Psalm Meditation 966
Fourth Sunday of Advent
December 23, 2018

Psalm 96
1 O sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD, all the earth.
2 Sing to the LORD, bless his name; tell of his salvation from day to day.
3 Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples.
4 For great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised; he is to be revered above all gods.
5 For all the gods of the peoples are idols, but the LORD made the heavens.
6 Honor and majesty are before him; strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.
7 Ascribe to the LORD, O families of the peoples, ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.
8 Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name; bring an offering, and come into his courts.
9 Worship the LORD in holy splendor; tremble before him, all the earth.
10 Say among the nations, “The LORD is king! The world is firmly established; it shall never be moved. He will judge the peoples with equity.”
11 Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
12 let the field exult, and everything in it. Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy
13 before the LORD; for he is coming, for he is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with his truth.
(NRSV)

Children make a lot of their activities into races and contests, each vying to be the fastest, strongest, smartest, biggest; each vying to be the winner. One of my brothers told about playing cards with a child. The game this child wanted to play was ‘cards.’ When my brother asked about the rules of the game, he was given a set of rules. As the game progressed those rules changed repeatedly, making it more likely that the child making the rules would win. Children love to play, and they really love to win.

Children are not the only ones who change and rig the rules to make it easier for ‘us’ to win. One of the ways to make winning easier is make ‘them’ seem like bad people, or better yet, into sub-human species that make them easier to manipulate, oppress, and destroy. We tell stories about them that have just enough truth in them to make them believable, especially since we want to see ‘them’ in the worst light anyway. We do this with games, wars, wealth, and religion. We convince ourselves that ‘those’ people worship idols, while ‘we’ worship the one true God.

It is entirely possible that each group is given a different view of the one true God in hopes that we will one day be able to put together a more complete picture of who God is, what it takes to worship, and what it means to worship and serve. When we draw battle lines, we miss out on the richness of human experience including the experience of God. Perhaps God intends that we talk to each other, learn from each other, find some ways to live and serve together for a common good, a way that emphasizes cooperation as more impressive than winning.

December 17, 2018
LCM