Psalm Meditation 1139 ¶Easter ¶April 17, 2022 ¶Psalm 5 1 Give ear to my words, O LORD; give heed to my sighing. 2 Listen to the sound of my cry, my King and my God, for to you I pray. 3 O LORD, in the morning you hear my voice; in the morning I plead my case to you, and watch. 4 For you are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil will not sojourn with you. 5 The boastful will not stand before your eyes; you hate all evildoers. 6 You destroy those who speak lies; the LORD abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful. 7 But I, through the abundance of your steadfast love, will enter your house, I will bow down toward your holy temple in awe of you. 8 Lead me, O LORD, in your righteousness because of my enemies; make your way straight before me. 9 For there is no truth in their mouths; their hearts are destruction; their throats are open graves; they flatter with their tongues. 10 Make them bear their guilt, O God; let them fall by their own counsels; because of their many transgressions cast them out, for they have rebelled against you. 11 But let all who take refuge in you rejoice; let them ever sing for joy. Spread your protection over them, so that those who love your name may exult in you. 12 For you bless the righteous, O Lord; you cover them with favor as with a shield. (NRSV) ¶The problem I see in this psalm, at least this time through, is the willingness of the psalmist to make righteousness a contest. ‘I am so much better than all of those other people because I depend on your righteousness and all of those other folks depend on lies, destruction, and flattery.’ When I judge myself by my internal intentions and judge others by their actions I have set up a situation in which I win and you lose—every time. ¶That might be okay if God only listens to me and my opinions on who is evil and who is good. The difficulty is that God knows the heart of each of us, our intentions, rationalizations, and excuses for why I should have favored status with God while everyone else deserves harsh judgment. So, while I believe you deserve to be punished and I deserve leniency because my heart was right even though things didn’t work the way I wanted them to, you believe that you deserve credit for intention and I deserve punishment for my actions. ¶Perhaps each of us has missed something in the life and heart of the other. So, instead of making righteousness a contest, we each could concern ourselves with our own actions and intentions. In the event we are in a position to judge another we do well to do it with as much mercy and grace as we would hope to receive ourselves. “But let all who take refuge in you rejoice; let them ever sing for joy. Spread your protection over them, so that those who love your name may exult in you. For you bless the righteous, O Lord; you cover them with favor as with a shield.” ¶April 11, 2022 ¶LCM