Psalm Meditation 1005
Proper 20
September 22, 2019

Psalm 54
1 Save me, O God, by your name, and vindicate me by your might.
2 Hear my prayer, O God; give ear to the words of my mouth.
3 For the insolent have risen against me, the ruthless seek my life; they do not set God before them. Selah
4 But surely, God is my helper; the Lord is the upholder of my life.
5 He will repay my enemies for their evil. In your faithfulness, put an end to them.
6 With a freewill offering I will sacrifice to you; I will give thanks to your name, O Lord, for it is good.
7 For he has delivered me from every trouble, and my eye has looked in triumph on my enemies.
(NRSV)

Some days there is nothing better than to stick your thumbs in your ears, stick out your tongue, and do a victory dance in the face of those who have been picking on you. It is especially rich if you can do all that right behind your protector, so only your adversary can see you. Even knowing that it may start the cycle all over again as soon as the protector walks away, it seems worth it for right now.

Unless that protector sees your victory dance and invites you into a conversation about being a gracious winner. At best, it will be a quiet invitation out of view and earshot of the recently vanquished adversary. At worst, you will be called out right there in front of those folks, giving them fresh fuel for the next fire. The conversation will remind you that victory dances and gloating are neither helpful nor healthy. Even the inner gloating that lays the hint of a smirk on your face is not the way to treat anyone.

The psalmist calls on God to be the protector, as in times past, to beat the enemy out of existence. While we may interpret the actions of God as wrathful and destructive, the true path of God is to find a way to draw all of us together so that we can enter the realm of God as brothers and sisters (who still have our share of disagreements) rather than as armed camps of ‘us’ against ‘them.’

September 16, 2019
LCM lcrsmanifold@att.net
http://psalmmeditations.blogspot.com/