Psalm Meditation 1182 ¶Sixth Sunday After the Epiphany ¶February 12, 2023 ¶Psalm 48 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=psalm+48&version=NRSVUE (NRSV) ¶Verse 9 jumps out for me today. God’s love has been a theme in my reading and thinking recently, so “We ponder your steadfast love, O God, in the midst of your temple.” captures my psyche today. A one word definition of steadfast is ‘unwavering.’ Our puritanical roots would have us believe, in the words of a Jonathan Edwards sermon, ‘Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,’ “God is hanging you like a spider over the pits of Hell…” It is so deeply ingrained in us that we have trouble believing anything other than that God is angrily watching and waiting for us to sin so that we can be punished. ¶What if God actually loves us gently and unwaveringly, more intent on teaching, leading, and loving us rather than punishing us? The God of steadfast love wants to cradle and comfort us in times of our biggest and most shame-filled errors and realizations. God wants us to know that we are neither the first nor the last to make this mistake, or to be this kind of person, and that we are loved for who we are rather than in spite of who we are. What difference would it make in the way we treat ourselves, and others, to know that we are loved by God no matter what. ¶Ponder how our lives would be radically different if we knew deep down that the love of God is a gift rather than something we earn by our thoughts, words, and deeds. And what if God did not intend for each of us to fit into the same mold, rather that we are made to be parts of a jigsaw puzzle that fit together to make a picture of our little piece of creation. “...tell the next generation that this is God, our God forever and ever.” ¶February 6, 2023 ¶LCM