Psalm Meditation 743
Fourteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time
September 14, 2014

Psalm 90
1 Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.
2 Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
3 You turn us back to dust, and say, “Turn back, you mortals.”
4 For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past, or like a watch in the night.
5 You sweep them away; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning;
6 in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers.
7 For we are consumed by your anger; by your wrath we are overwhelmed.
8 You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your countenance.
9 For all our days pass away under your wrath; our years come to an end like a sigh.
10 The days of our life are seventy years, or perhaps eighty, if we are strong;
even then their span is only toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.
11 Who considers the power of your anger? Your wrath is as great as the fear that is due you.
12 So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.
13 Turn, O LORD! How long? Have compassion on your servants!
14 Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
15 Make us glad as many days as you have afflicted us, and as many years as we have seen evil.
16 Let your work be manifest to your servants, and your glorious power to their children.
17 Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and prosper for us the work of our hands—O prosper the work of our hands!
(NRSV)

There is no way we can define who God is without using comparison. The only things to which we can compare God are things with which we are already familiar. For the psalmist, the most powerful person known would have been the king. Since the king was one to nurse grudges, to hold folks accountable for the smallest slight and to withhold favor for the littlest of reasons, there was no reason to think that God would treat us any other way. It is easy to imagine God sitting at a table with papers scattered across it, each one a catalog of the sins of a person or group who needed to be taught a lesson.

God is seen as angry, wrathful and judgmental, needing to be appeased for each little sin we have committed. When wars and disasters eat away at our population we assume that God is angry and that we need to do something to get back in God’s good graces. When we don’t figure out the right things to do to get back into God’s good graces, the anger hangs over us until we die. At worst it can even mean that a whole people dies out due to God’s wrathful vengeance.

At some point, it dawned on people that God is not as mean spirited as kings can be. Someone noticed that while a king would have had everyone killed, God continues to be present with us. Perhaps the love of God is even more steadfast than we can imagine. Perhaps God loves us more deeply than we can comprehend. Perhaps God can be angry with us because of the deep and abiding love God has for us. While there are still folks who believe that misfortune and calamity are caused by God there are many more who believe that in the midst of every part of life, good and bad, God is with us, loving us with a depth and breadth beyond our ability to comprehend.

September 8, 2014
LCM