Psalm Meditation 619
Fourth Sunday of Easter
April 29, 2012

Psalm 78:1-11,65-72
1 Give ear, O my people, to my teaching; incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
2 I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings from of old,
3 things that we have heard and known, that our ancestors have told us.
4 We will not hide them from their children; we will tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might, and the wonders that he has done.
5 He established a decree in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our ancestors to teach to their children;
6 that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and rise up and tell them to their children,
7 so that they should set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments;
8 and that they should not be like their ancestors, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation whose heart was not steadfast, whose spirit was not faithful to God.
9 The Ephraimites, armed with the bow, turned back on the day of battle.
10 They did not keep God's covenant, but refused to walk according to his law.
11 They forgot what he had done, and the miracles that he had shown them.
65 Then the Lord awoke as from sleep, like a warrior shouting because of wine.
66 He put his adversaries to rout; he put them to everlasting disgrace.
67 He rejected the tent of Joseph, he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim;
68 but he chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which he loves.
69 He built his sanctuary like the high heavens, like the earth, which he has founded forever.
70 He chose his servant David, and took him from the sheepfolds;
71 from tending the nursing ewes he brought him to be the shepherd of his people Jacob, of Israel, his inheritance.
72 With upright heart he tended them, and guided them with skillful hand.
(NRSV)

This is a psalm that celebrates the importance of heritage and the need to pass it on to current and future generations, with a touch of one-up thrown in for the sake of all those folks in that ‘other’ realm. The verses left out are a long list of ways in which this people of God had already forgotten the deeds and miracles done by God throughout the history of the relationship. Despite all the times they/we have forgotten and fallen away God continues to deliver us from our adversaries.

That is an important part of the story of God’s people; no matter how often and how far we move away from God, there will come that time in which God will rise up and deliver us from our foolishness and from those who stand against us. Even while the ancients believed that God walked away from them when they turned from the right path, they also believed that God would come to them in a time of need to save and deliver them. Modern folks believe that God is with us at all times, coaxing and cajoling us back to faithfulness in those times in which we wander away from God’s presence.

The psalmist was likely from Judah and decided to twist the knife of memory into all those other Israelites with the reminder that David came from ‘our’ side of the family. In the midst of political bickering, from local to international we can be reminded that we are not the first or the last to participate. Ours may not even be the worst, even when it feels as if it is. Through it all God is with us, using our leaders at all levels to accomplish a variety of tasks as well as calling each of us and all of us into deeper, more holy and more loving relationships with God and each other.

© April 23, 2012