Psalm Meditation 485
Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time
October 4, 2009

Psalm 43
1 Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause against an ungodly people; from those who are deceitful and unjust deliver me!
2 For you are the God in whom I take refuge; why have you cast me off? Why must I walk about mournfully because of the oppression of the enemy?
3 O send out your light and your truth; let them lead me; let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling.
4 Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy; and I will praise you with the harp, O God, my God.
5 Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.
(NRSV)

In order to learn a new skill the person who has been doing it for us has to step back and let us make the attempt on our own. Whether our benefactor stands with us as we work it out or walks away and leaves us to succeed or fail on our own we will still feel abandoned. Whether God has actually walked away from the psalmist or simply stood back for a moment we don’t know. We do know that the psalmist feels abandoned by God and left to deal with these enemies alone.

My experience has been that God is much more likely to have stepped back than to have walked away completely. While the psalmist feels as if God is absent the conversation continues to be with God. God is somewhere within earshot and is invited to respond, “Polo” to the psalmist’s “Marco.” In the back and forth of call and response we find our way back to the presence of God. We find ourselves richer and our relationship with God deeper as we discover new skills and strengths within ourselves and new appreciation for the presence of God.

While the sense of abandonment can be deep and depressing it can motivate us to take off our blinders and look in and around ourselves for ways God is newly present to us. In the searching we find that, while we will always be dependent on God, we are a step closer to an interdependent relationship with God.

© September 28, 2009