{"id":1888,"date":"2021-09-13T12:02:20","date_gmt":"2021-09-13T16:02:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sunergoi.com\/?p=1888"},"modified":"2021-10-05T15:15:16","modified_gmt":"2021-10-05T19:15:16","slug":"songs-of-ascents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sunergoi.com\/?p=1888","title":{"rendered":"Songs of Ascents"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I am in the middle of a short sermon series on the Songs of Ascents (Pss 120-134) at Grace Presbyterian Church in Vienna, VA. Here is a link to the first sermon last week<\/a> on Psalm 120.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was also involved in a project about these psalms<\/a> at the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship and funded by Eli Lilly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From that work:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the whole, the songs deal with folksy issues like family, work, travel, and social standing.  Their form is short and their rhythm is heavily standardized which suggests a liturgy of low register, pithy enough to be memorized and recited during travel.  Still, perhaps the most explicit explanation of the songs\u2019 function can be found in Psalm 122:<\/p>

Our feet have been standing<\/p>

within your gates, O Jerusalem!<\/p>

 Jerusalem–built as a city<\/p>

that is bound firmly together,<\/p>

 to which the tribes go up,<\/p>

the tribes of the LORD, as was decreed for Israel,<\/p>

to give thanks to the name of the LORD.<\/p>

(Psa 122:2-4)<\/p>

The first person plural of v. 2 is carried throughout the song, substantivized in v. 8 as \u201cmy brothers and companions.\u201d  Here the image is of a pilgrim cohort approaching and now entering the city of Jerusalem for the purpose of worship.  Their duty to \u201cgo up\u201d is not peculiar, but rather a fulfillment of their own tribal identity.  To be a tribe of Israel is to be a pilgrim bound for worship.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I will post the rest of the series on this page as they are posted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Update: Here are the links to the sermons as they come out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Psalm 120 “Worship in a Strange Land” <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Psalm 121 “Where is Our Help”<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Psalm 124 “But for the Lord”<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I am in the middle of a short sermon series on the Songs of Ascents (Pss 120-134) at Grace Presbyterian Church in Vienna, \n [...]<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1889,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,241,17,26,52,53,215],"tags":[114,125,240,168,239,238],"class_list":["post-1888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ancient-near-east","category-biblical-poetry","category-covenant-theology","category-exile","category-old-testament","category-old-testament-theology","category-wholeness","tag-gospel","tag-old-testament","tag-pilgrimage","tag-psalms","tag-psalms-of-ascents","tag-songs-of-ascents"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.sunergoi.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/qtq80-1gRvFM.jpeg?fit=2160%2C1440&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5ESBE-us","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sunergoi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sunergoi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sunergoi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sunergoi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sunergoi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1888"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.sunergoi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1897,"href":"https:\/\/www.sunergoi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1888\/revisions\/1897"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sunergoi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sunergoi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sunergoi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sunergoi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}