Psalm Meditation 1369 ¶Proper 19 ¶September 13, 2026 ¶Psalm 85 ¶https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2085&version=NRSVUE ¶We like the idea of God being in charge of our lives because it takes a lot of the responsibility away from us. When things are going well, it must be because God is pleased with us. Good things are happening, so God must be happy with us. When that changes, we see God as disappointed about something we have done, said, or thought. In the psalmist’s time, it was not so much about individual behavior as it was the nation as a whole. Since things that were going well have started to disintegrate, it is time to ask God to look on us with favor once again. ¶‘Yes, we may not have been on our best behavior, however it is God who has turned our world upside down in retaliation. Other nations are doing stupid, selfish things and getting away with them, so why do we have to be punished for being like everyone else?’ God is not one who reacts according to our behavior; God acts out of love for us and faithfulness to us. When we feel as if God has turned against us, it is often because we have put up a barrier to God’s activity in our lives. ¶We do well to remember that God is always with us, offering us peace and salvation. All we have to do is open our hands and hearts to receive it. We will continue to come face to face with adversity, and we will continue to be in the presence of God, who loves us beyond measure. “Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other. Faithfulness will spring up from the ground, and righteousness will look down from the sky.” ¶September 7, 2026 ¶LCM

Psalm Meditation 1368 ¶Proper 18 ¶September 6, 2026 ¶Psalm 96 ¶https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2096&version=NRSVUE ¶Ask a group of pre-school children, ‘How many of you can sing?’ and all of their hands will go up. The same with dancing, drawing, and any number of arts and crafts. As they get older and people around them judge the quality of their work, they begin to question their abilities and stop practicing the ones in which those judges found them to be less than skilled. There are people with beautiful voices who were told not to sing so they don’t, as well as people who need a bucket to carry a tune, who sing anyway. ¶The psalmist does not put a caveat in the psalm; the invitation is to sing. There is nothing about full volume, or a whispered song; the invitation is to sing. Sing in your best voice, recognizing that there may be a difference between your best and the best. Most importantly, the focus is not on you and your voice, the focus is on God. God has done wonderful things that, once we have noticed do well to be lifted up in thanks with praise. Does God need our praise? No. None of us needs to be praised, however it does give us a boost to be noticed and thanked for what we do. ¶Stay focused on God. The more we lift our hearts and voices in praise and thanksgiving, the more we notice, and the more thankful we can be. Our thankfulness will lead us to join the psalmist in lifting our hearts and voices in thankful song. “Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; let the sea roar and all that fills it; let the field exult and everything in it.” ¶August 31, 2026 ¶LCM

Psalm Meditation 1367 Proper 17 August 30, 2026 Psalm 93 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2093&version=NRSVUE If you say a word or phrase that is remotely similar to a song or poem that I know, I will break into song or recite the relevant snippet of that poem, It will be brief, may or may not be loud, and may annoy folks for whom that is not normal practice. Some people can come up with an original song or poem with the same amount of prompting. It isn’t something that anyone plans to do, it is a spontaneous reaction to what is going on around them and within them. This brief psalm may well be one of those kinds of poems. Seeing the waves crashing on a shoreline, perhaps with a bit more ferocity than usual, leads the psalmist to be reminded of the power of God at work in the world. Those same waves don’t hold a candle to the full majesty of God’s presence in the world. The psalmist celebrates that God is a present and able ruler in the world, capable of stirring up waves with their accompanying thunderous crashes. Whether you are one who breaks into song, breaks out a poem, or one who wonders what possesses a person to do such a thing, may you see that God is filled with loving holiness for all of creation, including each one of us. “Your decrees are very sure; holiness befits your house, O Lord, forevermore.” August 24, 2026 LCM

Psalm Meditation 1366 ¶Proper 16 ¶August 23, 2026 ¶Psalm 90 ¶https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=psalm%2090&version=NRSVUE ¶At least once in my life, my dad asked me to come up with my own punishment for a fairly serious misdeed on my part. I came up with what seemed a suitably harsh set of sanctions. Almost immediately, he rejected my plan and went on about his day. I, on the other hand, was left to fret over what other options there might be. It turns out that the only repercussions were the ones I placed on myself. Since I remember our exchange all these years later I am thinking that having me imagine a set of punishments only to be forgiven was much more effective than if I had actually had to do the things I thought seemed appropriate. ¶My guess is that the psalmist is dealing with a similar scenario between the nation and God. The people were aware that they had done something that required punishment, so they began to see everything through the filter of their own assumption of impending punishment. When anything happened that fit their idea of punishment, they received it as coming from God. After awhile they began to pray that God would once again treat them kindly and lovingly. ¶Since we can be vindictive and mean spirited, we tend to see God that way as well. Even though God spends a lot more energy telling us how loved we are, we tend to see God in the light of our expectation of punishment for any misdeed, be it big or small. So, God lets us stew in our own vindictiveness, even when it is directed at ourselves, until we are ready to be loved and cherished again. “Turn, O Lord! How long? Have compassion on your servants! Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.” ¶August 17, 2026 ¶LCM

Psalm Meditation 1365 ¶Proper 15 ¶August 16, 2026 ¶Psalm 73 ¶https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=psalm%2073&version=NRSVUE ¶In the biblical era, resources that indicated wealth were considered to be very limited. Due to those limits, the only way someone could be rich was by taking resources from someone else. For every rich person, there would be a large number of poor people. Being rich was synonymous with being wicked and arrogant. Even knowing that, it is tempting to want to be one of the rich folks. From the perspective of those in poverty, the rich seem to be trouble free. They are healthy, happy, well fed – totally trouble free. ¶Many of us are aware that, while the rich ‘are not in trouble as others are’ they have their own set of worries. Wealth can disappear much more quickly and easily than it can be made, so one of the plagues of wealth is fear; fear that it will all be lost or taken by those around them. Everyone becomes a potential adversary, a threat to wealth and to life itself. The fear can be lived out as arrogance, convincing themselves, and those around them, that they are the most important part of the universe. It can also be expressed in reclusive miserliness. ¶The psalmist realizes that something more important than material wealth is a rich relationship with God, and the people of God. Relationships give us the ability to see those around us as people with needs as well as resources. We can use our gifts for the sake of the community, as we call on the gifts of the community to meet our needs. ¶August 10, 2026 ¶LCM lcmanifold@gmail.com http://psalmmeditations.blogspot.com/

Psalm Meditation 1364 ¶Proper 14 ¶August 9, 2026 ¶Psalm 76 ¶https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=psalm%2076&version=NRSVUE ¶We tend to be quick to give God credit for the big things, and some of the small things we specifically asked for, like national victories, protections of family and neighborhood during various storms, and the return to health of a local or national figure. A sunrise over the ocean can bring gasps of praise from those of us who do not live near the ocean, even though those who live on beach front properties are just as likely to sleep through the sunrise as the rest of us when we are in our familiar spaces. ¶The little things like growing grass, dropping leaves, or pesky bugs that feed some of our favorite birds and critters are not usual subjects of our praise to God. If we stop to consider, we know that God is at work in these little things and we will give a heartfelt thanks for the daily blessings that are a part of God’s providence among us. As we take that moment to consider, we will remember that God is indeed awesome, and we are fortunate to realize that God is an active participant in our daily lives, watching over us with steadfast love and care. ¶The psalmist praises God for a big event in the life of the community, which is a great thing to do. While we read this we can also be grateful for the little, often unnoticed places in which God is active in and around us. ¶August 3, 2026 ¶LCM

Psalm Meditation 1363 ¶Proper Thirteen ¶August 2, 2026 ¶Psalm 80 ¶https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=psalm%2080&version=NRSVUE ¶The past seems to have been so much better than the present. Everything was good back then; people cared about quality over profit, food was tastier, children were all good and respectful of their elders, and money went farther and lasted longer than it does now. It isn’t true, of course. We simply idealize the past because we are not living in it. If we lived through the times we are longing for now, we are leaving out some of the rough spots, either because others protected us from them or we blocked them out as painful or traumatic. ¶The psalmist is voicing the hurt of the nation and using the past as an indicator of what the world ‘should’ be because that is the way we have chosen to remember it. God did bring a vine out of Egypt and planted it, and we remember that God did all the heavy lifting of driving out all of ‘those’ people who had usurped ‘our’ land in the several generations we were exiled in Egypt. And not that things have gotten hard for us again, we long for the past we have in our idealized memory. The ideal and the reality are rarely the same. What we think we remember and long for, is imperfect and much more difficult than we care to admit. ¶Yet, we can wholeheartedly join the psalmist in asking God to do what God is already actively doing – to be with us. The request we would do better to make is that we be open to seeing the ways that God is with us in this and every time. We can pray that God ‘restore’ us to the future that can be rather than to a past that is nowhere near as good as the one anyone remembers. “Restore us, O Lord God of hosts; let your face shine, that we may be saved.” ¶July 27, 2026 ¶LCM