Psalm Meditation 535
Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time
September 19, 2010

Psalm 91
1 You who live in the shelter of the Most High, who abide in the shadow of the Almighty,
2 will say to the LORD, "My refuge and my fortress; my God, in whom I trust."
3 For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence;
4 he will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness is a shield and buckler.
5 You will not fear the terror of the night, or the arrow that flies by day,
6 or the pestilence that stalks in darkness, or the destruction that wastes at noonday.
7 A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you.
8 You will only look with your eyes and see the punishment of the wicked.
9 Because you have made the LORD your refuge, the Most High your dwelling place,
10 no evil shall befall you, no scourge come near your tent.
11 For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.
12 On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.
13 You will tread on the lion and the adder, the young lion and the serpent you will trample under foot.
14 Those who love me, I will deliver; I will protect those who know my name.
15 When they call to me, I will answer them; I will be with them in trouble, I will rescue them and honor them.
16 With long life I will satisfy them, and show them my salvation.
(NRSV)

My father advised me to be a short range pessimist and a long range optimist. Even things don’t work out the way one would choose at this point it will work out in the long run. That this psalm is looking to the future may indicate that the psalmist is taking the same long view. I can see this psalm as advice to a group of young people who have not seen a lot of adversity and have no idea what to expect of the future. It paints a fairly rosy picture of the future. Rosy does not make it wrong. There are folks whose lives are not touched and marred by constant violence, sickness and dread. There are folks who live what some might call uneventful lives. There are folks for whom life works well.

The psalmist advises that one of the ways to prosper in life is to be faithful to God. It is not a guarantee that all will go well and the nothing bad will happen so much as it is a piece of advise from experience that taking refuge in God works out much better than going along without God. Is taking refuge in God some kind of magic spell that protects folks from evil and death? No. Does taking refuge in God make the evils of the world survivable by putting them in a deeper and wider perspective? Yes.

God makes no promise that we will never see trouble. God promises to be with us. Will terrible things happen to us and to those we love? It is possible. God will be with us in those times to give us the comfort that even the worst calamity will not last forever and that at the end of it we will continue to be in the presence of God.

© September 13, 2010