Psalm Meditation 983
Easter
April 21, 2019

Psalm 1
1 Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers;
2 but their delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law they meditate day and night.
3 They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither. In all that they do, they prosper.
4 The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away.
5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
6 for the LORD watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.
(NRSV)

It seems that we spend a lot more time and energy defining our enemies and adversaries these days. It is much easier to state who and what we oppose than it is to define what we believe and who we support. It is nothing new. From the Garden of Eden to the current arguments of religion and politics we find ourselves ready to be swayed by those who play on our doubts and fears to achieve their goals. As long as someone is ‘other’ there will be someone willing to tell us why it is important to be angry about their beliefs and actions and afraid that ‘those people’ are out to take the world as we know it in a different direction.

This psalmist breaks the pattern. The psalm begins and ends with what is good and right about God and the world. The first verse is framed in the negative, though it is about those who lean in the direction of God. The next few lines tell us good things about those who pay attention to God. There are a couple of lines that remind us that ‘the wicked’ have no visible means of support in God’s creation and ends with a comparison between the righteous and the wicked. There is a little more about what it means to be on the side of God than what it means to stand somewhere besides God’s presence.

We will continue to find it quicker and easier to see what is wrong with the world and many of the people who live in it. The psalmist gives us another option: we can look to God to find what is right with the world and those who live in it. God made all that is and saw that it was good, except for people. At the end of people day God looked around and saw that it was very good. We may have mucked it up a bit, however the hand of God abides in creation and the goodness and righteousness remains at the core of it all.

April 15, 2019
LCM