Psalm Meditation 805
Reign of Christ
November 22, 2015

Psalm 121
1 I lift up my eyes to the hills—from where will my help come?
2 My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.
3 He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber.
4 He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
5 The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade at your right hand.
6 The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.
7 The LORD will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.
8 The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore.
(NRSV)

Some days it would be great if God stood by us in some physical way, some way we could see and feel. As we stood against the evils of the world around us, we would know that God was on our side as real, tangible presence. With God right next to us we would know with assurance that we were among the ‘good guys’ doing the work of God in the world. We would also know that God would be there to back up any action we took and would protect us from the ‘bad guys’ we would have to confront in our battles.

The difficulty is that God does not pick sides in most of our arguments and disagreements. God does not join one side or the other so much as God works in us to move us to take the side of God on a daily basis. God is not in the business of beating people up, using force to get us to live the right way. God is love. As such, God leads us in the way of love through the example of a variety of people past and present. It is possible that God is embarrassed by some of our arguments since we continue to force our way into the hearts and minds of others, all in the name of the God of love.

Rather than looking to God to help us beat up our list of ‘bad guys’ perhaps we would serve God better by cultivating the love to which God calls us. Rather than name calling and attacking each other’s positions, we find and make ways to love each other with our similarities and differences intact. It is a difficult way to go and it takes much longer than using force to win the day. As people of God we do well to care less about winning as we spend more time following the lead of those who love.

November 16, 2015
LCM