23 May 2022

Praying with the Psalms in Easter:
23 May 2022 (Psalm 89)

‘I will sing of your steadfast love, O Lord, for ever; with my mouth I will proclaim your faithfulness to all generations’ (Psalm 89: 1) … street art near Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Before this day begins, I am taking some time this morning to continue my reflections in this season of Easter, including my morning reflections drawing on the Psalms.

In my blog, I am reflecting each morning in this Prayer Diary in these ways:

1, Short reflections on a psalm or psalms;

2, reading the psalm or psalms;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

Psalm 89:

Psalm 89 is found in Book III in the Book of Psalms, which includes Psalms 73 to 89. In the slightly different numbering scheme in the Greek Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate, this is psalm is numbered as Psalm 88.

Psalm 89 is the last in a group of psalms at the end of Book III within the 150 psalms, from Psalm 84 to Psalm 89. These psalms attempt to provide hope to the exilic Israelite community. But, despite their celebration of the historic traditions of the Jewish people, they remind the reader that these elements no longer provide the hope they once did.

Four psalms of this group – Psalms 84, 85, 87 and 88 – are attributed to the Korahites, who are described as the doorkeepers of the tabernacle in the Book of Chronicles.

Psalm 89 recalls how God spoke to David.

The superscription of the psalm states that it was written by Ethan the Ezrahite, who, along with Heman the Ezrahite (to whom Psalm 88 is attributed), was a wise man from the time of, or before, King Solomon.

We are told that Solomon ‘was wiser than anyone else, wiser than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, Calcol, and Darda, children of Mahol; his fame spread throughout all the surrounding nations’ (I Kings 4: 31).

In II Samuel 7: 12-17, God promises King David that there will always be a king of the Jews. Some scholars claim that this psalm was written after the people were deported to Babylon. However, this claim is inconsistent with the dating of Ethan to the time of Solomon. Perhaps, instead, it was written on behalf of the king – either David or Solomon – during a time of trouble. The author expresses his belief that the promises outlined in 2 Samuel 7: 12-17 will be fulfilled

This psalm begins with words of praise for God’s goodness and covenant faithfulness. For the first 37 verses, the psalm recounts the promises made to King David and the covenant established by God with him.

Verse 19 recalls how God spoke to David through his words with the Prophet Nathan.

Verses 20-37 recall how God anointed David as his regent, and God will be constant in his love for him. Through God, David will be victorious, he will rule from the sea to the river (verse 25), from the Mediterranean to Mesopotamia.

David will acknowledge God as Father, and God will adopt him as his firstborn. David will be closer to God than any other king, no matter what he and his descendants do. David’s line will continue forever, as the moon endures in the heavens (verse 37).

From verse 38 to 51, the psalmist laments what seems to him like God’s lack of remembrance of his covenant promises.

The closing verse (verse 52) proclaims: ‘Blessed be the Lord forevermore! Amen and Amen.’ This closing verse is the benediction or doxology by which Book III of the Psalter is brought to a close. It may not be part of the original text of Psalm 89, but it is entirely in harmony with the spirit of it.

‘Let the heavens praise your wonders, O Lord … For who in the skies can be compared to the Lord?’ (Psalm 89: 5-6) … the night skies at Wolverton Mill, over the banks of the River Ouse (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Psalm 89 (NRSVA):

A Maskil of Ethan the Ezrahite.

1 I will sing of your steadfast love, O Lord, for ever;
with my mouth I will proclaim your faithfulness to all generations.
2 I declare that your steadfast love is established for ever;
your faithfulness is as firm as the heavens.

3 You said, ‘I have made a covenant with my chosen one,
I have sworn to my servant David:
4 “I will establish your descendants for ever,
and build your throne for all generations”.’
Selah

5 Let the heavens praise your wonders, O Lord,
your faithfulness in the assembly of the holy ones.
6 For who in the skies can be compared to the Lord?
Who among the heavenly beings is like the Lord,
7 a God feared in the council of the holy ones,
great and awesome above all that are around him?
8 O Lord God of hosts,
who is as mighty as you, O Lord?
Your faithfulness surrounds you.
9 You rule the raging of the sea;
when its waves rise, you still them.
10 You crushed Rahab like a carcass;
you scattered your enemies with your mighty arm.
11 The heavens are yours, the earth also is yours;
the world and all that is in it—you have founded them.
12 The north and the south—you created them;
Tabor and Hermon joyously praise your name.
13 You have a mighty arm;
strong is your hand, high your right hand.
14 Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne;
steadfast love and faithfulness go before you.
15 Happy are the people who know the festal shout,
who walk, O Lord, in the light of your countenance;
16 they exult in your name all day long,
and extol your righteousness.
17 For you are the glory of their strength;
by your favour our horn is exalted.
18 For our shield belongs to the Lord,
our king to the Holy One of Israel.

19 Then you spoke in a vision to your faithful one, and said:
‘I have set the crown on one who is mighty,
I have exalted one chosen from the people.
20 I have found my servant David;
with my holy oil I have anointed him;
21 my hand shall always remain with him;
my arm also shall strengthen him.
22 The enemy shall not outwit him,
the wicked shall not humble him.
23 I will crush his foes before him
and strike down those who hate him.
24 My faithfulness and steadfast love shall be with him;
and in my name his horn shall be exalted.
25 I will set his hand on the sea
and his right hand on the rivers.
26 He shall cry to me, “You are my Father,
my God, and the Rock of my salvation!”
27 I will make him the firstborn,
the highest of the kings of the earth.
28 For ever I will keep my steadfast love for him,
and my covenant with him will stand firm.
29 I will establish his line for ever,
and his throne as long as the heavens endure.
30 If his children forsake my law
and do not walk according to my ordinances,
31 if they violate my statutes
and do not keep my commandments,
32 then I will punish their transgression with the rod
and their iniquity with scourges;
33 but I will not remove from him my steadfast love,
or be false to my faithfulness.
34 I will not violate my covenant,
or alter the word that went forth from my lips.
35 Once and for all I have sworn by my holiness;
I will not lie to David.
36 His line shall continue for ever,
and his throne endure before me like the sun.
37 It shall be established for ever like the moon,
an enduring witness in the skies.’
Selah

38 But now you have spurned and rejected him;
you are full of wrath against your anointed.
39 You have renounced the covenant with your servant;
you have defiled his crown in the dust.
40 You have broken through all his walls;
you have laid his strongholds in ruins.
41 All who pass by plunder him;
he has become the scorn of his neighbours.
42 You have exalted the right hand of his foes;
you have made all his enemies rejoice.
43 Moreover, you have turned back the edge of his sword,
and you have not supported him in battle.
44 You have removed the sceptre from his hand,
and hurled his throne to the ground.
45 You have cut short the days of his youth;
you have covered him with shame.
Selah

46 How long, O Lord? Will you hide yourself for ever?
How long will your wrath burn like fire?
47 Remember how short my time is—
for what vanity you have created all mortals!
48 Who can live and never see death?
Who can escape the power of Sheol?
Selah

49 Lord, where is your steadfast love of old,
which by your faithfulness you swore to David?
50 Remember, O Lord, how your servant is taunted;
how I bear in my bosom the insults of the peoples,
51 with which your enemies taunt, O Lord,
with which they taunted the footsteps of your anointed.

52 Blessed be the Lord for ever. Amen and Amen.

Today’s Prayer:

The theme in this week’s prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) is ‘Mission in Australia.’ It was introduced yesterday by Peter Burke, Manager at Mission and Anglican Community Engagement AnglicareSA.

The USPG Prayer Diary this morning (23 May 2022) invites us to pray:

Let us pray for the Anglican Board of Mission, the national mission agency of the Anglican Church of Australia, as they work for love, hope and justice in Australia and abroad.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

Saint James’s, a Gothic
Revival church by GE
Street in New Bradwell

Saint James’s Church was built in New Bradwell in 1857-1860 to meet the needs of the railway workers (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

In recent days, two of us visited New Bradwell on the northern edges of Milton Keynes to see both Bradwell Mill and Saint James’s Church on Saint James’s Street. Unlike many of the villages surrounding Milton Keynes, New Bradwell is of relatively recent date, begun in 1852 to provide housing for workers at the railway works founded at nearby at Wolverton in 1838.

This church came into existence because of the coming of the railway. In 1838, the London and Birmingham Railway Co established works at Wolverton that built locomotives and carriages.

As production and population rose, New Bradwell was developed from 1852 and Saint James’s Church was built on the east side of Saint James’s Street in New Bradwell to meet the spiritual needs of the railway workers.

This is a Grade II* church built in 1857-1860 to designs by George Edmund Street (1824-1881), with a north aisle added in 1897 to Street’s design. It cost £4,430 of which £2,560 came from the LNWR shareholders.

Saint James’s Church is built of limestone rubble and ashlar, with limestone dressings, and has a timber, painted bell-turret. The roof slates are mostly laid with shaped slates in diagonal patterns. There are red crested ridge tiles on the chancel and the south aisle.

The church includes an aisled nave, lower chancel, north and south aisles, a south porch, a south chancel aisle, a north vestry and the base of the planned north-west tower. The chancel has a south chapel and a timber north vestry. The west bay of the north aisle forms the base of the north-west tower. This tower, which was never completed in ashlar, rises to a height of about 7 metres and is topped by a timber turret with a spire, intended to be temporary.

The exterior of the church is incomplete since the projected tower only rises some seven metres above the ground. It carries a temporary, painted wooden turret added in 1883. The semi-circular projection on the west face shows that Street intended a strong, muscular treatment, as applied to the rest of the building. Such qualities are to be seen in the west wall of the nave which has a powerfully designed three-light window with narrow cusped lights and a vigorous punched tracery in the head – a bold trefoil set within three tiny trefoil openings.

The clerestory is in a similar vein with circular quatrefoils immediately below the nave eaves. The south aisle windows are varied but continue to have strong detail.

The east window has five lights and three cusped circles in the head. The aisles are under lean-to roofs, whereas the south chancel aisle has its own gabled roof. The south porch is striking with a tall roof that sweeps down low, and compressed shafts carrying the outer moulded arch.

The arcades are of four bays on the south and three bays on the north, plus an arch into the tower base. Their piers are quatrefoil with fillets between the lobes, the arches are double-chamfered without a hood while the capitals have vigorous stiff-leaf decoration. To the clerestory windows there are marble shafts and further foliage capitals.

A further arcade, of two bays, is located between the chancel and its south aisle. Here the arches have large cusps which die into the responds and central pier. The latter in turn has a high base and a stubby paired marble shaft beneath a foliate capital.

The chancel arch has marble shafts to the responds. Over the nave is a tie-beam roof with a crown-post to a longitudinal runner. The aisles have lean-to roofs while the chancel has a keeled one. The walls of the church are of bare stone except for the chancel and its aisle which have been whitened. The flooring is modern composition stone.

The seating, which has been reduced in extent since the 19th century, has shaped ends, and the stalls have been cleared from the chancel. The pulpit is circular, as is often the case with Street, and has 13th century arcading round it.

Similarly the font, now relocated to the east end is circular with more 13th century arcading. There is a large organ in the south-east nave arcade arch.

The north aisle has exceptional glass by Gerald Moira, probably made by Lowndes and Drury: it has vibrant colouration and a style influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement and Expressionism. The East Window is by Christopher Webb (1950) and the west window is by Harry Stammers (1964).

The oldest feature of the church, however, is the reused Norman arch at the west end. When the roof of the abandoned Church of Saint Peter, Stantonbury, collapsed in 1952, and the 12th century chancel arch was removed to preserve it. It was installed in Saint James’s Church in 1963 as an interior surround to the 19th century west doorway.

This spectacular arch is a highlight of Romanesque Buckinghamshire. The Victoria County History (1927) describes it in situ at Stantonbury as ‘small chancel arch’ and ‘a beautiful and fairly well preserved example of Norman work of about 1150.’

The architectural historian Sir Niklaus Pevsner, writing in 1960, noted only that the Norman chancel arch had been removed from Stantonbury, but it had not been installed in New Bradwell at that date. The arch has been described as impressive.

The beakhead ornament and confronted lion capitals point to a distant connection with Reading Abbey. Locally beakhead and chevron are found in combination at Twyford on the south doorway which also has a capital with confronted fighting beasts.

This arch has two orders of shafts with lots of beading in the varied ornament: it has birds and beasts in the capitals. In the head is an outer order of chevron and an inner one of beakhead decoration.

To the south of Saint James’s Church, a school and church hall by Street form part of a complex with the church.

The architect George Edmund Street (1824-1881) was one of the greatest figures of 19th century architecture. Although born and educated in London, he was articled to the Winchester architect Owen Carter from 1841. He then spent time in the office of George Gilbert Scott from 1844 before commencing practice in Wantage in 1848.

Growing success led to a move to London in 1856 and a career which saw him become one of the leaders of the Gothic Revival. As at Saint James’s Church in New Bradwell, much of his work is characterised by a strong, muscular quality which was much admired from the 1850s and early 1860s.

His most ambitious work is the Royal Courts of Justice in London for which he gained the commission in 1868. He designed the nave of Bristol Cathedral, Saint Margaret’s Convent, East Grinstead, and the theological college at Cuddesdon. His other churches include All Saints’s Church and Saint Paul’s Within the Walls, the two Anglican churches in Rome, and the American Episcopal Church, the American Cathedral in Paris, completed posthumously by Arthur E Street in 1886.

Street’s works in Ireland include the restoration of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin (1871-1878), Saint Brigid’s Cathedral, Kildare (1871-1896), Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick (1876-1877), Saint Flannan’s Cathedral, Killaloe (1876), and Saint Canice’s Cathedral, Kilkenny (1877-1879); and Saint John’s Church, Ardamine, Co Wexford (1860-1862).

Street was the diocesan architect for Oxford, York Winchester and Ripon. He died on 18 December 1881. His fame and status is reflected in the fact that, like his former master, Scott, he is buried in Westminster Abbey.

GE Street’s tower was never completed and is topped by a timber turret with a spire, intended to be temporary (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)