Psalm Meditation 1237 ¶Third Sunday in Lent ¶March 3, 2024 ¶Psalm 109 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=psalm+109&version=NRSVUE (NRSV) ¶In the Revised Standard Version, verse six does not begin with, ‘they say.’ so we are left to wonder whether this is the psalmist asking that this happen to all the accusers or are the accusers saying this about the psalmist? In verse twenty it seems that the two groups are wishing the same fate on each other. “Let all of these terrible things happen to those people so that I can go on my merry way, knowing that the people I hate are left in the dust of vengeance.” Ah, would that God was willing to follow our orders as to who was next in line for destruction. ¶If God were as capricious and vengeful as we can be, it is hard to imagine that there would be anyone left alive who was not under some destructive curse or other for the ways that we treat those around us, especially those who are not like us. God is neither capricious, impulsive and unpredictable, nor vengeful, seeking to harm someone for a perceived injury. God is love, pure and simple. “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-5a NRSVUE) Much as we would like for God to do our dirty work of eliminating everyone who annoys us, or worse, it is not going to happen. God may work in us to turn enemies to friends, however God is not in the business of destroying people. ¶It is certainly appropriate to feel anger and frustration when people and things around us do not go to our plan for our lives. And we can hope and pray for the destruction and end of things like poverty, disease, and injustice. We can hope and pray all we want for God to destroy people, as long as we know, too, that God is loving beyond measure and will not do away with anyone simply because we want it to happen. “With my mouth I will give great thanks to the LORD; I will praise him in the midst of the throng. For God stands at the right hand of the needy, to save them from those who would condemn them to death.” ¶February 26, 2024 ¶LCM