Psalm Meditation 1151 ¶Proper 10 ¶July 10, 2022 ¶Psalm 12 1 Help, O LORD, for there is no longer anyone who is godly; the faithful have disappeared from humankind. 2 They utter lies to each other; with flattering lips and a deceitful heart they speak. 3 May the LORD cut off all flattering lips, the tongue that makes great boasts, 4 those who say, “With our tongues we will prevail; our lips are our own—who is our master?” 5 “Because the poor are despoiled, because the needy groan, I will now rise up,” says the LORD; “I will place them in the safety for which they long.” 6 The promises of the LORD are promises that are pure, silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified seven times. 7 You, O LORD, will protect us; you will guard us from this generation forever. 8 On every side the wicked prowl, as vileness is exalted among humankind. (NRSV) ¶I take a cold comfort in realizing that this psalm is thousands of years old, and we have yet to be overrun by evil people, even when it feels as if we have been. I have a strong memory of my dad, in one of his sermons, quoting Socrates, “The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.” Both of these remind us that, though we feel as if we are living in the worst of times, we probably are not. ¶We do need to take evil seriously as it continually sprouts and festers among us, including in each one of us. People continue to lie, flatter, and say and do things for personal advantage with no thought to those outside the personal ‘in group.’ And while it is easy and tempting to see, to judge, the evil in others, we really can’t change their behavior. The ones we can change are ourselves. Rather than judging others from the outside, we do well to deal with ourselves from the inside. ¶In all of this, God will always be on the side of the poor and needy, the oppressed and downtrodden. While we like to put ourselves in that position, so that we have favored status with God, the truth is that many reading, and certainly the one writing, this are guilty of despoiling the poor, keeping the needy in want, and participating in the oppression of others. Because God looks out for those who cannot take care of themselves, we do well to be ready to receive discipline, to learn new ways of living in the world, so that we can join God in keeping folks safe, and free, from oppression. ¶July 4, 2022 ¶LCM