Psalm Meditation 1032
Fifth Sunday in Lent
March 29, 2020

Psalm 109
1 Do not be silent, O God of my praise.
2 For wicked and deceitful mouths are opened against me, speaking against me with lying tongues.
3 They beset me with words of hate, and attack me without cause.
4 In return for my love they accuse me, even while I make prayer for them.
5 So they reward me evil for good, and hatred for my love.
6 They say, “Appoint a wicked man against him; let an accuser stand on his right.
7 When he is tried, let him be found guilty; let his prayer be counted as sin.
8 May his days be few; may another seize his position.
9 May his children be orphans, and his wife a widow.
10 May his children wander about and beg; may they be driven out of the ruins they inhabit.
11 May the creditor seize all that he has; may strangers plunder the fruits of his toil.
12 May there be no one to do him a kindness, nor anyone to pity his orphaned children.
13 May his posterity be cut off; may his name be blotted out in the second generation.
14 May the iniquity of his father be remembered before the Lord, and do not let the sin of his mother be blotted out.
15 Let them be before the Lord continually, and may his memory be cut off from the earth.
16 For he did not remember to show kindness, but pursued the poor and needy and the brokenhearted to their death.
17 He loved to curse; let curses come on him. He did not like blessing; may it be far from him.
18 He clothed himself with cursing as his coat, may it soak into his body like water, like oil into his bones.
19 May it be like a garment that he wraps around himself, like a belt that he wears every day.”
20 May that be the reward of my accusers from the Lord, of those who speak evil against my life.
21 But you, O Lord my Lord, act on my behalf for your name’s sake; because your steadfast love is good, deliver me.
22 For I am poor and needy, and my heart is pierced within me.
23 I am gone like a shadow at evening; I am shaken off like a locust.
24 My knees are weak through fasting; my body has become gaunt.
25 I am an object of scorn to my accusers; when they see me, they shake their heads.
26 Help me, O Lord my God! Save me according to your steadfast love.
27 Let them know that this is your hand; you, O Lord, have done it.
28 Let them curse, but you will bless. Let my assailants be put to shame; may your servant be glad.
29 May my accusers be clothed with dishonor; may they be wrapped in their own shame as in a mantle.
30 With my mouth I will give great thanks to the Lord; I will praise him in the midst of the throng.
31 For he stands at the right hand of the needy, to save them from those who would condemn them to death.
(NRSV)

When someone says bad things about us or condemns us to hell, our first reaction is to consign them to the same place. It may be for something we did to them, or they may have their own reasons for wishing us ill. For whatever reason, we are willing to trade insults and condemnation until one of us ‘wins’ and the other ‘loses.’ While the list of curses does not go back and forth between the two parties, the psalmist runs through the list of curses and prays that God will send those same curses onto those leveling charges against the psalmist.

Our inclination is to wish evil on those who wish evil on us. We do not spend much energy wanting to understand their point of view, we go right to blaming them as they have blamed us. ‘I can’t possibly be in the wrong, it must all be on your side of the equation.’ We lash out with the same intensity with which we have been attacked. If the offense is deep we will call on God to deliver us from this terrible person by intervening on our behalf, with destruction that will render that other person/group ineffective or totally nonexistent.

The psalmist deals with charges, curses, and insults in a typically human manner. It doesn’t really teach us anything while calling on God to retaliate against our accusers for our sake. God does not respond the way we ask. God has a way of letting us fight our own battles before teaching us that there are other ways to go about disagreements. “For he stands at the right hand of the needy, to save them from those who would condemn them to death.” even when we are not on the needy side.

March 23, 2020
LCM