Psalm Meditation 1252 ¶Proper 6 ¶June 16, 2024 ¶Psalm 106 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+106&version=NRSVUE (NRSVUE) ¶Some of the psalms, and this is one of them, serve to remind us that God loves us continually and steadfastly. God’s love is not given to us only when we are good and right, God loves us all the time. During the exodus from Egypt, God did not walk away from the people the first time they disobeyed or questioned God’s motives in bringing folks out into the desert. God stuck with this foolish and stiff necked people from generation to generation, despite their wandering away from God on a regular basis. ¶This also applies to us. We have grown so used to believing that what God wants from us is for us to follow all the rules. At the very least, we believe that God wants everyone else to follow the rules that we have chosen as important. Each time we call someone to account for breaking one of God’s rules, others can find us guilty of another of those rules. I am sure that I have judged someone harshly for breaking a rule that I keep meticulously while breaking another one that is of the same importance. ¶“Both we and our ancestors have sinned; we have committed iniquity, have done wickedly.“ It is one of those, ‘everyone is doing it, so it must be okay’ situations, and is certainly deeply human practice. Perhaps the psalmist is reminding us that we can be a little less quick to judge others by our own standards, rejoice that God loves us no matter what, and attempt to keep a closer eye on our own actions than on those of others. When we point ourselves toward serving and loving God we can be open to the love of God at work in us, as well as God at work in the lives of those around us. ¶June 10, 2024 ¶LCM