Read: Psalm 109

May his days be few; may another seize his position.
-Psalm 109:8

When I was reading through this Psalm, I was reminded of where I had heard it before that it used to be prayed by some regarding Barack Obama. As early as 2009, verse 8 was mentioned with his name by Republicans hoping that he would be a one-term president. The problem with this is that the next verse speaks of the children of the person becoming orphans and their wife being a widow. As former senator David Perdue of Georgia found out when he caught fire for suggesting people pray the Psalm about Obama in 2016, it is not a good psalm to pray about the President of the United States… even if you don’t happen to like him.

Michelle Obama has spoken in interviews about being afraid of losing her husband or one of her children during the former president’s time in the White House, and I cannot blame her one bit. People took a psalm out of context and applied it to her family. It is an “imprecatory psalm”, meaning that it is one that calls for judgment of the psalmist’s enemies, and it has some pretty heavy implications for those who invoked it regarding the former president.

So, how should we deal with passages like this that are angry to such an extreme? We need to read them as a whole and not parcel out soundbites from them that seemingly meet our needs. Anger is a valid emotion, but it is one where action needs to be tempered to avoid crossing over into sin.

Gracious God, help us to remember that anger is an emotion, not a reason to act. Amen.
-Jen McCabe

Read: Psalm 7

O Lord my God, in you I take refuge; save me from all my pursuers and deliver me.
-Psalm 7:1

No one I know enjoys feeling powerless. This truth is as timely today as when the Psalms were being written. The images in verse 2 are of being like the prey of a lion, surely to be killed and torn apart, then dragged away with no help in sight. It would be as if one never existed.

In modern terms, there is a big trunk of feelings to unpack here! Powerlessness is one of the most difficult things for us to endure as humans, and often it is replaced with anger. Many experts suggest that the recent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, for example, illustrates what violent rage a majority losing the death grip on control might do to preserve their power. Scorched earth. Death and suffering to those who disagree. “If we can’t have it, then no one will.” Bone-chilling examples abound.

The psalmist goes on to reflect a sense of contrition and repentance, stating that if he has behaved as his pursuers, “if there is wrong in [his] hands”, then God should allow him to be overtaken. It seems to be an Old Testament understanding of the Golden Rule, going so far as to present deliverance as a gift given in return for kindness. I sense his comfort from the realization that behavior is a choice and there’s hope in doing the right (righteous) thing.

We can choose to do the same: to refuse to let negative experiences turn us into people who continue the cycles of violence—physical, emotional, spiritual—seeking revenge rather than forgiveness and peace. True peace, not a false peace offered by those who would continue to marginalize the “different” ones.

As a victim at least three times of violent crime myself, “gay-bashing” by common reference, there came a point where I was faced with three choices: harden my heart and tighten my fists to fight back punch by punch, ignore my heart, and retreat to solitary powerlessness and perpetual fear, or open my heart in forgiveness that would return life to my wounded spirit.

By the grace of God, I was able to choose the last.

O God, help us to look to the cross and desire the kind of forgiveness Jesus himself chose for those who crucified him. Amen.
-David Sloat

Read: Psalm 83

Make them like tumbleweed, my God, like chaff before the wind.
-Psalm 83:13

It must have been tough to be an Israelite back in the day. I mean, who wasn’t out to get you? And while it’s sad to witness the paranoia that seems to define life today as a modern Israeli, the millennia are but nanoseconds in the span of God’s time…and the more things change, the more they seem the same from a biblical perspective. Suffice it to say that this isn’t the world I would choose to live in, but as a male of northern European ancestry in 21st Century America, I constantly remind myself of how privileged I have been. It’s that awareness that makes it hard for me to relate to the feelings of retribution of the psalmist. As a student of history, if not the bible, I am nevertheless also reminded that those of us fortunate enough to live in this country are ultimately no less likely to avoid the fates of Midian, Sisera, and Jabin (never mind the Roman Empire) if we fail to cover our own faces with shame when we seek out God’s name.

Lord, keep me mindful when I fret over my enemies that “you alone are the Most High over all the earth,” and that as a supplicant it is I rather than you that is more likely to “turn a deaf ear” and “stand aloof.” Amen.
-Michael Boss

Read: Psalm 42

As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God… When shall I come and behold the face of God?
-Psalm 42:1-2, 11b

I REALLY don’t like to be thirsty! I have a glass of water on my nightstand, by my reading chair, in the kitchen, on the dining room table, a bottle in the car…. You get the picture. When I’m thirsty, my throat feels like it is going to close up and I can’t talk. I cough and it’s most uncomfortable. This psalm of lament makes me very conscious of that discomfort (and grateful for continued access to clean, fresh water.)

The psalmist’s image of a deer longing for flowing streams is a powerful one. I picture a buck high in the mountains in the middle of the summer when the melting of winter snows no longer feeds the streams. The water is no longer flowing, and so it sometimes feels to me about my connection to God. My soul longs and yet nothing is happening. I feel distant from the Source and wonder when I will again be close and connected. It is most uncomfortable!

Much like the psalmist, experience has taught me that if I am patient, continue to pray, and “hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.” This setting of the 42nd Psalm by John Michael Talbot helps.

Thank you, God, for giving us markers during the dark time to lead us to your light. Amen!
-Cathey Frederick

Read: Psalm 3

But you, O Lord, are a shield around me…
-Psalm 3:3

I am fortunate. I have not known many enemies. Unlike the psalmist, I don’t know of anyone who is/was out to kill me. Oh sure, I was a cop and I’ve been shot at (and missed), but I don’t believe the poor soul who was mentally distraught was out to get me. He was in too much pain to know what he was doing. No, I’ve had adversaries and antagonists over the years, but none I would count as enemies (even if they counted me one).

What I have found corrosive isn’t being on an enemy’s hit-list, but being ignored, abandoned, or counted as nothing. That’s where I have found the fires of hell licking me every now and again. God says I am of value – that each of us is of value – but to be zilch in the eyes of another is too painful to bear. The psalmist knows that, and while the warrior acknowledges the value and protection of a shield, what I find of greater comfort is the image of God wrapping arms around me. An embrace is God’s shield. I confess I’m not much into hugs, but during this time of Pandemic distancing, God knows I’ve missed hugs terribly much, especially when I hurt.

My pain is relieved when I perceive the psalmist’s prayer for a shield is a cry for a hug. Hugs are healing touches and blessed.

God, you know the pain each of us feels, the fear each of us harbors. Assure us of your love. Wrap us in the arms of your love. Send us arms to wrap us tight and make us right; be our shield and our delight. Amen.
-The Rev. Keith Axberg

Read: Psalms 120-121

I look up to the hills, but where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
-Psalm 121:1-2

These two psalms are among the Psalms of Ascent that may have been used liturgically as people approached the temple in Jerusalem. Jerusalem, the city on a hill, was always approached by going up. “Going up” bears metaphorical meaning as well. One ascends to meet God on high. One ascends into greater capacity for faithfulness to the covenant. One ascends into more compassionate expression of virtue. Both of these psalms presume that one begins below, the place of lament, and expresses a desire to ascend.

In the first one, the psalmist finds himself among untruthful people. How can one trust those who do not deal in truth? Deception unravels the social structures that provide security, it is a way of waging war. The psalmist foresees God’s punishment accurately, as the fruit of their own untrustworthy labors. They will go to war and pay the price. He, however, wants peace. One can imagine the psalmist trusting that he, too, will reap the fruits of his labor: peace.

The second psalm begins outside the city gates, looking up toward Jerusalem. The psalmist stands outside, among the defiled and defiling nations, yet he puts his trust in the Lord, the one “who made heaven and earth,”—not Baal, the god of thunder, rain, and fertility, or any of the other Canaanite gods to which surrounding hills had been sacred. He takes his comfort and security in the God worshipped on the holy temple mount.

In today’s world there is a lot of talk, but is it trustworthy? Does it build trust or tear it down? Does it look to the true source of truth, or the hundred lesser gods of our day? We, too, stand in a place we would rather ascend out of. The psalmists name our place because they share it. We can share their hope as well. We, too, can “strive for justice and peace” as our Baptismal Covenant says, knowing that as we do so, God, the ever-vigilant one who never sleeps, who is not caught off guard by untruth or violence, will guard us as we come and go, “both now and forever.”

Loving God, we live in a world full of deceit and war. Shine the truth of your love as a beacon on a hill to guide us up the path to where your beloved community lives in truth and peace. Amen.
-The Rev. Paul Moore