Psalm Meditation 800
Twenty-first Sunday of Ordinary Time
October 18, 2015

Psalm 70
1 Be pleased, O God, to deliver me. O LORD, make haste to help me!
2 Let those be put to shame and confusion who seek my life. Let those be turned back and brought to dishonor who desire to hurt me.
3 Let those who say, “Aha, Aha!” turn back because of their shame.
4 Let all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you. Let those who love your salvation say evermore, “God is great!”
5 But I am poor and needy; hasten to me, O God! You are my help and my deliverer; O LORD, do not delay!
(NRSV)

Being one of the low folks in the pecking order of a group can be a problem. It leads to being picked on and taken advantage of as a daily circumstance. The consolation is that one is still a member of the group. When an outside threat arises there are at least some members of the group who will come to the defense of anyone who is part of the group. It may not be the alpha members, however, someone will stand with any member of ‘our’ people.

Social groups do not confine themselves to picking on and taking advantage of their own, they branch out to pick on folks of other folks of lower standing then the omega member of their own group. The higher the social standing of this group the more likely at least one member of the group will reach down to pick on someone from another grouping. The greater the social distance between the groups the more likely the interactions will be dangerously abusive as the abuser discounts the personhood of the one being abused.

God does not reach down to rescue folks from the abuse; a relationship with God gives a person of even the lowest social standing a sense of worth as a child of God. When we feel loved and cared for by God and the community of God’s people we are better able to withstand the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” to use Shakespeare’s phrasing. As people of God those who heap us with abuse do not get the last word. We may be hurt, even killed and we will remain in the presence of God as a person of sacred worth.

October 12, 2015
LCM