Psalm Meditation 1334 ¶Baptism of the Lord ¶January 11, 2026 ¶Psalm 60 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2055&version=NRSVUE ¶Many of us assume that God is one who controls everything, causes our calamities and comforts, leaving us with little to do but go on as if we have a say in our lives. My theology professor asked us as class began, ‘How do you parents know when you have lost control of your children?’ No one answered since we had never lost control of our children. (Yeah, right) He answered his question with, ‘You have lost control when you have to reach out to restrain your child. God does not lose control.’ ¶If we bring ourselves to calamity, as in this psalm, God stands with us to support us as we recover from our ill fitting choices. We can say that God caused something to happen, which makes God an adversary, or we can recognize that we have made a foolish choice or two that put us where we are. In the latter case God’s presence is a source of comfort and strength to help us navigate the effects of our choices and get things back to a new normal. In the best of all worlds, that new normal includes a closer relationship with God. ¶There is some comfort in believing that everything that happens for good or ill is directly caused by God. We are not finally responsible for anything that goes on around us. I would rather see God as one who chooses to be present with us, sending us people who will teach us and lead us in ways that lead to a closer relationship with God. The presence of God acts as a comfort and blessing to us in every time and place rather than as a source of foreboding as we await the next punishment for our sin. ¶January 5, 2026 ¶LCM

Psalm Meditation 1194 ¶Fifth Sunday of Easter ¶May 7, 2023 ¶Psalm 60 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=psalm+60&version=NRSVUE (NRSV) ¶It will be a good day when we realize that God has a different agenda than many of us have. We want God to do our bidding, to get rid of our enemies, to punish the folks with whom we disagree, and to make us victorious over the whole world. One of the difficulties is that there are multiple countries and cultures who are praying that God will put them in first place among the peoples of the earth. As long as we expect to be in first place because we are people of God, we can’t appreciate what God is actually calling us to do and be. ¶God calls us to be servants of those around us. This does not mean we let folks walk over us, it means we serve willingly, humbly, and wholeheartedly. God loves us because that is the nature of God. As with anyone, God’s love is not something we can earn. God loves us by choice, rather than because we have completed the proper number of good deeds in the allotted amount of time. A person can, perhaps, drive people away by their actions, however, no one can make anyone stop loving them. ¶When we read a psalm such as this one, let it serve as a reminder that what we want is not the same as what God wants for us. We can ask God to ride ahead and kill all the folks who annoy us and stand against us, but that does not mean that God will cater to our whims, especially when those whims involve the defeat and destruction of another person or group of those loved by God. God would much rather we learn to live together, with our differences intact, than that we destroy each other for the sake of ‘winning.’ ¶May 1, 2023 ¶LCM

Psalm Meditation 858
First Sunday of Advent
November 27, 2016

Psalm 60
1 O God, you have rejected us, broken our defenses; you have been angry; now restore us!
2 You have caused the land to quake; you have torn it open; repair the cracks in it, for it is tottering.
3 You have made your people suffer hard things; you have given us wine to drink that made us reel.
4 You have set up a banner for those who fear you, to rally to it out of bowshot. Selah
5 Give victory with your right hand, and answer us, so that those whom you love may be rescued.
6 God has promised in his sanctuary: “With exultation I will divide up Shechem, and portion out the Vale of Succoth.
7 Gilead is mine, and Manasseh is mine; Ephraim is my helmet; Judah is my scepter.
8 Moab is my washbasin; on Edom I hurl my shoe; over Philistia I shout in triumph.”
9 Who will bring me to the fortified city? Who will lead me to Edom?
10 Have you not rejected us, O God? You do not go out, O God, with our armies.
11 O grant us help against the foe, for human help is worthless.
12 With God we shall do valiantly; it is he who will tread down our foes.
(NRSV)

At a time in which all divine beings are considered local, this psalm makes sense. The psalmist asks ‘our’ divinity to go to war against ‘their’ divinity so that we can be victorious against ‘those people.’ In addition, the earth itself is out to get us as it quakes and splits open underneath us. It is a scary time and what seems to make the most sense is that God has abandoned us to our enemies because of something we did to put us on the naughty list.

We have expanded our view of God to be the one who created all that is and who rules over the whole of creation. In this world view asking God to beat up our enemies for us becomes problematic. When we are all children of the same God, even when we have different opinions and varied allegiances, it is silly to ask God to intervene on our behalf against a disagreeable sibling. I know there are parents who have an obvious favorite child, however that is not parenting at its best. If a good parent doesn’t play favorites, it is hard to ask that God always be on my side or our side in every disagreement.

Tempting as it is to believe that I am so attuned to God as to be on the nice list in every disagreement, it isn’t realistic. Before we call on God to beat up the ‘bad guys’ we do well to check in to make sure that we are aligned with God in a big picture way. If I am right in a particular and miss the broad overarching view, I may be the one God would beat up, if it were God’s way to beat up on the ‘bad guys’ to protect the ‘good guys.’

November 21, 2016
LCM

Psalm Meditation 740
Eleventh Sunday of Ordinary Time
August 24, 2014

Psalm 60
1 O God, you have rejected us, broken our defenses; you have been angry; now restore us!
2 You have caused the land to quake; you have torn it open; repair the cracks in it, for it is tottering.
3 You have made your people suffer hard things; you have given us wine to drink that made us reel.
4 You have set up a banner for those who fear you, to rally to it out of bowshot. Selah
5 Give victory with your right hand, and answer us, so that those whom you love may be rescued.
6 God has promised in his sanctuary: “With exultation I will divide up Shechem, and portion out the Vale of Succoth.
7 Gilead is mine, and Manasseh is mine; Ephraim is my helmet; Judah is my scepter.
8 Moab is my washbasin; on Edom I hurl my shoe; over Philistia I shout in triumph.”
9 Who will bring me to the fortified city? Who will lead me to Edom?
10 Have you not rejected us, O God? You do not go out, O God, with our armies.
11 O grant us help against the foe, for human help is worthless.
12 With God we shall do valiantly; it is he who will tread down our foes.
(NRSV)

For the ancients wars and battles were waged from the heavens and the people involved were tokens and pieces in the game being played by the deities of the various nations. When one side was winning it was because their heavenly rulers were paying attention to the contest on the field of battle. The folks who were losing were being ignored or rejected by their divine warlord. The psalmist is aware that Israel is not doing well in this battle, so it must mean that they have been rejected for some fault of theirs. This psalm serves to remind God of promises of victory made to Israel against the surrounding nations and to ask how this victory can be achieved without the help of God.

While we no longer see war as a chess match pitting national deities against each other, we do find ourselves wondering where God is when our own lives, or the lives of our loved ones, are not going well. We wonder why God is allowing us to suffer, to go through this particular trial without divine help. As with the psalmists, we find ourselves asking these questions of God even as we wonder why God is not present for us. In one sense we answer a part of our own question by asking it of God. We have an awareness that God is around here somewhere, we simply have no idea where. As with children playing peek-a-boo to learn that people and things do not disappear when they are not seen, we learn that God is with us even when we don’t know where or how.

Some folks are content to believe that bad things happen to us, and especially to others, as punishment from God. Others see God as present in every situation, leading and guiding us forward through the trials of our lives, or at least being present to ache and cry and suffer alongside us. I can certainly appreciate the assurance that comes from knowing that God is in charge, making things happen in each one of our lives. I find much more comfort in God being with us in every situation, giving comfort and assurance and being present with us in every circumstance of our lives.

August 18, 2014
LCM manifold@lightbound.com
http://psalmmeditations.blogspot.com/

Psalm Meditation 678
Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time
June 16, 2013

Psalm 60
1 O God, you have rejected us, broken our defenses; you have been angry; now restore us!
2 You have caused the land to quake; you have torn it open; repair the cracks in it, for it is tottering.
3 You have made your people suffer hard things; you have given us wine to drink that made us reel.
4 You have set up a banner for those who fear you, to rally to it out of bowshot. Selah
5 Give victory with your right hand, and answer us, so that those whom you love may be rescued.
6 God has promised in his sanctuary: “With exultation I will divide up Shechem, and portion out the Vale of Succoth.
7 Gilead is mine, and Manasseh is mine; Ephraim is my helmet; Judah is my scepter.
8 Moab is my washbasin; on Edom I hurl my shoe; over Philistia I shout in triumph.”
9 Who will bring me to the fortified city? Who will lead me to Edom?
10 Have you not rejected us, O God? You do not go out, O God, with our armies.
11 O grant us help against the foe, for human help is worthless.
12 With God we shall do valiantly; it is he who will tread down our foes.
(NRSV)

I have been wondering which is the more accurate description of the sense of abandonment we feel outside the presence of God. Does God actually walk away from us, reject us, as was the thinking of the psalmist and folks of that age, or do we walk away from God and at some point feel the distance between us? The best answer seems to be that it doesn’t matter who walks away, the sense of distance, rejection and abandonment are the same. And even if it is God who walks away, it is due to some infidelity to God on our part.

Whoever it is who walked away, God is more than ready to reconnect in the relationship when we decide it is what we want. Just as God does not force us into the relationship in the first place, God does not force us to return to a relationship when it has been torn open. While the psalmist is concerned over a military conflict, asking God to return to the battle, we are more often concerned with the day to day conflicts between right and wrong.

If only the battles over right and wrong had a clear delineation of which is which. In our daily conflicts there are compelling yet competing priorities on every side. We each believe our own side has the proper priorities and worldview or we would not have chosen that side in the first place. In any case, it is important to align ourselves with the priorities we believe come from God and to have a willingness to change our hearts and minds as we sense that we may have misunderstood what it is that is important to God.

June 10, 2013