Psalm Meditation 863
Second Sunday of Christmas
January 1, 2016

Psalm 139
1 O LORD, you have searched me and known me.
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away.
3 You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue, O LORD, you know it completely.
5 You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it.
7 Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
9 If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,”
12 even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you.
13 For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.
17 How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!
18 I try to count them—they are more than the sand; I come to the end—I am still with you.
19 O that you would kill the wicked, O God, and that the bloodthirsty would depart from me—
20 those who speak of you maliciously, and lift themselves up against you for evil!
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
22 I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies.
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts.
24 See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
(NRSV)

Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone in the world was like you, me, and Mary Poppins, “practically perfect in every way.” Life would be so much easier if it weren’t for all those pesky ‘others’ who do terrible things like disagree with us and cause us all manner of discomfort as we attempt to reconcile their humanity and condition as a child of God with the fact that they are wrong. It is as if there might be alternative routes to God and the fulfilling of God’s will in our lives. And it is likely true that you and I disagree on something that is important to at least one of us, ruining the vision of perfection with which we started.

I like the idea of our religious journey being like a bicycle wheel. The spokes come in from points all over the outer rim to the center hub. While we appear to be heading in different directions our goal is the same. Imagine a bicycle wheel with only one spoke to see what a problem it is for us all to be on the same path. As annoying as they can be, we need those who are traveling other routes to support us in our journey to the center point of God’s abiding presence.

We may not be at war with all those whose camps face ours. And our fight may not be with those against whom we are now fighting. It may be that our battle imagery is completely off course. What if our task is to learn from those with whom we disagree rather than to annihilate them with our weapons and tactics, our words and actions.

December 27, 2016
LCM