Psalm Meditation 1070 Fourth Sunday of Advent December 20, 2020 Psalm 140 1 Deliver me, O Lord, from evildoers; protect me from those who are violent, 2 who plan evil things in their minds and stir up wars continually. 3 They make their tongue sharp as a snake’s, and under their lips is the venom of vipers. Selah 4 Guard me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked; protect me from the violent who have planned my downfall. 5 The arrogant have hidden a trap for me, and with cords they have spread a net, along the road they have set snares for me. Selah 6 I say to the Lord, “You are my God; give ear, O Lord, to the voice of my supplications.” 7 O Lord, my Lord, my strong deliverer, you have covered my head in the day of battle. 8 Do not grant, O Lord, the desires of the wicked; do not further their evil plot. Selah 9 Those who surround me lift up their heads; let the mischief of their lips overwhelm them! 10 Let burning coals fall on them! Let them be flung into pits, no more to rise! 11 Do not let the slanderer be established in the land; let evil speedily hunt down the violent! 12 I know that the Lord maintains the cause of the needy, and executes justice for the poor. 13 Surely the righteous shall give thanks to your name; the upright shall live in your presence. (NRSV) Those who live and work in any sort of public sphere will live with criticism from those around us. Anything that we say or do will be open for comment from those who are in the room with us, to those who heard about it second hand, to those who simply want to jump in to a complaint fest. Some of the critiques are valid and will benefit us as we are able to address them for ourselves. Some are valid points of view in which we acknowledge our difference of opinion, learn to live with the differences, or part company in some way. Some are mean spirited and if we comply with their demands, the demands will change so that we are continually in the wrong. Prayer is a fitting response to any type of criticism. It opens us to the workings of God in our lives. Most of the time the transformation that takes place in prayer is not about what is going on outside us, the transformation is from within. When the criticism is valid we make the change because it makes sense to us to do so. Even the mean spirited, destructive complaints have the potential of teaching us how to move forward in our lives despite the intentions of the complainer. Whether burning coals fall on folks as they fall into pits filled with evil because of what they have said to us and about us, we can see their influence drop off in our lives. Even as the wounds and scars remain, the people who inflicted them will lose their power and influence over our lives. The other person will not have changed, it will be our attitude toward them that will have changed. In some cases those who have been a source of evil in our lives will meet a fate that falls in line with our fantasies and supplications lifted to God. Sometimes those folks will go through a conversion experience of their own, will ask our forgiveness for their previous behavior, and all will be well between us. Most of the time we will have a change of heart about them. We will see them in a new light that makes their attacks understandable by putting them into a perspective based on their life and experience. Our transformation is rarely instant, it takes weeks and maybe decades to nurture the change within ourselves without feeling beat down by our original perception of the complaint and the complainer. December 14, 2020 LCM