Psalm Meditation 1264 ¶Proper 18 ¶September 8, 2024 ¶Psalm 118 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=psalm+118&version=NRSVUE (NRSVUE) ¶Years ago, I heard someone say that Larry Bird was a better basketball player than Michael Jordan. The reasoning was that Larry Bird had a had a way of making the whole team look and play at their highest level. Yesterday, I read an article about Caitlin Clark, also an exceptional player. When asked about her impressive performance, she responded in a way that reminded the journalists, and the readers, that basketball is a team sport. She talked about ‘we’ and ‘us.’ ¶The psalmist uses singular pronouns, I and me, at the same time thanking God for having a large part in the victory. I can’t do what I do without a boost from God. It is God who gives me the skills that I develop through practice and perseverance. It is God who offers refuge in times of need, gives me courage to face the trials of the day, and helps me become one who uses my gifts in service to those around me whether I am in the role of a leader or a follower. ¶There are those who believe that they have earned and deserve everything they have. They don’t need anything from anyone, and no one else has any right to ask or demand anything from them. At the other end of the spectrum are those who believe that a lot of people contributed to any success they may enjoy, and it a part of being a responsible human being to share thanks, credit, and responsibility with those who helped in a given endeavor. “O give thanks to the LORD, for [God] is good,“ ¶September 2, 2024 ¶LCM

Psalm Meditation 1263 ¶Proper 17 ¶September 1, 2024 ¶Psalm 144 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=psalm+144&version=NRSVUE (NRSVUE) ¶In the movie Braveheart, a young William Wallace asks his uncle to teach him to use a sword. His uncle pokes him in the forehead and tells him to learn to use his brain, and then he can learn to use other weapons. While we don’t use military weapons on a daily basis, we can use other means in the struggles of daily life. The psalmist begins with prayer, asking God to be present in all the conflicts that will be a part of the day ahead. Some of those conflicts will require weapons and all of them will take knowledge and wisdom. ¶Before getting to the request at hand, the psalmist takes a moment to wonder what it is about humans that draws the attention of God. We are short lived and insignificant in the scope of creation. Then the psalmist asks God to intervene in this conflict by siding with us and using the more frightening weapons in God’s arsenal, volcanoes, lightning, and any other direct interventions available in this setting. Use those weapons to rid us of the enemies who wish us harm and destruction. ¶If God will pull us out of this mess, we will sing praises to celebrate all the good things God does for us. Oh, and since you have saved us, O God, it would be nice if you would carry on the tradition of care by seeing that our sons and daughters have the same good things we have, and more. The psalmist asks God to continue to care for us through the blessings of life as God has cared for us through the conflicts and trials of life. “Happy are the people to whom such blessings fall; happy are the people whose God is the LORD.“ ¶August 26, 2024 ¶LCM lcmanifold@gmail.com http://psalmmeditations.blogspot.com/

Psalm Meditation 1262 ¶Proper 16 ¶August 25, 2024 ¶Psalm 139 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=psalm+139&version=NRSVUE (NRSVUE) ¶When we agree to have someone watch over us, it is a source of comfort, knowing that we are being watched for our protection. When anyone decides to watch us secretly and without our knowledge, that is spying or stalking and is a very uncomfortable thing to discover. Being watched over puts a damper on our freedom, however, in some cases that loss is worth it to us. When given this responsibility of watching, it is tempting to overstep the bounds of the mandate and move into manipulation rather than protection of those being watched. ¶If we choose, we can see this psalm as a reminder that God is kinda creepy, watching our every move and listening to our every thought, judging us and finding us wanting. That is not how the psalmist and other people of faith see the activity of God. We take comfort in knowing that we are not alone, and that God watches out of love and concern rather than a desire to judge us for all of our sins of commission and omission. God wants for us the best we can possibly achieve. ¶Sadly, the psalmist goes on to ask God to destroy all the folks who aren’t like us. It is a human reaction, however it is not the kind of thing that God is known for, even though there are instances is Scripture of God destroying our common enemies. God is more likely to be the one that leads us to a way of life that allows us to love, care for, and about those around us whether we agree on everything, anything, or nothing. ¶August 20, 2024 ¶LCM

Psalm Meditation 1261 ¶Proper 15 ¶August 18, 2024 ¶Psalm 133 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=psalm+133&version=NRSVUE (NRSVUE) ¶A family squabble can ruin a get together very quickly. Even the folks who are not directly involved find themselves walking on eggshells in order to keep from giving either party the impression that they have chosen a side. Whether it is siblings at each others’ throats, parent and child, parent and parent, or a broader family problem, we all have to take care not to upset the tenuous balance needed to keep the gathering from going off the rails in a way that ruins relationships for another span of time. ¶The psalmist tells us that it is a good thing for us to be able to get together in love with one another. We may not agree on everything, and we can talk to and be with each other while keeping our differences from driving wedges between us, and driving us into armed camps over one issue or another. Being able to be together is akin to getting out of the shower after being dirty, and sweaty from a day of hard work or play. The refreshment of being clean and fresh matches the feeling of a harmonious family gathering. ¶We aren’t always going to get along with the people with whom genetics has blessed us. In some families those rifts are too deep and wide to ever be repaired and we need to become a part of a different group who will be like family for us. Other families have the love, care and concern for each other to work through the issues and concerns that threaten to divide us as a family unit. “How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity!” ¶August 12, 2024 ¶LCM

Psalm Meditation 1260 ¶Proper 14 ¶August 11, 2024 ¶Psalm 126 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=psalm+126&version=NRSVUE (NRSVUE) ¶Recently, I read that the most difficult emotion for us to accept, is joy. When good things happen that would otherwise keep us joyful, we feel the strong undercurrent of the knowledge that good things never last. Rather than relishing the joy while we have it, we blunt the effect of the emotion with our fear, which we call realism, that this can’t possibly last as long as we would like for it to last. We never allow ourselves to claim the full spectrum of joy because it doesn’t last forever. ¶When we experience sadness, defeat, loss, and other ‘negative’ emotions, we expect them to last forever. We have even been known to find ways to perpetuate them ourselves in order to prove that ‘we can’t have nice things.’ It is as if we have to prove the Puritans, and others, right, that humans are base, vile creatures who deserve nothing from God except the punishments we have rightly earned. So, we go on our melancholy way, content with our deservedly sad lot in life. ¶The psalmist tells us that there is room and reason for joy in our lives, and it is a disservice to God to refuse to be joyful when good things happen. Whether we can convince ourselves that we deserve these things or not, we can rejoice in the good things that God gives to us out of a deep, steadfast, and abiding love for us. For the psalmist, the current good thing is a successful harvest after a return from some unnamed place. It is good to rejoice, it is good to celebrate, it is good to know, as deeply as we can, that “The LORD has done great things for us.” ¶August 5, 2024 ¶LCM

Psalm Meditation 1259 ¶Proper 19 ¶August 4, 2024 ¶Psalm 119:1-16 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=psalm+119&version=NRSVUE (NRSVUE) ¶Psalm 119 has 176 verses, eight for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet, in celebration of the law of God. Allons y. ¶People have made, and continue to make some pretty stupid laws. It seems that whenever someone in authority is offended, troubled, hurt by anything there is a push to make a law that will keep that from happening. Sometimes, in a effort to protect God from someone else’s foolishness, we pass a law against that as well. Banning and burning books that someone finds offensive or heretical has a long and silly history, as if banning or burning a book will do anything other than pique the curiosity of folks who would have otherwise not heard of the book. ¶The psalmist wants to remind us that the laws of God are praiseworthy rather than silly. Granted, we have made some amendments and addenda that seem good at the time while changing God’s original intent for us. The intent of God’s law if to teach us the importance of loving each other, caring for each other, and protecting and providing for those who lack the resources to protect and provide for themselves. Rules that allow us to oppress another are not from God. ¶God wants us to work together, to depend on each other, and to share in the bounty that this world provides for us. If it were easy, there would be no need to make a law, it would flow in and out of our lives like water through a sieve. Learning and following God’s law is not easy since we are so used to doing things our own selfish way. However, the psalmist spends 176 verses to remind us that it is worth the effort to act with the love, grace, mercy, and providence that we have so richly received from God. ¶July 29, 2024 ¶LCM

Psalm Meditation 1258 ¶Proper 12 ¶July 28, 2024 ¶Psalm 112 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=psalm+112&version=NRSVUE (NRSVUE) ¶Living a life of faith in God is hard work. It means standing firm in ebb and flow of the world’s tides. It means being gracious and merciful to everyone, without determining ahead of time whether or not they deserve it. It means being generous with others from the personal to the international levels. It means risking abuse at the hands of those whose faith is determined by politicians whose goal is power and control. It means recognizing and confronting evil and injustice rather than ignoring it, in hopes that God will deal with it. ¶It is so much easier to buy into the projections of the fear mongers, who love to let us know that anyone who is not one of us is out to do us harm in some way. By pounding us with the propaganda that ‘those people’ are pagans who worship gods with no power but great influence, or they are godless heathens who want to destroy people of faith in order to run roughshod over the rest of the world, they convince us that the only way to stay safe is to stand behind them as they protect us from all the evil people and activity in the world. ¶The psalmist tells us that the way of God is the hard way, the one that challenges us to be just, gentle, merciful and generous because it is the right way to live. It may or may not give us fame and fortune, however we will find ourselves on the firm footing of the path to God. We may live, we may die, we may prosper, we may falter, in the end we will stand in the presence of God. We may think, with the psalmist, that we will ‘look in triumph on [our] foes,’ though I imagine we will, in the end, see them as our brothers and sisters in the family of God. ¶July 22, 2024 ¶LCM