Ps. 50.14-15 (summoning the Summoner)

“Sacrifice / to God / thanksgiving – and fulfill your vow / to the Most High – And summon me / on the day of distress – I will / deliver you / and you / will honor me.” At the end of the rhetorical question we now transition to this, the only positive statement made about sacrifice. Everything has, in fact, been leading up to this point. After the purgation of the previous verses, detailing what sacrifice is not so as to cleanse the participants of any illusion that what they are about to perform in any way originates from a prior hunger on God’s part, we are now afforded the positive vision. And what we find actually confirms all of our previous observations of the sacrifice being non-competitive (the animal is owned by both God and man), non-accrual (it does not add to God), not a moment of thievery on God’s part, and is not an act of needed service to God. The sacrifice is, rather, an act of ‘thanksgiving’  (the ‘fulfilling of your vow’ amounts to much the same as the vow would be made in light of God’s future deliverance). It is a recognition and, inherently, a liturgical act. Its reality, therefore, is rooted in, not the dynamic of need, but the dynamic of praise. Notice how these two verses operate: the first is in man’s movement to God (‘sacrifice to God’… ‘fulfill your vow’), the second is on God’s response to man (‘summon me’ … ‘I will deliver you’). The conclusion ends where it began, with man moving to God (‘and you will honor me’). This is the realm of covenantal obedience and concern. What we see is that the sacrifice itself is to be a part of this dynamic and, indeed, will manifest it by its very nature as thanksgiving (and not as ‘supplying’). Perhaps in the end this conclusion is necessary. If God already owns everything, than anything that is ‘given’ to him could only be handed over as thanksgiving, as a moment of praise and ‘honor’ to God. One final point to make: in the opening God was seen ‘summoning’ the whole world (vs. 1) and the heaven and the earth  (vs. 4). He was also seen as ‘gathering’ his people to himself. Here, the same word is used but now applied to Israel’s ‘summoning’ God. Within the context of covenantal thanksgiving and sacrifice, the very ability to ‘summon’ is transferred to Israel and they can now summon the God who commands the entire world. It is a shocking and profound realization. God, to whom the entire created order responds, will place himself, in covenantal obedience and concern, in response to Israel.