July 23, 2014

Psalm 123

1 To Thee I lift up my eyes,
  O Thou who art enthroned in the heavens!
2 Behold, 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,
  till He have mercy upon us.
3 Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us,
  for we have had more than enough of contempt.
4 Too long our soul has been sated
  with the scorn of those who are at ease,
  the contempt of the proud.

Psalm 123 is heard in its entirety at daily vespers, where it is read in between the Aposticha verses (as it was yesterday during the monastic conference continuing today at the Chancery). It gives us the image of servants accustomed to thoughtless treatment or contempt and cruelty from wealthy masters oblivious to their needs (something like the poor man Lazarus sitting outside the gate of the rich man and waiting in vain for him to notice, Luke 16:19-31). The Lord is entirely different: His servants can look to Him in hope of kindness and mercy.

Monastery St John
Monastery of St John of Shanghai and San Francisco, Manton, CA

Curiously, Psalm 123 is part of the order for the blessing of bees. I mention this particularly because during the monastic conference Hieromonk Innocent (Green) mentioned that bee-keeping is one of the features of life at his monastery of Saint John of Shanghai and San Francisco in Manton, California. The monks have 180 beehives that they move from field to field as the wildflowers bloom.

The Psalm is a fitting prayer for any blessing, as we look with anticipation to the Lord’s hand to give us what we need. But perhaps this psalm was chosen as well because bees are models of the laboring, diligent and productive servants we are called to be.  As the Apostolic Constitution of the 4th century says,

Go to the bee, and learn how laborious she is, and her work how valuable it is, whose labors both kings and common men make use of for their health.  She is desirable and glorious, though she be weak in strength…”

honeybees
“Go to the bee…”

Saint Gregory of Sinai in the 14th century also looks to the bees as an example. 

Like a bee one should extract from each of the virtues what is most profitable.  In this way, by taking a small amount from all of them, one builds up from the practice of the virtues a great honeycomb overflowing with the soul-delighting honey of wisdom.

These references come from a beautiful meditation on the blessing of bees by Father Ted Bobosh:
http://frted.wordpress.com/2013/07/08/the-blessing-of-the-bees.