Psalm Meditation 757
Fourth Sunday of Advent
December 21, 2014

Psalm 113
1 Praise the LORD! Praise, O servants of the LORD; praise the name of the LORD.
2 Blessed be the name of the LORD from this time on and forevermore.
3 From the rising of the sun to its setting the name of the LORD is to be praised.
4 The LORD is high above all nations, and his glory above the heavens.
5 Who is like the LORD our God, who is seated on high,
6 who looks far down on the heavens and the earth?
7 He raises the poor from the dust, and lifts the needy from the ash heap,
8 to make them sit with princes, with the princes of his people.
9 He gives the barren woman a home, making her the joyous mother of children. Praise the LORD!
(NRSV)

We want to believe that the rich are rich because they deserve it and the poor are poor for the same reason. Some exceptions to this are, if our status changes from rich to poor and if the status of someone we don’t like goes from poor to rich. In that case we are aware that there are outside forces at work in society that have caused this change in economic status. It doesn’t have to be a drastic change, it just has to go the ‘wrong’ way. The events the psalmist envisions would be unnerving to many of us.

It is often the case that the activity of God is unsettling to those of us who say we live by some code of fairness. In one code of fairness hard work leads to great success and riches and laziness leads to destruction and poverty. There are hard working folks in every economic strata and lazy folks right next to them. Fairness is probably not an indicator of the future. The good thing in this psalm is that God raises the poor to sit with princes rather than bringing the rich down to the sit among the poor. In the economy of God, there will be no poverty.

In a culture in which a woman’s sense of meaningfulness was based in her ability to bear and raise children, the psalmist does not leave out women from the society of those who praise and bless God. While our definition of the ideal society may have changed, we continue to know that God is an important part of an excellent life for people of God. To live in the presence of God is to have enough and, at least, a little extra. To live in the presence of God is to have a life of meaning, however one may define it. To live in the presence of God, as women and men of God, is to find times, places and ways to praise and bless God.

December 15, 2014
LCM