Psalm Meditation 999
Proper 14
August 11, 2019

Psalm 53
1 Fools say in their hearts, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they commit abominable acts; there is no one who does good.
2 God looks down from heaven on humankind to see if there are any who are wise, who seek after God.
3 They have all fallen away, they are all alike perverse; there is no one who does good, no, not one.
4 Have they no knowledge, those evildoers, who eat up my people as they eat bread, and do not call upon God?
5 There they shall be in great terror, in terror such as has not been. For God will scatter the bones of the ungodly; they will be put to shame, for God has rejected them.
6 O that deliverance for Israel would come from Zion! When God restores the fortunes of his people, Jacob will rejoice; Israel will be glad.
(NRSV)

I hope I am not the only one who has ever looked down my nose at all the other people in a group, knowing that I am better at our task than any of them. After a suitable time I realize that I have so much to learn from each of the folks around me. And it finally sinks in that the people who at the top of their game in any subject are the ones who know there is something to learn from each person. Those of us who think we know everything already are simply unaware of how much there is to learn.

It seems that the psalmist may be guilty of being the only one who is pure enough to see God at work in the world. It would be good if the psalmist was willing to be counted among those who have fallen away, however the reference is to ‘they’ rather than ‘we.’ In truth, we are counted among the fallen, the perverse, the evildoers. We are guilty of being less than we aim toward, guilty of failing to live up to our own expectations, let alone those of God. For each of us to stand apart from everyone else, to stand in judgment against everyone else is the height of arrogance, bordering on idolatry.

When we set ourselves in a position to act in the place of God, we lose sight of ourselves. It is when we see ourselves as impossibly lost without the intervention of God that we become open to the salvation and deliverance that God is ready and willing to offer to us. When we see ourselves as dependent on God’s grace and mercy we can begin to seek after God.

August 7, 2019
LCM