Psalm Meditation 1026
Sixth Sunday After Epiphany
February 16, 2020

Psalm 108
1 My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast; I will sing and make melody. Awake, my soul!
2 Awake, O harp and lyre! I will awake the dawn.
3 I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples, and I will sing praises to you among the nations.
4 For your steadfast love is higher than the heavens, and your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.
5 Be exalted, O God, above the heavens, and let your glory be over all the earth.
6 Give victory with your right hand, and answer me, so that those whom you love may be rescued.
7 God has promised in his sanctuary: “With exultation I will divide up Shechem, and portion out the Vale of Succoth.
8 Gilead is mine; Manasseh is mine; Ephraim is my helmet; Judah is my scepter.
9 Moab is my washbasin; on Edom I hurl my shoe; over Philistia I shout in triumph.”
10 Who will bring me to the fortified city? Who will lead me to Edom?
11 Have you not rejected us, O God? You do not go out, O God, with our armies.
12 O grant us help against the foe, for human help is worthless.
13 With God we shall do valiantly; it is he who will tread down our foes.
(NRSV)

It can be easier to be hopeful in public that it is when we are alone. In a group we are buoyed up by the enthusiasm of the crowd, by the confidence that comes from being together. One person’s enthusiasm becomes contagious and we all get caught up in the anticipation of good things that are on the way. Good things from the past spark our hopes for the present and future and in that crowd and that moment we know that we can do anything together, because God is with us.

Once the crowd has disbursed our doubts creep in, the questions that were drowned out by the cheers of the crowd can be heard in the quiet of our aloneness. We doubt ourselves, we doubt God, we question the loyalty of all those people with whom we shared chants of victory mere moments ago. Every doubt and insecurity we have ever had creeps in to let us know that our confidence is ill founded. The dread of abandonment overwhelms us. We can’t even feel the presence of God.

Both of these are real and have a spark of truth in them. It is helpful to have the doubts and questions as those help us answer the fears and doubts of those around us. It is helpful to have faith in God and in the people around us. One side of this conflict is going to win out over the other. If we trust our fears and doubts we can talk ourselves out of any victory. On one hand our fears and doubts can convince us that God is not willing or able to keep promises, even if we could have listed kept promises in a recent clear moment. On the other hand we can see God at work in our lives and realize that with God in our hearts there is no such thing as defeat. We will be victorious in the worldly sense, knowing that God is with us, or we will be defeated by most estimations, but we will be in the presence of God. We can trust our fears, but we get more out of life when we trust our faith.

February 10, 2020
LCM lcrsmanifold@att.net
http://psalmmeditations.blogspot.com/