In Irons

AM Psalm 69:1-23(24-30)31-38 • PM Psalm 73
Ecclus. 50:1,11-24 • Rev. 17:1-18 • Luke 13:31-35

The psalmist in this morning’s reading is figuratively stuck in the mud, while torrents of water, representing the insults and slanders of his enemies, engulf him. 

Psalm 69 begins:

Save me, O God,
for the waters have come up to my neck.

I sink in deep mire,
where there is no foothold;

I have come into deep waters,
and the flood sweeps over me.

I am weary with my crying;
my throat is parched.

My eyes grow dim
with waiting for my God.

More in number than the hairs of my head
are those who hate me without cause;

many are those who would destroy me,
my enemies who accuse me falsely.

What I did not steal,
must I now restore?

O God, you know my folly;
the wrongs I have done are not hidden from you.

The psalmist’s fear of drowning in a sea of false accusations is worsened by the knowledge that his real transgressions are known by God.

Whenever my family spent time on or near the water—and we were on or near the water a lot—my father, a U.S. Navy veteran, would say,

“Water, water every where,
But not a drop to drink.”

Of course, we usually had plenty to drink out on Lake Ontario, or the Atlantic Ocean, or wherever—thermoses full of water (in the days before it was common to buy it in bottles), not to mention Coca Cola, Canada Dry Ginger Ale, and for my father (and later on for me), a variety of beers. (This last I gave up forty-three years ago after developing a severe allergy. Another story for another time).  

When I got older, I learned that my father was slightly mis-quoting lines from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. In that poem, a wedding guest hears an old man tell the story of being aboard ship, when an albatross appears, bringing a favoring south wind to allow the crew to sail to safety. But then, the mariner shoots the albatross. The wind dies. The ship is stuck. A sailing ship without wind on the water is said to be “in irons.”

The mariner relates (in pain the equal of any psalmist’s) watching the rest of the crew, some two hundred in number, die of thirst.  

“Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.

“Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.”

It is not hard to imagine the crew members crying, their throats growing parched, their eyes growing dim. And the mariner having to witness it all.

The motif of water appears frequently in the Bible. Sometimes water is scarce, sometimes not. Sometimes life-giving, sometimes not. You will recall a story about God getting angry at his creation and drowning (most of) them all out.

The psalmist is thirsty for salvation from his enemies.

But as for me, my prayer is to you, O LORD.
At an acceptable time, O God,
in the abundance of your steadfast love, answer me.

With your faithful help rescue me
from sinking in the mire;

let me be delivered from my enemies
and from the deep waters.

Do not let the flood sweep over me
or the deep swallow me up
or the Pit close its mouth over me.

The psalmist is sure of “the abundance” of God’s love. But here, as elsewhere in scripture and prayer, we may be troubled by the phrase “at an acceptable time.” We sometimes hear that things may happen in “our time,” sometimes in “God’s time.” I don’t know about you, but I sometimes find such homilies annoying at best and excruciatingly cruel at worst. People die agonizing deaths every day—in hospitals, in cities under siege. How do we go on?

At the end of Coleridge’s poem, the wedding guest, who has heard the mariner’s horrifying tale, leaves the wedding. Coleridge writes: 

“He went like one that hath been stunned,
And is of sense forlorn:
A sadder and a wiser man,
He rose the morrow morn.”

Psalm 69 concludes:

Let heaven and earth praise him,
the seas and everything that moves in them.

For God will save Zion
and rebuild the cities of Judah,
and his servants shall live there and possess it;

the children of his servants shall inherit it,
and those who love his name shall live in it.

What will the wedding guest do? What has he learned? To what degree can he perceive the kingdom that God has built for him, his servants, and those who love him? We might ask ourselves not when God is going to act at an acceptable time, but what is our part in accusing others falsely, or in putting ourselves in irons? Coleridge is silent on whether the wedding guest praises God. How often do we?

Written by James Gamble

James Gamble studied poetry of the Romantic Period under the tutelage of the late Brian Wilkie (1929-2003) at the University of Arkansas.