I was walking with a group of people last weekend and someone told us something that surprised the rest of us. One of the young women in our group immediately stopped and responded with a loud, well-punctuated “Shut up!” I am quite definitely “middle-aged”, raised in a generation that knows well enough there is almost no conceivable situation where young people are permitted to say to their elders - or anyone else for that matter - “Shut up!” , so when she said this it almost stopped the rest of us in our tracks. But this young woman wasn’t intending to be rude, she was using a term that is increasingly in vogue by a younger generation to express shock and surprise. “Shut up!” means something like “Oh my gosh!” to a generation that thinks only grandparents say cute little things like “Oh my gosh!”
There is an equivalent “Shut up!” term used throughout the Book of Psalms. Frequently you will see it in the right-hand border of a Psalm. It’s the little notation: “Selah”. It’s a foreign term to our ears. We don’t say “Selah” to one another. Truth be told, nobody knows for sure quite what it means. It is possibly a musical notation -something like ‘allegro‘ - because these prayer-poems were originally sung. But others think that it might be an expression that commands the listener-reader to stop and take in what is being said before racing on to the next couplet. I favor this understanding of the term.
I think it should be used more often in church today. Here’s what I mean: I think the call to stop, shut up and cover our mouth with our hands should make a comeback in church today. We are overwhelmed with words and underwhelmed with God. The Psalmist tells us to do this: “Be still and know that I am God.” (Ps. 45:10). And Ecclesiastes 5:2 says pretty much the same thing: “Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth so let your words be few.” Selah!
God is a mystery. Nobody has Him in their back pocket. Too often we rush in to answer people’s pained questions with a confidence that is really more about bolstering our need for approval rather than helping them live faithfully in the midst of suffering. But we don’t have all the answers. Yes, we do have some; we do have a revelation from God in Jesus Christ. Deut. 29:29 reminds us however, “The secret things belong to Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever”. There are “secret things” things that God doesn’t have to explain to us - and doesn‘t! Even Paul, when he was caught up to the “third heaven” tells the Corinthians, “whether it was in the body or out of the body, I do not know, but God knows” (2 Cor. 12:3). I’ve grown to like that “I do not know” on the great Apostle Paul’s lips. But I hear too many speakers (and authors) confidently explaining everything. Too often the complexities of our lives are reduced to a laundry list of 3 steps that we can take to solve them. That’s where we need a good “Shut up!” once in a while in church again today.
So when I read the Psalms now, I silently read “Shut up!” whenever I come to a “Selah” and it makes me remember that I don’t have all the answers and that I don‘t have to have all the answers. And it also reminds me that what I do have to do is worship God in the midst of not having all the answers.
