Psalm Meditation 1066 Reign of Christ November 22, 2020 Psalm 90 1 Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. 2 Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. 3 You turn us back to dust, and say, “Turn back, you mortals.” 4 For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past, or like a watch in the night. 5 You sweep them away; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning; 6 in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers. 7 For we are consumed by your anger; by your wrath we are overwhelmed. 8 You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your countenance. 9 For all our days pass away under your wrath; our years come to an end like a sigh. 10 The days of our life are seventy years, or perhaps eighty, if we are strong; even then their span is only toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away. 11 Who considers the power of your anger? Your wrath is as great as the fear that is due you. 12 So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart. 13 Turn, O Lord! How long? Have compassion on your servants! 14 Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. 15 Make us glad as many days as you have afflicted us, and as many years as we have seen evil. 16 Let your work be manifest to your servants, and your glorious power to their children. 17 Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and prosper for us the work of our hands—O prosper the work of our hands! (NRSV) One of my mentors defined anger as ‘a boat floating on a sea of fear, realize what you are afraid of and you don’t have to be so angry.’ So what is God afraid of that needs to be expressed as divine wrath? One possibility is that God is afraid for us. There are a lot of ways to move away from God and they each have a consequences. We see the glittery temptation dangling in front of us and move toward it. God’s wrath is kindled when the temptation shows its true colors and begins to do damage to us. God reacts out of fear for our safety. Some of us see God as angry and aloof as a default setting. God is always looking for reasons to be angry with us, and excuses to punish us. More accurately, God is looking for reasons to pass judgment on ‘those’ people, the ones who do all the things that we and God find annoying and sinful. Our task is to point out all the reasons that God is angry in order to force ‘them’ to do things the way they should; our way. God’s anger just happens to be directed at those with whom we disagree. The wrath of God is directed toward anything that moves someone away from the divine presence. When we emphasize the finger wagging judgment of God we are more likely to push someone away than draw them back. It is when we meet saints and sinners with the love of God that people are drawn into the divine presence and the communion of saints. It is through compassion and steadfast love that we rejoice and prosper in the presence of God. November 16, 2020 LCM lcrsmanifold@att.net http://psalmmeditations.blogspot.com/

Psalm Meditation 1065 Proper 28 November 15, 2020 Psalm 64 1 Hear my voice, O God, in my complaint; preserve my life from the dread enemy. 2 Hide me from the secret plots of the wicked, from the scheming of evildoers, 3 who whet their tongues like swords, who aim bitter words like arrows, 4 shooting from ambush at the blameless; they shoot suddenly and without fear. 5 They hold fast to their evil purpose; they talk of laying snares secretly, thinking, “Who can see us? 6 Who can search out our crimes? We have thought out a cunningly conceived plot.” For the human heart and mind are deep. 7 But God will shoot his arrow at them; they will be wounded suddenly. 8 Because of their tongue he will bring them to ruin; all who see them will shake with horror. 9 Then everyone will fear; they will tell what God has brought about, and ponder what he has done. 10 Let the righteous rejoice in the Lord and take refuge in him. Let all the upright in heart glory. (NRSV) The tongue is a symbol of what we can do with our thoughts and words. We can use them for helping and healing, or as in this psalm, to do great damage. We can inflict deep wounds from a great distance with a few words. Sometimes our words are carefully chosen to do maximum damage, other times the damage is done because we do not consider our words before we speak them. Some of the deadliest wounds are inflicted by poisoning others against the actual target of our words. One well phrased rumor can do immense damage if enough people spread it widely enough. The psalmist asks to be delivered from those who have planned and plotted to do damage to another with their words. A part of the plot is the rationale and excuses that words only hurt if they are true. Experience teaches that anything heard often enough becomes true in the minds of the hearers. The plots and plans can arise organically. One person starts a rumor, another person finds it juicy and passes it on. It takes on a life of its own and becomes true among those who spread it even if there is no evidence to back it up. The psalmist doesn’t even have to ask for help as God begins to take aim at those who speak with malice and in hopes of doing great damage to another. The arrows of God may not save the current target of the malicious group, however they do pay a price eventually. The ones who consistently spread damaging words will be seen as folks who cannot be trusted. People will stop talking to them for fear that anything and everything will be used to fuel the rumor mill. Through it all God will be with us, offering us refuge from those who are out to hurt us and to lead us away from any inclination to hurt others. November 9, 2020 LCM

Psalm Meditation 1064 Proper 27 November 8, 2020 Psalm 139 1 O Lord, you have searched me and known me. 2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. 3 You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. 4 Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely. 5 You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it. 7 Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? 8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. 9 If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, 10 even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast. 11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,” 12 even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you. 13 For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed. 17 How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 I try to count them—they are more than the sand; I come to the end—I am still with you. 19 O that you would kill the wicked, O God, and that the bloodthirsty would depart from me— 20 those who speak of you maliciously, and lift themselves up against you for evil! 21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? 22 I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies. 23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. 24 See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (NRSV) Even in times we wish we could disappear, one of our great fears is that we are invisible, that we don’t matter to anyone. The psalmist goes through a list of the ways that God not only sees us, but seeks us out. Especially when we are feeling sad and sorry for ourselves it is a source of great comfort to discover that someone is thinking about us enough to seek us out, to go out of their way to look for us until we are found. The psalmist goes through a list of possible hiding places, and notices that God can find us there. Whether we go to the highest height, the lowest depth, or the darkest darkness God will find us to be with us. Once we have been sought and found we develop a fierce loyalty toward that person. The psalmist goes through the list of actions that contribute to that sense of loyalty. God knows us well enough to know where to look for us. God gathers us into a comforting embrace we need that. God makes words unnecessary and lets us decide if and when to speak. God helps us pull ourselves back together so we can face anything arm in arm. God helps us discover the difference between our revenge fantasies and what course of action will actually be helpful. God lets us know that the loyalty we feel toward God is felt by God toward us. God willingly seeks us out when we wander off. Sometimes God strides in to scoop us up, to let us know we are not alone as we face whatever we are facing. Sometimes God stands back watching and waiting for us to recognize our need and ask for help. Either way, God is present in the way that works in our lives. God is not there to fix things or change things, God is there to be with us, to demonstrate the love and loyalty God directs our way. November 2, 2020 LCM

Psalm Meditation 1063 All Saints Day November 1, 2020 Psalm 39 1 I said, “I will guard my ways that I may not sin with my tongue; I will keep a muzzle on my mouth as long as the wicked are in my presence.” 2 I was silent and still; I held my peace to no avail; my distress grew worse, 3 my heart became hot within me. While I mused, the fire burned; then I spoke with my tongue: 4 “Lord, let me know my end, and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting my life is. 5 You have made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing in your sight. Surely everyone stands as a mere breath. Selah 6 Surely everyone goes about like a shadow. Surely for nothing they are in turmoil; they heap up, and do not know who will gather. 7 “And now, O Lord, what do I wait for? My hope is in you. 8 Deliver me from all my transgressions. Do not make me the scorn of the fool. 9 I am silent; I do not open my mouth, for it is you who have done it. 10 Remove your stroke from me; I am worn down by the blows of your hand. 11 “You chastise mortals in punishment for sin, consuming like a moth what is dear to them; surely everyone is a mere breath. Selah 12 “Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear to my cry; do not hold your peace at my tears. For I am your passing guest, an alien, like all my forebears. 13 Turn your gaze away from me, that I may smile again, before I depart and am no more.” (NRSV) Our inclination is to see God as the source of deliverance from all the terrible things we face in our lives. The psalmist is convinced that God is causing these terrible things as a punishment for some unidentified transgressions. Even as the psalmist places hope in God for relief from suffering the realization dawns that God is the one giving this beat down. Things are so bad that those who are inclined to make light of the suffering of others can see that the psalmist is being humiliated by God who is supposed to help out in situations like this. While we are quick to say that God punishes others for their sins and transgressions, we are not as quick to see God as out to get us. When Job is stripped of his possessions, assets, and loved ones his friends gather to let him know that it is his fault and if he will admit guilt and repent God will forgive him. Job is sure that there is another cause. In the end, the friends are told to apologize to Job and to have him pray for them because God is not as vindictive as the friends want to believe. The psalmist asks God to turn away so that there can be some relief before dying. Convince that God is the cause of all this suffering, the psalmist wants to be left alone by God so that there can be a moment of peace before drifting off into nothingness. Job, on the other hand, continues to hope in God for the present and the future. We too can know that God is with us. We are not promised that we will get through life with all of our stuff intact. We are promised that God will be with us. Sometimes it works out, as it did for Job, that we are able to recover and rebound. Sometimes we have to count it all loss and move ahead in the presence of God alone. October 26, 2020 LCM

Psalm Meditation 1062 Proper 25 October 25, 2020 Psalm 114 1 When Israel went out from Egypt, the house of Jacob from a people of strange language, 2 Judah became God’s sanctuary, Israel his dominion. 3 The sea looked and fled; Jordan turned back. 4 The mountains skipped like rams, the hills like lambs. 5 Why is it, O sea, that you flee? O Jordan, that you turn back? 6 O mountains, that you skip like rams? O hills, like lambs? 7 Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob, 8 who turns the rock into a pool of water, the flint into a spring of water. (NRSV) Some days our relationship with God just barely fits into our ability to put it into words. The best we can do is describe the feeling we get when we are in the presence of God. The psalmist uses the partings of the Red Sea and the Jordan, the bookmark events of the Exodus, to get at the spectacularity of God’s activity. These things that are done just for us. The God who does these things for us also chooses to have a relationship with us. It is exciting enough to meet the one who can part a sea and open a river for crossing on dry land; to know that this same one came looking for a relationship with us is overwhelming. The relationship is not asking us to be adoring fans, God is asking us to be true companions on the journey we take together. We get to walk and talk and work side by side with the God who creates and cares for all that is. While we will probably keep a sense of awe as we settle in to our relationship with God, it is good to know that we are encouraged to give ourselves as wholeheartedly as we are able to that relationship. God allows us to forget that we are in the presence of the Creator of the universe so that we can settle in to a comfortable comradery together. God cares for us, provides for us, and invites us into an ever deepening relationship even as we invite others in to their own relationship with God. October 19, 2020 LCM

Psalm Meditation 1061 Proper 24 Laity Sunday October 18, 2020 Psalm 14 1 Fools say in their hearts, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds; there is no one who does good. 2 The Lord looks down from heaven on humankind to see if there are any who are wise, who seek after God. 3 They have all gone astray, they are all alike perverse; there is no one who does good, no, not one. 4 Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers who eat up my people as they eat bread, and do not call upon the Lord? 5 There they shall be in great terror, for God is with the company of the righteous. 6 You would confound the plans of the poor, but the Lord is their refuge. 7 O that deliverance for Israel would come from Zion! When the Lord restores the fortunes of his people, Jacob will rejoice; Israel will be glad. (NRSV) I am not as concerned about those who say there is no God as I am about those who say that God rigidly conforms to their way of thinking and acting. They see ‘our people’ as right and justifiable in their actions, and ‘those people’ as guilty of deep sinfulness even when both groups follow the same path. And it is almost always ‘those people’ who are most guilty of the kind of idolatry that lets them define God according to their own words and deeds. Since people on every side are guilty, God looks down to see “if there are any who are wise, who seek after God.” When God sees that we “have all gone astray,” it is time for us to look to ourselves instead of blaming ‘them’ for all the ills of the world. Granted, we see as ourselves among those who cannot bring change to the world, we are following those we believe can bring our corner of the world back to its senses. ‘It is for the rich and powerful to change the world, we simply hitch our wagon to those with whom we align most fully.’ Somewhere in all of this process we have agency to support and influence those who would run the world for our sake. And we have a responsibility to listen to those we claim to be helping with our actions. To call on an old joke punchline, we are not being helpful by leading folks across a street they did not intend to cross. Today I see verse 7 as a desire for change from the halls of human leadership. ‘If only our leaders would be the ones to deliver all people from the bonds of sin and death.’ Barring that, the psalmist is deeply aware that it is God who is the refuge and deliverer of those who have no voice in the direction of the future. Some people see their role as speaking out for the poor and needy while others see their role as giving the poor and needy the platform to speak for themselves. Either way, the psalmist and others look forward to a time, “When the Lord restores the fortunes of his people, Jacob will rejoice; Israel will be glad.” October 12, 2020 LCM

Psalm Meditation 1060 Proper 23 October 11, 2020 Psalm 89 (selected verses) 1 I will sing of your steadfast love, O Lord, forever; with my mouth I will proclaim your faithfulness to all generations. 2 I declare that your steadfast love is established forever; your faithfulness is as firm as the heavens. 3 You said, “I have made a covenant with my chosen one, I have sworn to my servant David: 4 ‘I will establish your descendants forever, and build your throne for all generations.’” Selah 5 Let the heavens praise your wonders, O Lord, your faithfulness in the assembly of the holy ones. 6 For who in the skies can be compared to the Lord? Who among the heavenly beings is like the Lord, 7 a God feared in the council of the holy ones, great and awesome above all that are around him? 8 O Lord God of hosts, who is as mighty as you, O Lord? Your faithfulness surrounds you. 9 You rule the raging of the sea; when its waves rise, you still them. 10 You crushed Rahab like a carcass; you scattered your enemies with your mighty arm. 11 The heavens are yours, the earth also is yours; the world and all that is in it—you have founded them. 12 The north and the south—you created them; Tabor and Hermon joyously praise your name. 13 You have a mighty arm; strong is your hand, high your right hand. 14 Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; steadfast love and faithfulness go before you. 15 Happy are the people who know the festal shout, who walk, O Lord, in the light of your countenance; 16 they exult in your name all day long, and extol your righteousness. 17 For you are the glory of their strength; by your favor our horn is exalted. 18 For our shield belongs to the Lord, our king to the Holy One of Israel. 46 How long, O Lord? Will you hide yourself forever? How long will your wrath burn like fire? 47 Remember how short my time is—for what vanity you have created all mortals! 48 Who can live and never see death? Who can escape the power of Sheol? Selah 49 Lord, where is your steadfast love of old, which by your faithfulness you swore to David? 50 Remember, O Lord, how your servant is taunted; how I bear in my bosom the insults of the peoples, 51 with which your enemies taunt, O Lord, with which they taunted the footsteps of your anointed. 52 Blessed be the Lord forever. Amen and Amen. (NRSV) When things go poorly for those we don’t like, we see it as the judgment of God on them for their evil ways. We can pinpoint all the reasons that they are being punished, especially for all the ways they have picked on us. They deserve all that is happening to them because they are not like us. They are mean and heartless, as well as godless in all that they are and do. Sometimes God will single out an individual for public shaming, ridicule, and punishment while other times whole groups of people will be targeted by God’s acts of vengeance. Either way, we know that God is at work in their lives to make them pay for their evil ways. When things go badly for us we are more likely to blame those bad folks for picking on us and wishing and working for ill in our lives. We are good people of God so it couldn’t possibly be that God is punishing us in the same way that ‘those’ people get punished for doing bad things. God is not actively doing the bad things to us, God is hiding from us to allow these things to happen. Perhaps we are being disciplined for some slight sin we have committed against God, however all will be well soon enough—when God gets back. We define and deal with God on our own terms. We can’t stand back from ourselves and look at God through some objective lens. God will always be seen as behaving with the same motives we have for our actions. The only way we can see, think of, and define God is from within our own context. If we are gifted, we can see God in the light of another culture or viewpoint, however we can’t see God through any but our human lenses. What really motivates God to act among us? There are as many answers as there are people. The psalmist wants to know that God is a God of steadfast love. October 5, 2020 LCM