Psalm Meditation 760
Baptism of the Lord
January 11, 2015

Psalm 14
1 Fools say in their hearts, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds; there is no one who does good.
2 The LORD looks down from heaven on humankind to see if there are any who are wise, who seek after God.
3 They have all gone astray, they are all alike perverse; there is no one who does good, no, not one.
4 Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers who eat up my people as they eat bread, and do not call upon the LORD?
5 There they shall be in great terror, for God is with the company of the righteous.
6 You would confound the plans of the poor, but the LORD is their refuge.
7 O that deliverance for Israel would come from Zion! When the LORD restores the fortunes of his people, Jacob will rejoice; Israel will be glad.
(NRSV)

Current thinking in some circles is that we somehow deserve our lot in life. If you are poor, you have done something to get yourself there. If you are rich you deserve to be rich. If you are somewhere in between you have done something to get yourself to where you are today. It falls to each of us to make our own economic way. This system works well when we are talking about ’you,’ someone other than ’me’ or ’us.’ Once we make the conversation personal we realize that there are factors that are out of our control. There are others whose concerns do not include our well-being, who nonetheless have some say over our economic status.

Looking up from the viewpoint of poverty we wish someone was there to give us something to grab so that we could pull ourselves out of the situation in which we find ourselves. We hear the words of Deuteronomy 15:11, “Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, “Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.” “ as a reminder to those who have stuff to share with those of us who are currently without. We don’t need to be coddled so much as assisted in some useful, helpful way.

The psalmist reminds us that the people of God look out for each other. We don’t blame or accuse those who have any more than we blame or accuse those who don’t. We recognize that God is not nearly as concerned with how much stuff we have, as with how we use what we do have. Do we use our resources to help those in need or do we use our stuff to feather our own nests? For the psalmist, the way to go is to help each other. We can open our hand to the poor so that folks will then help us in the event of a reversal of fortune, or we can open our hand because it is the right thing to do.

January 5, 2015
LCM