Psalm Meditation 1015
First Sunday of Advent
December 1, 2019
Psalm 31
1 In you, O Lord, I seek refuge; do not let me ever be put to shame; in your righteousness deliver me.
2 Incline your ear to me; rescue me speedily. Be a rock of refuge for me, a strong fortress to save me.
3 You are indeed my rock and my fortress; for your name’s sake lead me and guide me,
4 take me out of the net that is hidden for me, for you are my refuge.
5 Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.
6 You hate those who pay regard to worthless idols, but I trust in the Lord.
7 I will exult and rejoice in your steadfast love, because you have seen my affliction; you have taken heed of my adversities,
8 and have not delivered me into the hand of the enemy; you have set my feet in a broad place.
9 Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress; my eye wastes away from grief, my soul and body also.
10 For my life is spent with sorrow, and my years with sighing; my strength fails because of my misery, and my bones waste away.
11 I am the scorn of all my adversaries, a horror to my neighbors, an object of dread to my acquaintances; those who see me in the street flee from me.
12 I have passed out of mind like one who is dead; I have become like a broken vessel.
13 For I hear the whispering of many—terror all around!—as they scheme together against me, as they plot to take my life.
14 But I trust in you, O Lord; I say, “You are my God.”
15 My times are in your hand; deliver me from the hand of my enemies and persecutors.
16 Let your face shine upon your servant; save me in your steadfast love.
17 Do not let me be put to shame, O Lord, for I call on you; let the wicked be put to shame; let them go dumbfounded to Sheol.
18 Let the lying lips be stilled that speak insolently against the righteous with pride and contempt.
19 O how abundant is your goodness that you have laid up for those who fear you, and accomplished for those who take refuge in you, in the sight of everyone!
20 In the shelter of your presence you hide them from human plots; you hold them safe under your shelter from contentious tongues.
21 Blessed be the Lord, for he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me when I was beset as a city under siege.
22 I had said in my alarm, “I am driven far from your sight.” But you heard my supplications when I cried out to you for help.
23 Love the Lord, all you his saints. The Lord preserves the faithful, but abundantly repays the one who acts haughtily.
24 Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord.
(NRSV)
The theme running through this psalm is God’s steadfast love. In affliction, in grief, in the adversities and animosities of our daily lives the love of God is there to support us and uplift us. When we are caught up in illness and injury God loves us and supports us. When folks around us ask what we did to deserve such a fate, adding shame in addition to all else that is going on within us, the love of God stands firm within us. It points us to health as it releases us from any need to buy into the shame folks want to heap on to us.
When we are grieving the steadfast love of God is patient with us. When everyone around us is weary of our grief, perhaps counseling us to move on, God offers comfort and presence out of love for us. God encourages us to deal with it at our own pace without dwelling in it. Yes, there will be days of wallowing in our grief as well as days of facing it with hope and grace, always, always, always under the banner of God’s steadfast love.
When we face adversity and animosity, whether of our own making or not, God is a loving presence with us. The steadfast love of God allows us to see where we are at fault so that we can ask forgiveness and make reparations as well as seeing where we are the target of another’s ire.
It is a two way street of sorts. In order to receive the love of God we have to be open to it. Steadfast love is always present, as God is always present in each of our lives. When we are open to it and aware of it, we can feel the love of God in every part of life.
November 26, 2019
LCM
Tuesday, November 26, 2019
Monday, November 18, 2019
Psalm Meditation 1014
Reign of Christ
November 24, 2019
Psalm 106 (selected verses)
1 Praise the Lord! O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever.
2 Who can utter the mighty doings of the Lord, or declare all his praise?
3 Happy are those who observe justice, who do righteousness at all times.
4 Remember me, O Lord, when you show favor to your people; help me when you deliver them;
5 that I may see the prosperity of your chosen ones, that I may rejoice in the gladness of your nation, that I may glory in your heritage.
6 Both we and our ancestors have sinned; we have committed iniquity, have done wickedly.
7 Our ancestors, when they were in Egypt, did not consider your wonderful works; they did not remember the abundance of your steadfast love, but rebelled against the Most High at the Red Sea.
13 But they soon forgot his works; they did not wait for his counsel.
14 But they had a wanton craving in the wilderness, and put God to the test in the desert;
15 he gave them what they asked, but sent a wasting disease among them.
16 They were jealous of Moses in the camp, and of Aaron, the holy one of the Lord.
19 They made a calf at Horeb and worshiped a cast image.
24 Then they despised the pleasant land, having no faith in his promise.
28 Then they attached themselves to the Baal of Peor, and ate sacrifices offered to the dead;
29 they provoked the Lord to anger with their deeds, and a plague broke out among them.
32 They angered the Lord at the waters of Meribah, and it went ill with Moses on their account;
33 for they made his spirit bitter, and he spoke words that were rash.
34 They did not destroy the peoples, as the Lord commanded them,
35 but they mingled with the nations and learned to do as they did.
42 Their enemies oppressed them, and they were brought into subjection under their power.
43 Many times he delivered them, but they were rebellious in their purposes, and were brought low through their iniquity.
47 Save us, O Lord our God, and gather us from among the nations, that we may give thanks to your holy name and glory in your praise.
48 Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. And let all the people say, “Amen.” Praise the Lord!
(NRSV)
In these days of short attention spans, there is a summary style called, Tl;dr. It is shorthand for Too long; didn’t read. If something goes more than a couple of paragraphs there is a Tl;dr at the beginning or end of the story to give people a one or two sentence summary of the whole story. If that piques your interest you can read the whole thing, if the short description is all you want the Tl;dr will suffice.
These summaries are not new. Book length academic papers and stock offerings begin with an ‘abstract’ that gives the outline, the basics, of the full proposal. This psalm is a Tl;dr of the Book of Exodus from a particular point of view. If you don’t want to read the whole book, here is a summary. If you don’t want to read the whole Psalm, I have cut out several verses to hit the important points. This Psalm reminds people that sins of the people are not anything new, our ancestors gave allegiance to God a number of times and then forgot their pledge, as well as God, when things evened out again.
We can summarize anything to carry our own point of view. We pick and choose words, phrases, concepts that support our thinking and edit the Tl;dr to get our own point across. Was the exodus forty years of rescue by God, pledges of allegiance from the people, forgetting those pledges, and starting the process all over again? Yes, it was. Is there more to it than that? Yes, there is. This is where a group of families and clans became a people. This is where a people came to know and love YHWH as their God. This is the fits and starts of a people who drew us in to life in God, who helped us become who we are. We communicate our biases and preconceived notions all the time; it is important to know ours as well as those of who we follow.
November 18, 2019
LCM
Reign of Christ
November 24, 2019
Psalm 106 (selected verses)
1 Praise the Lord! O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever.
2 Who can utter the mighty doings of the Lord, or declare all his praise?
3 Happy are those who observe justice, who do righteousness at all times.
4 Remember me, O Lord, when you show favor to your people; help me when you deliver them;
5 that I may see the prosperity of your chosen ones, that I may rejoice in the gladness of your nation, that I may glory in your heritage.
6 Both we and our ancestors have sinned; we have committed iniquity, have done wickedly.
7 Our ancestors, when they were in Egypt, did not consider your wonderful works; they did not remember the abundance of your steadfast love, but rebelled against the Most High at the Red Sea.
13 But they soon forgot his works; they did not wait for his counsel.
14 But they had a wanton craving in the wilderness, and put God to the test in the desert;
15 he gave them what they asked, but sent a wasting disease among them.
16 They were jealous of Moses in the camp, and of Aaron, the holy one of the Lord.
19 They made a calf at Horeb and worshiped a cast image.
24 Then they despised the pleasant land, having no faith in his promise.
28 Then they attached themselves to the Baal of Peor, and ate sacrifices offered to the dead;
29 they provoked the Lord to anger with their deeds, and a plague broke out among them.
32 They angered the Lord at the waters of Meribah, and it went ill with Moses on their account;
33 for they made his spirit bitter, and he spoke words that were rash.
34 They did not destroy the peoples, as the Lord commanded them,
35 but they mingled with the nations and learned to do as they did.
42 Their enemies oppressed them, and they were brought into subjection under their power.
43 Many times he delivered them, but they were rebellious in their purposes, and were brought low through their iniquity.
47 Save us, O Lord our God, and gather us from among the nations, that we may give thanks to your holy name and glory in your praise.
48 Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. And let all the people say, “Amen.” Praise the Lord!
(NRSV)
In these days of short attention spans, there is a summary style called, Tl;dr. It is shorthand for Too long; didn’t read. If something goes more than a couple of paragraphs there is a Tl;dr at the beginning or end of the story to give people a one or two sentence summary of the whole story. If that piques your interest you can read the whole thing, if the short description is all you want the Tl;dr will suffice.
These summaries are not new. Book length academic papers and stock offerings begin with an ‘abstract’ that gives the outline, the basics, of the full proposal. This psalm is a Tl;dr of the Book of Exodus from a particular point of view. If you don’t want to read the whole book, here is a summary. If you don’t want to read the whole Psalm, I have cut out several verses to hit the important points. This Psalm reminds people that sins of the people are not anything new, our ancestors gave allegiance to God a number of times and then forgot their pledge, as well as God, when things evened out again.
We can summarize anything to carry our own point of view. We pick and choose words, phrases, concepts that support our thinking and edit the Tl;dr to get our own point across. Was the exodus forty years of rescue by God, pledges of allegiance from the people, forgetting those pledges, and starting the process all over again? Yes, it was. Is there more to it than that? Yes, there is. This is where a group of families and clans became a people. This is where a people came to know and love YHWH as their God. This is the fits and starts of a people who drew us in to life in God, who helped us become who we are. We communicate our biases and preconceived notions all the time; it is important to know ours as well as those of who we follow.
November 18, 2019
LCM
Monday, November 11, 2019
Psalm Meditation 1013
Proper 28
November 17, 2019
Psalm 6
1 O Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger, or discipline me in your wrath.
2 Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing; O Lord, heal me, for my bones are shaking with terror.
3 My soul also is struck with terror, while you, O Lord—how long?
4 Turn, O Lord, save my life; deliver me for the sake of your steadfast love.
5 For in death there is no remembrance of you; in Sheol who can give you praise?
6 I am weary with my moaning; every night I flood my bed with tears; I drench my couch with my weeping.
7 My eyes waste away because of grief; they grow weak because of all my foes.
8 Depart from me, all you workers of evil, for the Lord has heard the sound of my weeping.
9 The Lord has heard my supplication; the Lord accepts my prayer.
10 All my enemies shall be ashamed and struck with terror; they shall turn back, and in a moment be put to shame.
(NRSV)
When we feel abandoned or disciplined by God our temptation is to bargain with God, to go through the list of things we will do and the ways we will act if God will get us out of this. At our best we probably realize that our promises hold as much water as a stereotypical political promise. We tell God what sounds good, what we are willing to do forever in the pressure of the moment, and will lose incentive to do once we are back on solid footing with God and the world.
The interesting thing in this psalm is that the psalmist doesn’t make promises, there is a reminder of what God would be missing in the event of the psalmists death. “For in death there is no remembrance of you; in Sheol who can give you praise?” God is treated as a ruler who is more interested in personal gain than in serving those being ruled. The psalmist reminds God, ‘I can’t praise you if I am dead, especially in the nothingness of Sheol.’ The bargaining is not, ‘here’s what I will do.’ the bargaining is, ‘here is what you will miss if you let me go.’
No matter what our image of God may be we are tempted to negotiate when things are not going our way. I imagine that God is not swayed by our negotiating skills as much as by the steadfast love with which God surrounds us on a full time basis. God is aware of the sincerity of our promises in the moment as well as how easily we will forget them as soon as things smooth out for us. God is aware of what will be missing if we are no longer able to offer our praise to God. As much as God enjoys the comradery of our time together, threatening to withhold our praise is not what gets God to act in our favor. God loves us beyond measure and offers it to us in every time and place, sometimes we notice.
November 11, 2019
LCM
Proper 28
November 17, 2019
Psalm 6
1 O Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger, or discipline me in your wrath.
2 Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing; O Lord, heal me, for my bones are shaking with terror.
3 My soul also is struck with terror, while you, O Lord—how long?
4 Turn, O Lord, save my life; deliver me for the sake of your steadfast love.
5 For in death there is no remembrance of you; in Sheol who can give you praise?
6 I am weary with my moaning; every night I flood my bed with tears; I drench my couch with my weeping.
7 My eyes waste away because of grief; they grow weak because of all my foes.
8 Depart from me, all you workers of evil, for the Lord has heard the sound of my weeping.
9 The Lord has heard my supplication; the Lord accepts my prayer.
10 All my enemies shall be ashamed and struck with terror; they shall turn back, and in a moment be put to shame.
(NRSV)
When we feel abandoned or disciplined by God our temptation is to bargain with God, to go through the list of things we will do and the ways we will act if God will get us out of this. At our best we probably realize that our promises hold as much water as a stereotypical political promise. We tell God what sounds good, what we are willing to do forever in the pressure of the moment, and will lose incentive to do once we are back on solid footing with God and the world.
The interesting thing in this psalm is that the psalmist doesn’t make promises, there is a reminder of what God would be missing in the event of the psalmists death. “For in death there is no remembrance of you; in Sheol who can give you praise?” God is treated as a ruler who is more interested in personal gain than in serving those being ruled. The psalmist reminds God, ‘I can’t praise you if I am dead, especially in the nothingness of Sheol.’ The bargaining is not, ‘here’s what I will do.’ the bargaining is, ‘here is what you will miss if you let me go.’
No matter what our image of God may be we are tempted to negotiate when things are not going our way. I imagine that God is not swayed by our negotiating skills as much as by the steadfast love with which God surrounds us on a full time basis. God is aware of the sincerity of our promises in the moment as well as how easily we will forget them as soon as things smooth out for us. God is aware of what will be missing if we are no longer able to offer our praise to God. As much as God enjoys the comradery of our time together, threatening to withhold our praise is not what gets God to act in our favor. God loves us beyond measure and offers it to us in every time and place, sometimes we notice.
November 11, 2019
LCM
Monday, November 4, 2019
Psalm Meditation 1012
Proper 27
November 10, 2019
Psalm 81
1 Sing aloud to God our strength; shout for joy to the God of Jacob.
2 Raise a song, sound the tambourine, the sweet lyre with the harp.
3 Blow the trumpet at the new moon, at the full moon, on our festal day.
4 For it is a statute for Israel, an ordinance of the God of Jacob.
5 He made it a decree in Joseph, when he went out over the land of Egypt. I hear a voice I had not known:
6 “I relieved your shoulder of the burden; your hands were freed from the basket.
7 In distress you called, and I rescued you; I answered you in the secret place of thunder; I tested you at the waters of Meribah. Selah
8 Hear, O my people, while I admonish you; O Israel, if you would but listen to me!
9 There shall be no strange god among you; you shall not bow down to a foreign god.
10 I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide and I will fill it.
11 “But my people did not listen to my voice; Israel would not submit to me.
12 So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts, to follow their own counsels.
13 O that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways!
14 Then I would quickly subdue their enemies, and turn my hand against their foes.
15 Those who hate the Lord would cringe before him, and their doom would last forever.
16 I would feed you with the finest of the wheat, and with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.”
(NRSV)
The activity of God is easier to see in the past than in the present. We know that God was at work in the life of the psalmist because we can see it. Even when one of the psalmists is lamenting, wondering if God is at work in that particular time, we can see that it is God working for the good of the people. The psalmist is able to recount the activity of God in the past without knowing that the voice being heard is the voice of God.
Though we can see God at work in the past we have trouble seeing God at work in the present tense of our lives. We cry out in prayer for God to help us in whatever trouble we find ourselves not realizing how active God is until we look back at the situation from a distance. The perspective of the long view helps us see all the places God was at work in our lives, giving us hope, comfort, and steadfast love.
In the midst of a crisis we do not have any awareness of the help and hope available to us. I know of people who had to be rescued from drowning in water that came up to their waist. The swift current, panic and other conditions kept them from being able to see beyond their immediate need. The presence and providence of God are always a part of our lives. God continues to feed us and sustain us even if we are not aware that it is God at work among us.
November 4, 2019
LCM
Proper 27
November 10, 2019
Psalm 81
1 Sing aloud to God our strength; shout for joy to the God of Jacob.
2 Raise a song, sound the tambourine, the sweet lyre with the harp.
3 Blow the trumpet at the new moon, at the full moon, on our festal day.
4 For it is a statute for Israel, an ordinance of the God of Jacob.
5 He made it a decree in Joseph, when he went out over the land of Egypt. I hear a voice I had not known:
6 “I relieved your shoulder of the burden; your hands were freed from the basket.
7 In distress you called, and I rescued you; I answered you in the secret place of thunder; I tested you at the waters of Meribah. Selah
8 Hear, O my people, while I admonish you; O Israel, if you would but listen to me!
9 There shall be no strange god among you; you shall not bow down to a foreign god.
10 I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide and I will fill it.
11 “But my people did not listen to my voice; Israel would not submit to me.
12 So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts, to follow their own counsels.
13 O that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways!
14 Then I would quickly subdue their enemies, and turn my hand against their foes.
15 Those who hate the Lord would cringe before him, and their doom would last forever.
16 I would feed you with the finest of the wheat, and with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.”
(NRSV)
The activity of God is easier to see in the past than in the present. We know that God was at work in the life of the psalmist because we can see it. Even when one of the psalmists is lamenting, wondering if God is at work in that particular time, we can see that it is God working for the good of the people. The psalmist is able to recount the activity of God in the past without knowing that the voice being heard is the voice of God.
Though we can see God at work in the past we have trouble seeing God at work in the present tense of our lives. We cry out in prayer for God to help us in whatever trouble we find ourselves not realizing how active God is until we look back at the situation from a distance. The perspective of the long view helps us see all the places God was at work in our lives, giving us hope, comfort, and steadfast love.
In the midst of a crisis we do not have any awareness of the help and hope available to us. I know of people who had to be rescued from drowning in water that came up to their waist. The swift current, panic and other conditions kept them from being able to see beyond their immediate need. The presence and providence of God are always a part of our lives. God continues to feed us and sustain us even if we are not aware that it is God at work among us.
November 4, 2019
LCM
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