Psalm Meditation 1129 ¶Fifth Sunday After Epiphany ¶February 6, 2022 ¶Psalm 50 1 The mighty one, God the Lord, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting. 2 Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines forth. 3 Our God comes and does not keep silence, before him is a devouring fire, and a mighty tempest all around him. 4 He calls to the heavens above and to the earth, that he may judge his people: 5 “Gather to me my faithful ones, who made a covenant with me by sacrifice!” 6 The heavens declare his righteousness, for God himself is judge. Selah 7 “Hear, O my people, and I will speak, O Israel, I will testify against you. I am God, your God. 8 Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you; your burnt offerings are continually before me. 9 I will not accept a bull from your house, or goats from your folds. 10 For every wild animal of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. 11 I know all the birds of the air, and all that moves in the field is mine. 12 “If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and all that is in it is mine. 13 Do I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? 14 Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and pay your vows to the Most High. 15 Call on me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.” 16 But to the wicked God says: “What right have you to recite my statutes, or take my covenant on your lips? 17 For you hate discipline, and you cast my words behind you. 18 You make friends with a thief when you see one, and you keep company with adulterers. 19 “You give your mouth free rein for evil, and your tongue frames deceit. 20 You sit and speak against your kin; you slander your own mother’s child. 21 These things you have done and I have been silent; you thought that I was one just like yourself. But now I rebuke you, and lay the charge before you. 22 “Mark this, then, you who forget God, or I will tear you apart, and there will be no one to deliver. 23 Those who bring thanksgiving as their sacrifice honor me; to those who go the right way I will show the salvation of God.” (NRSV) ¶“What do you say?” This question is asked of children in every generation when they are given some gift or treat. The correct answer is, “Thank you.” It begins as a rote response, what we say because we are expected to say it. For some, it never goes beyond that. There is no accompanying gratitude, just words that are a social convention. For many, being taught the words is the beginning of an awareness that we do not deserve much of the good that we receive. Along with that comes a deep sense of gratitude for the generosity of those around us, including God. ¶The psalmist lets us know that we don’t owe God anything except thanksgiving. When our gifts and sacrifices are given as expressions of our gratitude, God accepts the thanks more warmly than the gifts. When we go through the motions, as if our gifts will buy us favor and earn us a place in the presence of God for eternity, God asks that we keep our gifts. God does not need the smell of cooking meat or baking bread, God wants the pleasant aroma of our thankfulness that is carried up to God more readily than any aroma of grilling and baking. ¶‘Thank you’ is almost as difficult to say in a heartfelt way as ‘I’m sorry.’ It takes a vulnerability, an acknowledgment of our interdependence, to say, and mean, that we are grateful for the investment someone has made in us. God will continue to love and care for us whether we are grateful or not because that is the nature of God. Throughout Scripture we are told and reminded that God does enjoy our thankfulness in word and deed. “Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and pay your vows to the Most High.” ¶January 31, 2022 ¶LCM

Psalm Meditation 1128 ¶Fourth Sunday After Epiphany ¶January 30, 2022 ¶Psalm 125 1 Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abides forever. 2 As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds his people, from this time on and forevermore. 3 For the scepter of wickedness shall not rest on the land allotted to the righteous, so that the righteous might not stretch out their hands to do wrong. 4 Do good, O Lord, to those who are good, and to those who are upright in their hearts. 5 But those who turn aside to their own crooked ways the Lord will lead away with evildoers. Peace be upon Israel! (NRSV) ¶When we think about mountains we concentrate on their strength, majesty, and seeming permanence. We don’t spend a lot of time thinking about how those mountains came to be. We don’t think about the stresses and pressure that have been applied to bring a mountain into being. Maybe God decided a mountain belonged right there and suddenly it appeared out of nothing. Even then the mountain is made of levels and layers that bear and produce tons of force on each other that hold it together and push it apart. ¶The psalmist’s view of mountains is from the outside. All we usually see of a mountain is that strength and permanence. We may be lucky enough to know someone who stands firm against all the temptations that assail a person in a lifetime, the one who can always call on some source of calm and strength in time of need however great or small that need may be. They can be intimidating to those of us who see ourselves as mere foothills on our best days. Their roots and resources seem so much deeper than ours and they are the ones we call on when our strength is spent. ¶The truth is, those people are filled with their own struggles and burdens. Not that they see us as an additional burden when we approach them. Quite the contrary; helping us helps them in their own struggles as they find new perspective by offering themselves to us. Each time we weather a storm, we find new strength, new connections, new roots. As we are able to step back from ourselves to see a broader view we may see that there are folks who see us as the mountain to which their foothills lead. We see our inner strains and struggles, those who look to us for strength and connection see our constancy, perseverance, and faithfulness ¶January 24, 2022 ¶LCM

Psalm Meditation 1127 ¶Third Sunday After Epiphany ¶January 23, 2022 ¶Psalm 25 1 To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul. 2 O my God, in you I trust; do not let me be put to shame; do not let my enemies exult over me. 3 Do not let those who wait for you be put to shame; let them be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous. 4 Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths. 5 Lead me in your truth, and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all day long. 6 Be mindful of your mercy, O Lord, and of your steadfast love, for they have been from of old. 7 Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for your goodness’ sake, O Lord! 8 Good and upright is the Lord; therefore he instructs sinners in the way. 9 He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way. 10 All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness, for those who keep his covenant and his decrees. 11 For your name’s sake, O Lord, pardon my guilt, for it is great. 12 Who are they that fear the Lord? He will teach them the way that they should choose. 13 They will abide in prosperity, and their children shall possess the land. 14 The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him, and he makes his covenant known to them. 15 My eyes are ever toward the Lord, for he will pluck my feet out of the net. 16 Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted. 17 Relieve the troubles of my heart, and bring me out of my distress. 18 Consider my affliction and my trouble, and forgive all my sins. 19 Consider how many are my foes, and with what violent hatred they hate me. 20 O guard my life, and deliver me; do not let me be put to shame, for I take refuge in you. 21 May integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for you. 22 Redeem Israel, O God, out of all its troubles. (NRSV) ¶Every now and then the weight of the world attempts to crush us to the ground. When we attempt to hold off the crushing force alone, we will be destroyed. The weight will grow too much for us and we will be left exhausted and alone in a ball of flesh and sobs. As long as we believe that we can handle this alone, we are doomed. Worse yet, if we believe that no one cares about us, or that we are not worthy of another’s love and care, we are both doomed and despairing. ¶The psalmist tells us that we are not alone. At the very least, the steadfast love of God is available to protect us from, or stand with us in the crushing times of our lives. Seemingly going through one of these times, the psalmist forgets to mention that there are people around us who are also willing to love us in and through our trials. These are the folks who sit with us, hold us, talk to us, listen to us as we express our need for each of those. These folks are instruments and conduits of God’s love for us. ¶Having gone through a trial of any kind, we have the opportunity to offer help, security, and love to anyone going through a trial of their own. We can off them the same love and support we received, or we can offer the love and support we would have liked to receive. Either way, we can be people of God to those around us. ¶January 17, 2022 ¶LCM

Psalm Meditation 1126 ¶Second Sunday After Epiphany ¶January 16, 2022 ¶Psalm 100 1 Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth. 2 Worship the Lord with gladness; come into his presence with singing. 3 Know that the Lord is God. It is he that made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. 4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him, bless his name. 5 For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations. (NRSV) ¶There is something really scary about strong emotions. It isn’t the emotion itself, it is the reactions others have to our emotions that makes them frightening. For example, when we are filled with joy, there will be someone ready to ask, ‘What are you so happy about?’ If it were a sincere question we could answer them honestly, however the question often drips with sarcasm. By their tone of voice we are aware that joy is unwelcome in their presence. Given the choice between skipping away with giddy glee or suppressing our joy, we suppress our joy for the sake of their comfort. ¶I hear my inner psychologist telling me that I do not need to protect anyone from my joy, however there are other voices reminding me that I do well to take the words and feelings of others into account as I express myself. So, caught up in the confusion of advice, we keep our joy to ourselves and resent the bitterness the sarcasm around us engenders within us. We see ourselves as living out the intent of the psalm without having to deal with the challenges that people thrown down before us when we experience and express any strong emotion. ‘As long as I feel it, I don’t really have to express it.’ ¶It is good to find a safe place to make a joyful noise to the Lord, so that we don’t wilt away or explode from lack of expressing the joy we feel as we enter the presence of God. Living in a constant undercurrent of joy in the presence and gifts of God is a good thing. Knowing that we have a way and a place to express our joy with full-throated enthusiasm is a great thing. “For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.” ¶January 10, 2022 ¶LCM lcrsmanifold@att.net http://psalmmeditations.blogspot.com/

Psalm Meditation 1125 ¶First Sunday After the Epiphany ¶January 10, 2022 ¶Psalm 74 1 O God, why do you cast us off forever? Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture? 2 Remember your congregation, which you acquired long ago, which you redeemed to be the tribe of your heritage. Remember Mount Zion, where you came to dwell. 3 Direct your steps to the perpetual ruins; the enemy has destroyed everything in the sanctuary. 4 Your foes have roared within your holy place; they set up their emblems there. 5 At the upper entrance they hacked the wooden trellis with axes 6 And then, with hatchets and hammers, they smashed all its carved work. 7 They set your sanctuary on fire; they desecrated the dwelling place of your name, bringing it to the ground. 8 They said to themselves, “We will utterly subdue them”; they burned all the meeting places of God in the land. 9 We do not see our emblems; there is no longer any prophet, and there is no one among us who knows how long. 10 How long, O God, is the foe to scoff? Is the enemy to revile your name forever? 11 Why do you hold back your hand; why do you keep your hand in your bosom? 12 Yet God my King is from of old, working salvation in the earth. 13 You divided the sea by your might; you broke the heads of the dragons in the waters. 14 You crushed the heads of Leviathan; you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness. 15 You cut openings for springs and torrents; you dried up ever-flowing streams. 16 Yours is the day, yours also the night; you established the luminaries and the sun. 17 You have fixed all the bounds of the earth; you made summer and winter. 18 Remember this, O Lord, how the enemy scoffs, and an impious people reviles your name. 19 Do not deliver the soul of your dove to the wild animals; do not forget the life of your poor forever. 20 Have regard for you covenant, for the dark places of the land are full of the haunts of violence. 21 Do not let the downtrodden be put to shame; let the poor and needy praise your name. 22 Rise up, O God, plead your cause; remember how the impious scoff at you all day long. 23 Do not forget the clamor of your foes, the uproar of your adversaries that goes up continually. (NRSV) ¶It is a weapon of war to destroy all of the religious symbols of a conquered land. It is a way to demoralize the people, signifying that the victors have not only overcome the people, they have also destroyed all hope of divine intervention. If we are of the mind that the symbols and buildings are conduits of the divine to the earth, the plan is effective. We are cut off from any contact with those who can intervene for us if only we are able to let them know of our need. ¶The psalmist is devastated that buildings and symbols have been damaged and destroyed. The psalmist is, at the same time, aware that YHWH is present beyond buildings and symbols, and has been active in the lives of people before a place of worship was built, and before people were aware of the presence of God. The psalmist reminds us of all the ways YHWH has shown power and presence in a variety of ways and places. Because of that powerful presence the psalmist calls on God to remember this chosen people in their hour of need. ¶When we find ourselves bent and broken by the battles that rage within us and outside of us, we do well to remember that God is with us. We do not need buildings and symbols to assure us that we are not alone. We have a relationship with God that is deeper than any building or symbol can reach. ¶January 3, 2022 ¶LCM

Psalm Meditation 1124 ¶ Second Sunday of Christmas ¶January 2, 2022 ¶Psalm 149 1 Praise the Lord! Sing to the Lord a new song, his praise in the assembly of the faithful. 2 Let Israel be glad in its Maker; let the children of Zion rejoice in their King. 3 Let them praise his name with dancing, making melody to him with tambourine and lyre. 4 For the Lord takes pleasure in his people; he adorns the humble with victory. 5 Let the faithful exult in glory; let them sing for joy on their couches. 6 Let the high praises of God be in their throats and two-edged swords in their hands, 7 to execute vengeance on the nations and punishment on the peoples, 8 to bind their kings with fetters and their nobles with chains of iron, 9 to execute on them the judgment decreed. This is glory for all his faithful ones. Praise the Lord! (NRSV) ¶This week, the word ‘humble’ caught my attention, since we don’t usually associated victory with humility. Humble folks are on the lower end of our social circles. We like humble folk, we enjoy their company, however we don’t see them as the kind of people who will win any great victory of any sort. Humble folk are just as likely to be the ones who do all the work so the more ambitious folk can take the credit. In most cases, the humble people are content to know that they did the hard work, and ‘Whew, someone else gets to give all the talks and speeches on the results. ‘ ¶According to the psalmist, all of the faithful exult in the glory of the victory God gives the humble. Everyone can be a part of the whooping and hollering of the victory celebration, including waving their two-edged swords in the air. They may have used those swords in battle, but for sure they get to wave them around as if they won the battle completely on their own. Once again, the chances are good that the humble did the hard work behind the scenes and are too exhausted to do much celebrating. ¶We are overjoyed to celebrate a victory. And we like to have a name and face that gives focus to our celebration. It is important to recognize that these victories are not the work of one person. John Glenn was the first person to orbit the earth in a space capsule, and we celebrated him and his historic accomplishment. He did not orbit the earth on his own. There were scientists, mathematicians, engineers, maintenance people, and others contributing their knowledge, skills, expertise, and luck to the project. While it is easy to celebrate one person’s victory, it is just as important to remember the folks who made that one moment possible. ¶December 30, 2021 ¶LCM lcrsmanifold@att.net http://psalmmeditations.blogspot.com/

Psalm Meditation 1123 ¶First Sunday After Christmas ¶December 26, 2021 ¶Psalm 49 1 Hear this, all you peoples; give ear, all inhabitants of the world, 2 both low and high, rich and poor together. 3 My mouth shall speak wisdom; the meditation of my heart shall be understanding. 4 I will incline my ear to a proverb; I will solve my riddle to the music of the harp. 5 Why should I fear in times of trouble, when the iniquity of my persecutors surrounds me, 6 those who trust in their wealth and boast of the abundance of their riches? 7 Truly, no ransom avails for one’s life, there is no price one can give to God for it. 8 For the ransom of life is costly, and can never suffice, 9 that one should live on forever and never see the grave. 10 When we look at the wise, they die; fool and dolt perish together and leave their wealth to others. 11 Their graves are their homes forever, their dwelling places to all generations, though they named lands their own. 12 Mortals cannot abide in their pomp; they are like the animals that perish. 13 Such is the fate of the foolhardy, the end of those who are pleased with their lot. Selah 14 Like sheep they are appointed for Sheol; Death shall be their shepherd; straight to the grave they descend, and their form shall waste away; Sheol shall be their home. 15 But God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol, for he will receive me. Selah 16 Do not be afraid when some become rich, when the wealth of their houses increases. 17 For when they die they will carry nothing away; their wealth will not go down after them. 18 Though in their lifetime they count themselves happy—for you are praised when you do well for yourself— 19 they will go to the company of their ancestors, who will never again see the light. 20 Mortals cannot abide in their pomp; they are like the animals that perish. (NRSV) ¶When athletes make millions of dollars, there are folks who say that no one is worth that kind of money to play a game. When business people make billions of dollars running a company, there are folks who say that it is shameful to make that kind of money. Other folks believe that at least one of these types of wealth is justified. I find myself in the ’if someone is willing to pay that much, that is the justification for the pay scale. Are we envious of the skill that commands that kind of money, or do we echo Luke 26: 8-9, “Why this waste? For this ointment [salary] could have been sold for a large sum, and the money given to the poor.” ¶Many of those who earn or win large amounts of money end up with even less than they had at the beginning within five years after their windfall comes to an end. In the event that one has the wherewithal to have money left to pass on the heirs, they will often use it as if it is an eternal fountain of cash without doing anything to replenish the funds and will be penniless soon. The psalmist joins in this chorus, reminding us that no matter how much money there is, it does no good after a person dies. They are neither rich nor powerful in death. If they were generous in life, we may remember them a little longer than those who were not, but not forever. ¶The psalmist lets us know that it is better to depend on God than on riches in this life so that we have a life far into the future in the presence of God. Money, influence and power are nice in this life, however they will not buy us a future of any consequence. Better to practice kindness, work for justice, and build a relationship with God. “God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol, for he will receive me.” ¶December 20, 2021 ¶LCM