Where Does History Begin?

I’m currently reading a political potboiler/thriller by Richard North Patterson called Exile. My brother gave it to me because he knew that during one Christmas holiday season I had hosted a Palestinian student in my home and that I had, prior to 9-11, been a staunch supporter of the need for a Palestinian state. He thought I would enjoy this thriller where two Palestinian suicide bombers assassinate the Israeli prime minister and a liberal Jewish defense attorney ends up defending a member of the conspiracy. He was right. I am enjoying it, but I’m also blown away by a recurring question.

At one point in the book, the question is asked, “Where does history begin?” The question keeps getting asked again and again in different ways throughout the novel. And it’s a valid question with regard to the Palestinian conflict, as well as for each and every one of us. For example, check out this portion of the prime minister’s speech. Albeit fiction, I still took it as profound:          

“There are some Jews who are so consumed by the tragedies of three thousand years that they cannot see the sufferings of Palestinians. There are some Palestinians that are so blinded by the suffering of sixty years ago that they cannot acknowledge the suffering of Jews. Today, Palestinians call the day of Israel’s founding the ‘day of catastrophe,’ marking it with the moment of silence with which we, on our Day of Remembrance,  recall the victims of the Holocaust.”
(pp. 98-99)

Now, you’re probably wondering what that has to do with the Psalms. Well, Psalm 105 and 106 (yesterday’s and today’s readings in our project) are designed to answer that question, “Where does history begin?” It is not the same as the question, “Where does existence begin?” That question would require consideration of creation on a cosmic scale and ontology on the personal scale. Rather, history begins where we start to plant our stakes (or build our monuments) and determine that this event is worth remembering and that event has/had a significance beyond the event itself. History begins where we define it as beginning and that definition sets the tone for how we’ll live our lives.

Psalm 105 drives that stake beginning with the patriarchs. The theme of the psalm is the promise of the land and the taking of the land in spite of the Egyptian bondage and wilderness wandering. Since the psalm ends with another reference to taking possession of the fruit of the people’s labor and learning to live as God intended (“keep His statutes and observe His laws” (v. 45 English), it sounds like the psalmist might be considering the fruit of her or his own life and comparing it, probably disfavorably, with the patriarchal icons: Abraham (vv. 6-15 Eng), a brief mention of Isaac (v. 9 E), Joseph (vv. 16-24 E), a brief mention of Jacob/Israel (v. 23 E), and Moses (vv. 25-43 E). At the same time that the psalmist is reminding hearers/readers to bear fruit and live according to God’s commands, the psalmist has to be considering the fruit in his or her life. It doesn’t sound like an irrelevant consideration for our own lives to consider what kind of fruit we might bear with God’s help and what “land,” what promises we have appropriated by following God’s guidance.

Psalm 106, though, is the flip-side of Psalm 105. The theme of this psalm is rebellion. It goes back to Moses and the people in Egypt and acknowledges that the people didn’t appreciate God’s miracles to bring them out of bondage (v. 7 Eng), that they were rebellious in the desert (v. 14 Eng), that God had to open up the earth to swallow Dothan and Abiram (v. 17 Eng / see Numbers 16), that the people had made a false idol with the golden calf at Sinai/Horeb (v. 19 Eng / see Exodus 34), that they had refused to enter the land of promise (v. 24 Eng / see Numbers 14), that they worshiped false gods in an orgy at Baal-Peor (v. 28 Eng / see Numbers 25), that their whining at Meribah forced Moses in a position where he ended up sinning (v. 32 Eng / see Numbers 20), and that they failed to conquer all of the people they were supposed to conquer in taking the land of promise (v. 34 Eng / see Judges 1-3 for this pattern).

The good news about Psalm 106 is that it recognizes God’s punishment in exiling the people from the land, but it also recognizes God’s grace (vv. 44-48 Eng) and the possibility of forgiveness, reconciliation, and meaningful service. So, while Psalm 106 could be perceived as something of a “downer,” it ends up being a tremendous message of hope and a challenge to start our history with God’s forgiveness.

There are a lot of people who don’t have a good answer to the question with which we started this devotional. “Where does history begin?” In the novel, I was horrified to read the truth in the following statement: “For Hana [a Palestinian character], the date was the flight of her family in 1948—as with Carole [a Jewish character], she was marked by events she had never witnessed.” (p. 62). Yet, I know lots of people who have their history begin with an excuse about genetics. They claim that God made them this way or that they have a defective gene. I know people who have their history begin with a traumatic or dysfunctional childhood. When I visited Ireland, I met people who could never forget the “troubles.” When the Palestinian was a guest in my house, I realized he could never forget the atrocities committed in that conflict. When I lived in the South, I realized that there are still groups who refuse to admit that bringing the South back into the Union was a good idea. And I still run into people almost daily who are living in their personal past.

But the great promise of these two Psalms is that history can begin with God’s action! We can mark history from God’s intervention. And even when we fail (as Israel recounted in Psalm 106), we can look to God’s grace for reconciliation and a restart. “Where does history begin?” Instead of beginning in atrocity and tragedy, we are graced with the realization that history begins with God’s entrance into our lives.