Psalm Meditation 1314 ¶Proper 16 ¶August 24, 2025 ¶Psalm 36 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=psalm%2036&version=NRSVUE ¶The reason sin/transgression is so commonplace is that it is such an easy path to take. When I was in band in junior high school, I wanted to play like Al Hurt, Herb Alpert, or Louis Armstrong. The difficulty is that I did not want to put in the hours and hours of practice. The most attractive route was to wish I could play well without having to practice. In “The Music Man” this is called the think method. Harold Hill is the con man who convinces enough people that this system works that he makes a pile of money and plans to disappear at the earliest possible moment before the con is discovered. ¶When we get caught up in a con like this, that there is an easy way to do something difficult, we either double down in a way that showcases our gullibility to everyone else or we crumple into some form of hopelessness. ‘My team got cheated by your team,’ ‘we just need a little more time to prove ourselves right,’ since it isn’t me it must be all of you who are doing the terrible things we all know are happening around us,’ ‘you keep telling me it is bad but it is just what I have always wanted.’ ¶The psalmist then spends just over half of the psalm lifting up the steadfast love of God, as a reminder that whether we accept it or not God loves us. When we know we have sinned and confess that sin, God loves us. When we reject the notion that we have sinned, God loves us. When we can’t believe that God could possibly love us, God loves us. The love of God does not depend on our willingness to be loved, it depends on God loving us because it is the chosen nature of God to love us. ¶August 18, 2025 ¶LCM