Psalm Meditation 920
Fifth Sunday After the Epiphany
February 4, 2018

Psalm 130
1 Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD.
2 Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications!
3 If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand?
4 But there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be revered.
5 I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope;
6 my soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning, more than those who watch for the morning.
7 O Israel, hope in the LORD! For with the LORD there is steadfast love, and with him is great power to redeem.
8 It is he who will redeem Israel from all its iniquities.
(NRSV)

We humans can be pretty harsh with each other, especially when we disagree. We have the phrase, ‘There is a special place in Hell for …’ And that place is hotter, farther away from God, and reserved for people who annoy us. That special place in Hell is hardly ever for people like us, it is for ‘them.’ Part of the assumption in that phrase is that we are so in tune with what God wants from humans that it must be those who are not like us who are going to Hell to begin with, and the ones who upset us most are going to the hottest part of Hell.

What if, the people who upset us most are the ones who are most like that part of ourselves that we do our best to deny, ignore, and keep in shadows so deep we don’t see them ourselves? In that case, the folks we consign to the hottest parts of Hell will be those who are like that shadow part of us, so every time we point out their place in Hell we assign ourselves there as well. We miss our own place card at the table because we are looking at the blank side of our place card, having already taken our seat at the table.

Lucky for us, the psalmist reminds us, God is forgiving, loving, and redemptive. While we are quick to assign seats in Hell, God is too busy redeeming, loving, and forgiving each one of us to pay attention to the table assignments we make so judgmentally. The psalmist also has a point, that while our concern may be for the redemption and salvation of all those around us, the only one we can do the slightest thing about is our own.

January 29, 2018
LCM