I was struck by the opening of this morning's psalm. "To you I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens! As the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the LORD our God, until he has mercy upon us." I think these words grabbed me because of something I read yesterday in Barbara Brown Taylor's book, An Altar in the World. She told of meeting someone at a mosque where she takes her college religion class for a field trip of sorts. This woman shared how difficult it had been for her to adopt the prayer practice of bowing to the floor five times each day. She had struggled to "stand up for herself," and assuming this subservient pose seemed like regressing in some way.
We Presbyterians don't do much bowing, but I wonder if we wouldn't do well to try the practice, if for nothing more than to wrestle with the same issues as this Muslim woman. It might help us to put some flesh on the words of the psalm, to come before God as a servant approaches a master.
I think that much of the time I approach faith from a different viewpoint. God has something I may want and I'm looking to get it. I'm not really interested in a master, someone who tells me what to do. Trouble is, that makes if very difficult to respond when Jesus says, "Take up your cross and follow me."
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