediterranean Sea would take him. At the end of his ministry, he fled again into bitter resignation on the hillside overlooking Nineveh—hoping for their destruction but expecting divine mercy and deliverance. After all, God ought to bless those who loved him and curse those who hated him. To forgive those who denied his very existence and who refused any obedience to him was to turn the foundational faith of Israel on its ear—to threaten to destroy any special relation that might exist between Israel and her God. “I knew it!” Jonah cried, “I knew you would forgive those undeserving pagans, and I wanted no part in it. I wanted them to get what they had coming: defeat, destruction, embarrassment, and pain. So, go ahead, save them if you must, but don’t expect me to participate in any celebration.” I suspect that Jonah would have received Jesus’ command to “go and make disciples of all nations” with little joy and even less obedience.
Toward the end of the monarchical period, faced by the overwhelming military and political power of first Assyria and then Babylon, Judah fled into a false piety and a twisted interpretation of their covenant relationship with Yahweh to escape the threatened destruction of their foundational hopes and dreams. They were the “people of Yahweh,” after all, chosen by him from all the families of the earth for special relationship. Hadn’t he promised that the descendants of David would always rule over the kingdom? Didn’t the temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem guarantee his continued presence with them? Didn’t the daily sacrifices and other rituals fulfill their covenantal obligation to God? It was easy to believe that God would not allow his people to fall prey to the vicious pagan nations that surrounded her. With all her faults, wasn’t Judah far better than those idol-worshiping foreigners? Surely Yahweh would not permit the ridicule of defeat to undermine his glory and honor.
As these examples illustrate, Israel knew well how to flee when her foundational hopes, traditions, dreams, and expectations began to be destroyed. Hiding behind denial and blame, seeking by anger and violence to undermine the opposition, dwelling in bitter resignation, and relying on a twisted and self-serving piety to manipulate God to their own ends, these individuals (and others like them) could flee from the threats to their personal foundations without ever taking a single physical step toward those distant mountains. Nevertheless, there are others in Scripture who provide a contrasting example of those who, when confronted by destructive threats, chose to take refuge in Yahweh. Let’s look briefly at a few of these.
I take refuge. Just as fleeing need not be physical, so taking refuge may be metaphorical. It is possible to take refuge in God without entering a physical place of safety. I remember once being taught to use meditative visualization as a means of coping with stress. I was instructed to close my eyes and visualize a particular place from my past where I had felt safe and secure. My “safe place” was a childhood hiding place about ten feet up in a tree shrouded from view in a twisted mass of honeysuckle vines in which I had hollowed out a space where I could sit and look out over an adjoining field. My abiding impression was of peace and security, swathed in the shifting green shadows and filtering sunlight, and in season the sweet, fresh smell of honeysuckle blossoms filled the air. I learned that whenever stress mounted, I could mentally “go to my safe place” and experience a renewed sense of peace and relaxation without ever having to leave the place I was.
When God called Abraham and told him to sacrifice his “only son,” Isaac, the secure foundations of his hard-won faith in Yahweh threatened to crumble. This was the child of promise, the means by which God had promised to give Abraham descendants and through whom blessing was to come to the whole world. Abraham could have fled physically or metaphorically in one of the ways I described above, but he did not. Instead, he packed up his donkey, took his beloved son with him, and walked straight into the refuge God provided on his way to Mount Moriah, where the sacrifice was to take place.
We know this because of the thematic repetition that characterizes the Genesis passage. In response to Isaac’s innocent, yet telling, query to his father, asking where the sacrifice was that would go with the wood and the fire, Abraham replied, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering” (Gen. 22:8). After God did provide a ram, we are reminded twice at the conclusion of the narrative that “Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide. And to this day it is said, ‘On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided’ ” (22:14). Clearly Abraham’s earlier reassurance of Isaac was no clever deceit, nor simply the wishful thinking of a desperate father. It was the result of Abraham’s having come confidently into the refuge God provides and having found the assurance there that indeed Yahweh does provide, even when the foundations are being destroyed.
Like Saul above, King David faced the threat of having his kingdom snatched from him by a powerful rebel. The problem for David was that the armed enemy at the gates of Jerusalem seeking his life was his own beloved son Absalom. In the rush to flee the city before the forces of Absalom could trap him there and overwhelm him, David was approached by the priests bearing the ark of the covenant—the visible sign of God’s invisible presence—to take it with them as an indication of Yahweh’s support of the fleeing king against his rebellious son. Surely David was tempted to exploit this most important and holy religious object and its potent symbolism in his own behalf. Certainly God had promised to be with David, so why not make that presence visible by bringing the ark along?
But David’s response is instructive—a clear indication that at this moment of high crisis and personal threat, he had already entered the presence of Yahweh for refuge. David said, “Take the ark of God back into the city. If I find favor in the LORD’s eyes, he will bring me back and let me see it and his dwelling place again. But if he says, ‘I am not pleased with you,’ then I am ready; let him do to me whatever seems good to him” (2 Sam. 15:25–26). David surrendered to God’s will and found refuge there.
In the New Testament Gospels, we find a similar example in Jesus. After some three years of public ministry, one day near Caesarea Philippi he took stock of how the multitudes in general and his closer disciples in particular understood his message and purpose. The matched questions, “Who do people say I am?” and “Who do you say I am?” (Mark 8:27, 29), brought a devastatingly disappointing response. The people as a whole had little understanding, at best associating Jesus with John the Baptist, or Elijah, or one of the ancient prophets. The disciples were almost equally clueless, although Peter did offer the inspired insight that Jesus was the expected Messiah. But even this understanding was far from complete, since he and the rest of the disciples anticipated a conquering, kingly Messiah, complete with defeat of the enemies of the Jews and an earthly kingdom with places of authority for each of the Twelve.
Jesus, however, understood that his role was to suffer and die a criminal’s death—ridiculed, forsaken, and misunderstood. Certainly he was tempted by Satan in the desert to forsake suffering and use spectacular means to satisfy the people and usher in the kingdom. Yet the Gospels tell us that from that day on, Jesus resolutely set his face toward Jerusalem, teaching his disciples along the way that the Son of Man must suffer and die there. Jesus was able to continue this journey to Jerusalem without fleeing because he had already entered the refuge of God, from which he could accept the role of suffering service to others.
These three scriptural examples stand in contrast to the four earlier examples of those who fled when the foundations were being destroyed. These last three did not flee; rather, they entered the refuge that God provides in the midst of threat and destruction. By acknowledging the steady provision of God in a most horrific situation, by surrendering to God’s will rather than exploiting the most holy religious rituals and traditions, or by assuming the role of suffering servant for others, these last three came into the presence of God and knew true refuge.
Contemporary Significance
I TRUST YOU are already beginning to see how the links discussed above bridge their way into contemporary life and especially your own life. Often it seems today that we feel threatened (like the psalmist several millennia ago) in personal and communal ways with the apparent collapse of the foundations on which our lives have been built. We hear many voices around us declaring that the sky is falling or the world as we know it is heading for imminent demise, and we are counseled to flee for our lives.
The approach of the third millennium A.D. provided a recent example in this regard. We were warned continuously about the “Y2K millennium bug” that would create computer mayhem as older computer programs, designed to recognize years using only the final two digits, would be unable to distinguish the years 2000 and following from 1900 through 1999. As a result of this confusion, it was warned, major national and international computer systems could fail and important life-support systems (banks, government, utilities) would collapse. Although major efforts were expended to correct the bug, many claimed that there was little chance that all systems would be repaired before the turn of the century, and major governmental systems were admitted to be far behind the necessary schedule for completion.
Some predicted dire consequences—even a total collapse of metropolitan systems of order and a return to a self-sufficiency agrarian economy. A neighbor of mine, who is a computer programming consultant, said he would take a “cautious” approach by stockpiling a two- to four-week supply of cash, food, and other necessities and have them on hand when December 1999 rolled around.
Now that the millennium has arrived and all the dire predictions have proven largely unfounded, all this concern and furor seems far-fetched or even a little embarrassing to most of us; but every new century has seen its share of apocalyptic doomsayers who predicted the collapse of all order and the end of the world. Christians are particularly susceptible to this disaster mode of thinking. The prevailing sense that Christians are “in the world but not of the world,” that we must exercise care not to have our morals and values shaped by the twisted values of the world, that our world is hurtling toward a cataclysmic end that will usher in the true “kingdom of God”—combined with a particular interpretation of eschatological and apocalyptic passages in Daniel, the prophets, and Revelation—have left many Christians anticipating the final conflict of God and good with Satan and evil. Thus, Christians remain susceptible to persuasive or even dramatic disaster thinking that predicts the imminent end of the world.
But apocalyptic eschatology is only one—although perhaps the most all-consuming—scenario in which contemporary Christians are confronted with the threat of the destruction of the familiar, orderly foundations of life. Other less cataclysmic circumstances produce a similar sense of threat of chaos. Let me mention a few of these situations and then return to consider how we can respond either by fleeing or by finding refuge in God.
The loss of personal identity. A friend operates a purebred cattle ranch in California. Most of his life has been focused on establishing and maintaining this lifelong dream. He and his family have made numerous sacrifices to make this dream possible. And they have had a fair amount of success, having developed a good reputation and a loyal following for their breed of cattle and their particular genetic strain.
But the last few years have begun to take their toll. Poor beef markets led to poor sales prices for their animals and less capital to develop and sustain their operation. My friend, who is now in his fifties and has two daughters of college age—neither of whom has evidenced interest in taking over the family operation—is faced with the reality of declining financial and physical resources to get the daily hard labor of ranching done. He is having to consider carefully and painfully whether it is time to lay down this dream.
My friend’s circumstance mirrors on a personal scale the situation in the world of American agriculture at large. Long-term family farming operations are disappearing, brought down by hard markets, uneven competition with large conglomerate operations, and the loss of children to the cities and more lucrative and stable work. A way of life characteristic of the heartland of America and generations of farming families is passing away. How does one respond to the loss of such a foundational vision that gives identity to one’s life? One does not just do farming or ranching, one is a farmer or rancher—usually living on the ranch or farm twenty-four hours a day. To now take on another line of work is to give up the old self and adopt a new identity—always a threatening process.
And it is not just farmers and ranchers who are being faced with such drastic identity changes today. With the advent of “downsizing” of the work force in many companies and “outsourcing” of production to other companies and countries, along with a shift to employing more temporary workers, many of our contemporaries have lost jobs that have provided a large source of their identity.
The threat of pluralism. Another change threatening our way of life is the increasing ethnic, cultural, and religious pluralism prevalent in our society—especially in the urban environment. We once could say “one nation, under God,” think of the nation primarily as European, English-speaking (white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant), and understand God in Judeo-Christian terms. Now, however, we need to face the fact that within fifty years people of color will be in the majority in our nation; already the Christian God bumps shoulders constantly in society and shares equal protection under law with the gods of the other nations and peoples.
That is a radical change in our culture and a threatening one—especially to the majority culture, who sees their influence not so slowly slipping away, to be replaced by a polyglot of competing cultural identities that are at best uncomfortable and often even hostile. And this change is not just an American phenomenon—it is mirrored in cities and nations around the world, where urbanization and globalization are producing rapid shifts to pluralism and the conflicts it ultimately brings.
The societal assault on Christian values. One last example of a threat to the foundations that is particularly unsettling to Christians is related to the example just cited. Because our nation was founded by a primarily Eurocentric culture, the early traditions, values, and principles reflected in society were largely influenced by Christian thought and practice. With the gradual increase in pluralism through the intervening centuries, rapidly increasing in our own time, cultural and value conflicts are also increasing. The response of society at large has been one of toleration on the one hand and individualism on the other. Note the typical response: “What’s good for you is fine for you, and what’s good for me is fine for me. You believe what you want, and I’ll believe what I want.” In other words, a common set of values and principles that governs society is no longer possible.
The situation has been magnified by the decidedly postmodern worldview that has made great inroads into cultural thinking today—particularly among the young. The postmodernist rejects the existence of absolute truth that can and should serve as the foundation of life in all cultures. They share an equal suspicion regarding rational, logical argumentation as a way of understanding truth because they have seen such argumentation manipulated to justify so many competing claims and viewpoints. The postmodernist rejects a common set of values and principles governing all humans and accepts rather that values are a personal matter shared by a larger community as the basis of communal existence—without having any absolute character.
Since there are no absolutes stemming from divine expectation in this system, values are simply what works for an individual, and societal norms are only the set of values that a group has agreed upon. As a result, almost anything goes—except criticism of someone else’s values or beliefs. Tolerance is the only absolute in the postmodern arsenal, and the only attitude not to be tolerated is intolerance. The only exception to this general rule is directed toward the Christian faith, which in postmodern thinking is bound up with the domination of the majority culture and is guilty of the supreme intolerance. As such, the claims of Christianity must be undermined and rejected in order to establish the aura of tolerance that postmodernism requires.13
A result of this postmodern worldview over the last forty years, coupled with the increasing plurality in society and increased globalization of our awareness brought about by technological advances in media, has been a rapid breakdown in societal norms that reflected compatibility with the Christian worldview. With the exaltation of the individual self we have seen the breakdown of self-limitation or sacrificial service for the benefit of others; materialism and acquisition overwhelm spirituality, and immediate gratification is mirrored with our national race into credit card debt. Many other Christian principles, such as purity, chastity, stewardship, and care for the world, have suffered major attacks and setbacks as well.
How then does the church (or an individual Christian, for that matter) respond to a rapidly changing societal context in which primary Christian values are being attacked and rejected and in which Christians themselves are being subtly (and not so subtly) drawn into a web of assimilation and change that is contrary to their most cherished beliefs and values? We will return to consider that question below.
Fleeing or taking refuge. The three examples given above are intended as illustrations of major, enduring life changes that threaten to undermine the foundations on which our lives and identities are grounded. This list is not intended to be exhaustive—nor is it my intention to suggest that only events of such magnitude can have the effect of shaking our personal foundations. I do think, however, that a threat of this magnitude—systemic societal evil or disruption—is what the psalmist is talking about in Psalm 11. Considering how we respond to such threats, whether greater or smaller in magnitude, can be instructive.
According to this psalm, in such foundation-shaking circumstances we have two basic choices: Either we can flee to the hills, or we can take refuge in God. Let’s see how these alternatives play themselves out in our own culture and context.
Survivalism. Our society often responds to foundational threat by some form of fleeing. Survivalists, for example, fearing increased governmental intrusion and the possibility of world collapse, sometimes flee physically into remote areas, where they can become a law unto themselves. They respond to what they see as governmental oppression by resisting taxes, setting up provisional governments, and in some instances even carrying out terrorist activities against the establishment.14 Their withdrawal from mainline society is fear-based and demonstrates a desire to exercise self-determination and control.
Racial supremacy. Racial supremacy groups respond to a different set of stimuli. Anger and fear over a long history of racial prejudice and oppression of African Americans in this country and elsewhere led in the 1960s and 1970s to the creation of black pride/power groups, such as the Black Muslims and Black Panthers. Both groups were militaristic, promising to resist white oppression with force. On the other side of the racial barrier, white supremacy groups as old as the Ku Klux Klan and as new as the Aryan Brotherhood have responded to increasing racial plurality and the impending loss of white majority control with racial separation, denigration, and hostility. Violent language often breaks out into real violence against those who are not a part of the “white” race. Anger, hatred, and hostility characterize the most extreme forms of these movements, marking a withdrawal from society as a whole, a rejection of compromise and reconciliation, and the establishment of an exclusive, self-concerned community, erecting walls and barriers to protect those within.
Millennialism. As the year 2000 approached, we saw an increase of groups pronouncing doom and gloom and encouraging others to flee with them into some form of millennialism. Christianity has seen its own share of millennialist movements through the years. The Millerites, for example, put on white robes and congregated on hilltops anticipating the coming of Christ and the end of the age in 1844. Seventh-Day Adventism had its early origins in such anticipation of the “advent” of the Millennium. More recently the book Eighty-Eight Reasons the Lord Will Return in 198815 stirred millennial imaginations before being passed over by current events.
But Christians are not the only groups affected by millennial fervor. The tragic experience of the Heaven’s Gate cult demonstrated the willingness of persons to flee their dissatisfaction with this present world into some other more perfect alternative existence or age. For the members of this group, that flight was accomplished by mass suicide in hopes of being translated to a spaceship hidden behind a passing comet. The spaceship would then transport the faithful to a new life removed from the oppressions and frustrations experienced here and now. All these groups, Christian and non-Christian alike, share an exclusive self-focus, a dissatisfaction with the present life, and a desire to flee to a better world.
Cultural isolation. Another form of flight is to create barriers of isolation around a community in order to preserve its distinctives from the onslaught of cultural pressure from the outside and to provide a united front for mutual protection against what is viewed as a hostile environment. Clear and extreme examples of such isolation in our society might be the Amish communities of Pennsylvania (and elsewhere) and the Hasidic Jewish communities throughout the world. These groups continue to live a separate life within larger society. Their distinctives of dress and custom are protected by limited contact with outsiders and a strong sense of community loyalty and group identity. In some rare instances (such as the ultraorthodox Jewish communities in Israel), such groups may seek to impose their distinctive values on the larger society, but most often they are content to “live and let live,” trading isolated self-determination for any influence on the world around them.
Cultural assimilation. But another way for the church and Christian individuals to flee the experience of conflict and oppression by a society that neither shares nor appreciates Christian values has been cultural assimilation. This approach rejects both the violent, angry resistance and rejection associated with supremacist withdrawal and the more passive withdrawal into isolated purity characteristic of the Amish communities. It refuses escape through millennial flight to another world. In this response, Christians give up those distinctives that separate them from society and thereby remove the cause of conflict and rejection. They accommodate themselves to the values and mores of society at large in materialism, sexuality, divorce, treatment of the poor, and so on. The lives of such Christians have ceased to be distinctive—to challenge the life of the non-Christian society around them. Such a life of cultural assimilation is safe and may be convenient and prosperous, but it is flight nevertheless.
All these (and others as well) are ways Christians are tempted to flee from the foundation-threatening pressures of life. Such avenues as we have discussed offer avenues of escape at the expense of Christian distinctives or the loss of Christian influence and testimony to the world we have been called to challenge with the word and love of God in Christ. Yet we are called by this psalm—and by Christ—to a “better way,” the way of discovering refuge in God at the very moment that the foundations are being destroyed.
Finding refuge in God. Finding refuge in God obviously does not mean escape. It does not mean avoiding persecution or suffering. Jesus certainly found refuge in his Father, but he still experienced rejection by his enemies, abandonment by his disciples, and the cruel suffering and even death on the cross. I wonder how many other countless faithful followers have experienced this refuge throughout the ages? Stephen certainly did when he spoke God’s truth to a hostile crowd who ultimately stoned him to death. Paul was able to accept his imprisonment on false charges in Rome as an opportunity to witness to the household guard of Caesar.
Corrie Ten Boom, faced by the madness that was Nazi Germany’s mass murder of six million Jews, was able not to flee into self-preserving silence and passivity but took an active hand at hiding Jews, even though it ultimately meant imprisonment and the loss of much of her family in the concentration camps. In the same context, Dietrich Bonhoeffer also felt compelled to act against the madness by participating in a plot to assassinate Hitler. Imprisoned and ultimately executed for his part in that plot, Bonhoeffer’s prison writings are ample testimony to the deep refuge he had found in God through Christ.
Thus, whatever else it means, taking refuge in God does not mean escape or avoidance of pain and suffering. Part of the reason for this is that fleeing is self-focused and self-concerned. We flee when we are concerned about protecting ourselves. By contrast, the kind of refuge that God offers calls us to give ourselves away: “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it” (Luke 9:24).16 Taking refuge in God is other-focused. Those who enter that refuge hold on to God by letting go of self and thinking instead of others. That is why Christ chose to go forward from Gethsemane to the cross and death. That is why Stephen spoke the truth in the face of an angry mob. That is why Corrie Ten Boom and Dietrich Bonhoeffer were not dissuaded by the threat of imprisonment and death from acting in crazy circumstances not out of personal interest but for the good of others.
Such an understanding of taking refuge calls into question any response to crumbling foundations that is based on self-interest and avoidance of personal pain and suffering. In moments of personal or communal crisis—such as the approach of a new millennium or terrorist attacks on national icons—we need to be ready to speak a word of truth, comfort, and hope to a chaotic setting of doom and gloom, rather than withdrawing into our self-serving fantasies of a better world for the faithful.
We need to be actively seeking to alleviate the pain of those around us rather than escape ourselves. Rather than fearing the inroads that racial and cultural plurality are making into our own personal power and well-being, we should be involved in promoting racial reconciliation, celebrating ethnic diversity (and learning from it!), and working for equity, justice, and equal opportunity for those of any race and culture. The call to take refuge is not a call to hunker down and remain inactive until the danger passes. It is a call to realize that in Christ we have been given life so abundant and so eternal that we need not fear to give it all away.