Psalm Meditation 1187 ¶Fourth Sunday in Lent ¶March 19, 2023 ¶Psalm 47 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=psalm+47&version=NRSVUE (NRSV) ¶We like to think of God as a powerful warlord who destroys adversaries with a blast of weaponry that wipes them out entirely. We want to know that when God finishes with the people who oppose us there will be no trace left of them and we can take over the spaces previously occupied by ‘those people,’ who had always been the bad guys to our good guys. We relish the idea of lording it over them as they were happy to do to us before God stepped in and changed the course of history to run in our favor. ¶Our experience is the opposite. God is more likely to achieve victory over adversaries by winning them over as friends. Rather than allowing us to dance on the graves of the bad guys, God reminds us that we too are guilty of some of the same sins we see in our foes. God would much rather we find the positives in each other than harp on the bad and troubling things ‘those people’ are always doing to us and our people. ¶There will always be people like the psalmist, who see God as one who rules with an iron fist and follows strict and stringent rules. Folks who have the goal in life to be in charge of a large group of people will tell us that the way of God is to take charge over people. Those whose goal is to serve others in ways that bring them to God are more likely to see God as the champion of the poor and downtrodden. These folks will lead with humility rather than by force. ¶March 13, 2023 ¶LCM