Psalm Meditation 1141 ¶Third Sunday of Easter ¶May 1, 2022 ¶Psalm 14 1 Fools say in their hearts, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds; there is no one who does good. 2 The LORD looks down from heaven on humankind to see if there are any who are wise, who seek after God. 3 They have all gone astray, they are all alike perverse; there is no one who does good, no, not one. 4 Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers who eat up my people as they eat bread, and do not call upon the LORD? 5 There they shall be in great terror, for God is with the company of the righteous. 6 You would confound the plans of the poor, but the LORD is their refuge. 7 O that deliverance for Israel would come from Zion! When the LORD restores the fortunes of his people, Jacob will rejoice; Israel will be glad. (NRSV) ¶In Hebrew, the meaning of the word ‘fool’ means more than the English, ‘stupid.’ It can also mean ‘wicked’ and the rest of the psalm points toward that meaning. And while we are at it, let’s say that YHWH is looking down on the fools in humankind rather than painting us all with the broad brush of doom and destruction. Though we tend to look at everyone who is not ‘us’ as evil and God forsaken, God is not as exclusionary as we can be. ¶These fools are likely those who make God in their own image, who justify all of their ideas and actions as being in line with the will of God. “Do you want to exclude and demonize a group of people, even rationalize their death and destruction? Boy, do we have the deity for you. We will continue to call this deity YHWH since we are already used to that name, And we will use that name to justify all sorts of evil against others to make ourselves more comfortable. We can even find a single verse in the Bible to show we have the right and responsibility to carry out our plans” ¶God has a soft spot for the poor. So if you are on the side of those who have the power to make the rules, it is important to make sure that as many as possible benefit from those rules. Sadly, many who make the rules are surrounded by those who benefit, and are blind to those who do not. Does this rule fit into the whole arc of God’s salvation history or did someone have to look a while to find that proof text for this rule? ¶April 25, 2022 ¶LCM