Psalm Meditation 1246 ¶Sixth Sunday of Easter ¶May 5, 2024 ¶Psalm 100 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+100&version=NRSVUE (NRSVUE) ¶I had every intention of writing about the importance of joy, even when we don’t feel particularly joyful, until I got to verse 3 and the alternate translation. “It is he who made us, and we are his;” is the translation the NRSV folks settled on. It must have been a close decisions, since the note is added, “Or ‘and not we ourselves.’” It is easy to nod our agreement that we belong to God, however when we translate that same phrase as ‘and not we ourselves’ we, at least I, we have to stop and think about all the ways we make life easier by believing that God sees things the same way we do. ¶There are folks outside the Judeo-Christian tradition who believe that all religious folk have made up their God or gods for any number of helpful reasons. There is probably some truth in that, since we can’t possibly comprehend the fullness of God, so we have to put in our own ruffles and flourishes to make God available to us. At the same time, that is not the whole truth. God is outside our comprehension, and in our hearts and minds in a way that is beyond anything that we could make up. So, we add our own touches to God even as we realize that God is the ultimate creator of all, including having made each of us. ¶When God begins to agree with everything we believe and offers us no challenges to live in a way that pushes us beyond that limits of our comfort, we have made God in our image. When we forget that God is the one who gives us life, being, and meaning we put ourselves in the place of God. It is God who made us, and not we ourselves. We did not make ourselves and we certainly did not make God in our image much as we may try to do that. We get to be joyful about not being in charge, and knowing that God loves us more deeply and intimately than we can imagine. Yippee. ¶April 30, 2024 ¶LCM