Psalm Meditation 1297 ¶Second Sunday of Easter ¶April 27, 2025 ¶Psalm 13 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2013&version=NRSVUE ¶Object permanence is the knowledge that even though we cannot see someone or something, it can exist. The child’s game, ‘peek-a-boo’ intends to teach children that things exist when we can’t see them. There are people for whom object permanence is not a thing. If these folks don’t see you for awhile they forget you exist in an ‘out of sight out of mind’ kind of way. If your name comes up in a conversation or you pop into their heads somehow, they know you exist, at least for that moment. ¶The psalmist is going through something that has driven any thought or feeling of the presence of God completely away. With a sudden remembrance of the presence of God in the past, the psalmist cries out to God with a renewed longing for God in this, and every situation. The pain of God’s seeming absence or impermanence is as deeply painful to the psalmist as it is to anyone who has ever had the feeling that God is absent. In addition to the feeling that God is missing, there is the feeling that any enemy is gloating over the victory signaled by the total deflation of the psalmist in the face of all of the efforts of these foes. ¶Remembering the trust in the steadfast love of God has given the psalmist new energy and focus for facing the future with the assurance of God’s salvation and presence. The reminder that God’s love and presence are steadfast, “firmly loyal and constant; unwavering” is the assurance that the psalmist needed to be able to stand firm and sing a song of the bountiful salvation that God offers to each one of us. ¶April 21, 2025 ¶LCM

Psalm Meditation 1146 ¶Pentecost ¶June 5, 2022 ¶Psalm 13 1 How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? 2 How long must I bear pain in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all day long? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? 3 Consider and answer me, O LORD my God! Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death, 4 and my enemy will say, “I have prevailed”; my foes will rejoice because I am shaken. 5 But I trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. 6 I will sing to the LORD because he has dealt bountifully with me. (NRSV) ¶Wouldn’t it be nice if God would get it together to answer our prayers the way we want them answered and on our timeline? When things don’t fall into place for us, we assume that God has not answered our prayers. In most cases, we want a specific outcome and God answers by being present with us no matter what happens. As discombobulating as that answer can be, in the long run, the presence of God is a more lasting answer than our specific request. ¶God does not count victory or success in the same manner that the world does. So, our enemies and adversaries may seem to prevail over us. They get to win because they have ticked all the right boxes as far as the world is concerned. As we remain faithful in the face of adversity, we discover that the steadfast love of God is sweeter and more lasting than the victories that the world relishes. ¶Prices are paid that are too high, sacrifices are made that seem to gain nothing, friends are lost over issues that seem weighty at the time and end up being trivial. Each one of these feels devastating at the time and we wonder if we will ever recover. And yet, we persist. By the power of the presence of God in our lives, we are able to pick ourselves up and move on to the next challenge, willing to risk out of the abundance of the love of God at work in our lives. “I trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the LORD because he has dealt bountifully with me.” ¶May 31, 2022 ¶LCM

Psalm Meditation 1055 Proper 18 September 6, 2020 Psalm 13 1 How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? 2 How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? 3 Consider and answer me, O Lord my God! Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death, 4 and my enemy will say, “I have prevailed”; my foes will rejoice because I am shaken. 5 But I trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. 6 I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me. (NRSV) There are folks who have a fair weather faith. They are good at being faithful as long as things are going their way. If life gets hard, if things that aren’t supposed to happen to good folks like us happen anyway, if things don’t go according to our plan, they are perfectly willing to say farewell to their faith. They are then free to dispose of the remnants of their faith and go on about their lives with a bitter taste in their mouths around God and the people of God. The psalmist is going through something terrible. On top of that the psalmist feels abandoned by God at the very time when God is most needed. It would be possible, perhaps even understandable, if this was one of those times in which a person walked away from God, feeling as if God was the first to leave. But then, “I trusted in your steadfast love.” What had been a lonely and calamitous time is now made easier by recollecting the presence of God and all the ways that presence makes a difference in a person’s life. We can let the circumstances of our lives beat us down and send us away from God holding our hurts in our bodies and souls, or we can enter the presence of God and lay our hurts out between us. If we keep all this in ourselves we will carry burdens beyond our ability and they will exact a high price from us. If we offer it to God, we will find help in sorting, distributing and carrying our burdens. August 31, 2020 LCM

Psalm Meditation 754
First Sunday of Advent
November 30, 2014

Psalm 13
1 How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?
2 How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?
3 Consider and answer me, O LORD my God! Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death,
4 and my enemy will say, “I have prevailed”; my foes will rejoice because I am shaken.
5 But I trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
6 I will sing to the LORD, because he has dealt bountifully with me.
(NRSV)

As we live out our lives we become the bearers of pain and sorrow to some degree or another. Some seem to bear more than their share while others manage to avoid much of the suffering that goes with being human. Those who suffer will do so for the rest of their lives in some form. Suffering is not something that goes away, it is incorporated into the fabric of our lives. Physical wounds leave their imprint on us forever. Bones heal and flesh scars over, each leaving a mark that serves as a reminder of our injuries.

Emotional and spiritual wounds leave their mark as well. They are not as visible to the eye, perhaps because the wound is felt more deeply than skin and bone. Our temptation is to encourage folks to move past these deeper wounds more quickly, as if the lack of a physical mark makes them less damaging. In truth, these psychic wounds are frighteningly more damaging than any physical one. There are folks who will rehearse their grief, getting stuck at an early stage of the process and refusing to go any deeper. There are others who will mine the depths of grief and find a way to weave it into the lives that lie before them.

The psalmist decides to lean on the steadfast love of God. As is true for the rest of us, the hope is that God will take the suffering away, to make it as if it never happened. I can’t imagine going through life without reminders of suffering. The bittersweet memories, the harsh lessons, the mementos of experiences that are a part of us, even those we hope never to go through again. The steadfast love of God gives us a place to lean, a place to wait, a place to find a way to incorporate suffering into the wholeness of our lives from this day onward.

November 24, 2014
LCM