Psalm Meditation 1181 ¶Fifth Sunday After the Epiphany ¶February 5, 2023 ¶Psalm 41 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=psalm+41&version=NRSVUE (NRSV) ¶Have you ever gone to visit someone as a sympathetic listener only to go out and tell everyone all that you have just heard in confidence? Or have you ever had someone act as the sympathetic listener for you so that they can spread that information to their network? If both have happened I will hazard a guess that you remember the second as more deeply painful than the first. We can justify the breaking of received confidences with the most trivial of rationalizations. However, having our own secrets scattered about like feathers in the wind is quite memorable. ¶God is called upon to forgive the psalmist, who is very aware of the need to be forgiven. In a time in which illness is equated with sinfulness, it seems obvious that the psalmist is in need of forgiveness in order to bring about healing. There are those waiting impatiently for the psalmist’s death. They may be waiting for some kind of inheritance, or they could be waiting for the satisfaction of knowing that they have outlived an enemy. Either way, the psalmist is hoping to recover to spite those enemies at the very least. ¶Gossip, at its worst, is telling stories, that may or may not be true, in order to put someone in a bad light among the hearers. The psalmist has been the object of this kind of gossip and has grown weary of it. Owing to the ongoing and ever improving health, it is obvious that the psalmist has found favor with God and is not likely to die as quickly as so many seem to hope. To be in the presence of God helps us to rise above this worst type of gossip as object or perpetrator of these tales. ¶January 30, 2023 ¶LCM