Psalm Meditation 484
Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time
September 27, 2009

Psalm 18:1-6,16-28
1 I love you, O LORD, my strength.
2 The LORD is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer, my God, my rock in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
3 I call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised, so I shall be saved from my enemies.
4 The cords of death encompassed me; the torrents of perdition assailed me;
5 the cords of Sheol entangled me; the snares of death confronted me.
6 In my distress I called upon the LORD; to my God I cried for help. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears.
16 He reached down from on high, he took me; he drew me out of mighty waters.
17 He delivered me from my strong enemy, and from those who hated me; for they were too mighty for me.
18 They confronted me in the day of my calamity; but the LORD was my support.
19 He brought me out into a broad place; he delivered me, because he delighted in me.
20 The LORD rewarded me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands he recompensed me.
21 For I have kept the ways of the LORD, and have not wickedly departed from my God.
22 For all his ordinances were before me, and his statutes I did not put away from me.
23 I was blameless before him, and I kept myself from guilt.
24 Therefore the LORD has recompensed me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight.
25 With the loyal you show yourself loyal; with the blameless you show yourself blameless;
26 with the pure you show yourself pure; and with the crooked you show yourself perverse.
27 For you deliver a humble people, but the haughty eyes you bring down.
28 It is you who light my lamp; the LORD, my God, lights up my darkness.
(NRSV)

Of the fifty verses of this psalm one of them jumped out at me more enthusiastically than the rest and I confess to editing the psalm for the sake of verse 25. It serves as a reminder that God is bigger than any one of us and likely bigger than all of us taken together. Because God is so big and broad and grand we are able to see in God whatever we bring to the relationship with God.

When I place emphasis on the importance of being loyal to God I discover that God has greater reserves of loyalty on which to draw than I can even imagine. God is there for me at every turn both calling me to deeper loyalty and demonstrating what it means to be ever more loyal in a relationship. When I decide that it is of great importance that I be blameless I find that God is ever and always above reproach. When I strive to be pure I find that God is modeling purity and encouraging me to make the choices that will keep me pure. When I become cynical, knowing that God can’t possibly be as good as all that I discover that God is not always consistent and that God has a temper and that God sometimes walks away in the middle of a conversation. It turns out that whatever I bring to the relationship with God it is already there.

Is God that fickle and changeable that whatever I bring is there to meet me, or is God the mirror of my mood who meets me where I am and invites me to grow deeper and wider in our relationship? Our moods and attitudes spring from the well of God’s bountiful grace. Whatever we feel has its beginnings in God in some way. When I emphasize blamelessness and purity God leads me service and understanding. When I bring my anger and cynicism God points me to injustice and the ways I might help make them right. What I bring God meets and augments with something that will deepen our relationship as well as the relationships I have with those around me.

© September 21, 2009