Psalm Meditation 728
Seventh Sunday of Easter
June 1, 2014

Psalm 58
1 Do you indeed decree what is right, you gods? Do you judge people fairly?
2 No, in your hearts you devise wrongs; your hands deal out violence on earth.
3 The wicked go astray from the womb; they err from their birth, speaking lies.
4 They have venom like the venom of a serpent, like the deaf adder that stops its ear,
5 so that it does not hear the voice of charmers or of the cunning enchanter.
6 O God, break the teeth in their mouths; tear out the fangs of the young lions, O LORD!
7 Let them vanish like water that runs away; like grass let them be trodden down and wither.
8 Let them be like the snail that dissolves into slime; like the untimely birth that never sees the sun.
9 Sooner than your pots can feel the heat of thorns, whether green or ablaze, may he sweep them away!
10 The righteous will rejoice when they see vengeance done; they will bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked.
11 People will say, “Surely there is a reward for the righteous; surely there is a God who judges on earth.”
(NRSV)

Many of us have rich fantasy lives that include imagining terrible things happening to people who have done bad things to us. As the psalmist imagines a variety of injuries to this particular group of wicked folks, we too imagine injuries and death being heaped on those who have injured us in some devastating way. We rehearse a variety of scenarios that would satisfy our desire for revenge against those who have hurt us. We draw God into the revenge fest to relieve us of the guilt of actually carrying out these plans as well as to give us the assurance that we are in the right because God is acting on our behalf.

And while God claims the right of revenge it rarely happens the way it does in the movies. In the movies, the downtrodden hero spends time learning the skills that will be used to overcome the injuries suffered at the beginning of the movie. We get to cheer the hero, imagine that we could do the same with our enemies and then go home to the reality that evil seems to go unchecked in a variety of forms, including physical, emotional and spiritual. God is not in the habit of rising up to do the things we imagine being done to those who perpetuate violence and evil in the world.

God is aware that we do not bring an end to violence and evil by acts of violence and evil. While there may well be some satisfaction in imagining violent things happening to those who have done us wrong, God offers a different set of rewards. The reward for the righteous is not in exacting revenge. The reward of the righteous is having an awareness of being in the presence of God. Righteousness becomes its own reward. There won’t be room for rejoicing over the injury or death of anyone, including those who have done us wrong.

May 26, 2014