Psalm Meditation 1300 ¶Fifth Sunday of Easter ¶May 18, 2025 ¶Psalm 24 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2024&version=NRSVUE ¶In fourth grade, I appointed myself bathroom monitor to make sure the boys in the bathroom with me washed their hands before they went back to class. Sometimes I ran after someone to drag them back to the sink to wash his hands. One day, the one male teacher in the school was walking in as I was grabbing for a boy who had not washed his hands. The teacher and I almost collided. He caught me by the arm and asked what I was doing. When I answered, he assured me that it was not my job to see that everyone left the room with clean hands. ¶The psalmist tells us that those who have clean hands and pure hearts will stand in the holy place on the hill of the LORD. Nowhere does this psalm tell us that we are responsible for the cleanliness of the hands or hearts of those around us. We are each responsible for our own hygiene of hand and heart. We don’t get extra points for dragging people into cleanliness. Our task is to set an example that one or more people may follow as we ascend the hill of the LORD. ¶The psalmist also does not tell us that we are free to ignore those around us. We do well to offer others the same encouragement that we received and continue to receive in our own ascent of the hill of the LORD. ¶May 12, 2025 ¶LCM