Ps. 69.10-11 (detachment is the way of the individual)

Even when I wept / in fasting 
there was / reproach for me.
And when I put on sackcloth / as my clothing
I became a byword / for them. 

The immediate question that arises is why the psalmist is engaged in fasting and weeping, traditional displays of penitence and intercession. It would seem that we must associate these actions with his “zeal for God’s house”. Indeed, it may be that what we see here is the ‘zeal’ in action; this weeping, fasting and sackcloth are the manners in which the psalmist’s zeal is displayed. This conclusion makes sense as the actions call forth the same response as the zeal called forth in the previous verses: humiliation, reproach and shame. Indeed, the same word, “reproach” is used to describe what, in a way, should have fallen on God but has, instead, fallen on the psalmist (vs. 9). Here, we come a deeper understanding, perhaps, of what this ‘zeal’ originate from and why, precisely, it causes him to be the Idiot of God. As we said above, weeping, fasting and sackcloth are typical displays of penitence. What may be happening here is that the ‘zeal’ for the holiness of God’s house has led the psalmist to intercede for those who are clearly not living in accord with that holiness. The psalmist is, therefore, interceding on their behalf as he is witnessing an incredible disconnect between the house of God and the people of God. It is very reminiscent of Jeremiah who continuously complained about the ‘wound’ of the people and who so identified with his people that it became his own wound; rather than removing himself from them he only identified himself deeper with them. And, just as with Jeremiah, the intercession provokes a violent rejection of the psalmist. Astonishingly, it is precisely in his attempt to identify with and intercede for them that he is forced further outside the bounds of communal life. The more the ‘zeal’ of God infuses him, the more he is met with a deep resistance. There is clearly something terribly wrong. As with Jeremiah, none of this makes sense; he is living in the time of the absurd. And, as with Jeremiah, this is compounded by the fact that God seems otiose. As we pointed out yesterday, the psalmist is being engulfed with the shame that should be falling on God. He has all the zeal but none of the power. Here, however, what we see is that this ‘zeal’ is not one that is isolated from the community. This is not the zeal of detachment or of self-reliance.; precisely the opposite. As with Jeremiah, one cannot have zeal for the house of God without a concomitant zeal for the holiness of God’s people. The psalmist, like Abraham, Moses and Jeremiah desires to cast himself into the breach caused by the people’s waywardness and heal that breach by his own weeping, fasting and sackcloth. The sins of the people—those sins that tarnish God’s house—are his own. His cross does not dissipate through detachment. Like the Aaronic priest, he ‘bears the sins of his people’. I want to pause over this communal identity for a moment: The psalmist is not seeking to be freed (or, detached) from the ‘regard of others’; clearly, it is their ‘regard’ as humiliation and reproach that are causing him such pain, such ‘cross bearing’. This concern is clear in two distinct ways, but both of them live on the other. First, it is clear by the fact that he does not want his “folly” to be the source of shame for those who “wait for you”. In this way, he is intimately concerned with the communal implications of his actions as they relate to the righteous (“those who wait for you … Those who seek you…” vs. 6). Second, as to the disobedient, he is desperate to counter any wrath that may fall upon them through his weeping, fasting and sackcloth, just like Abraham (with Sodom and Gomorrah), Moses (with Israel) and Jeremiah (with Israel)…and the Suffering Servant of Isaiah, and Jesus, and Paul. These men’s identity, at the peak of their holiness, is much more communal than it is individual. And, it is precisely because of this communal identity that the psalmist (like the others) finds his people’s attacks to be so painful and, more importantly, why they can be nothing but a (painful) cross he must bear. Detachment is the way of the individual. The cross is the mode of these communal men of intercession.