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Morning Devotion for the Season after Pentecost
July 12, 2023
Invitatory
Lord, open our lips.
And our mouth shall proclaim your praise.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.
Reading: Psalm 14
1 The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.” *
All are corrupt and commit abominable acts; there is none who does any good.
2 The Lord looks down from heaven upon us all, *
to see if there is any who is wise, if there is one who seeks after God.
3 Everyone has proved faithless; all alike have turned bad; *
there is none who does good; no, not one.
4 Have they no knowledge, all those evildoers *
who eat up my people like bread and do not call upon the Lord?
5 See how they tremble with fear, *
because God is in the company of the righteous.
6 Their aim is to confound the plans of the afflicted, *
but the Lord is their refuge.
7 Oh, that Israel’s deliverance would come out of Zion! *
when the Lord restores the fortunes of his people, Jacob will rejoice
and Israel be glad.
Meditation – Peter Vanderveen
Experience has convinced me that there are few things easier than reading religious texts lazily. It happens with depressing regularity because we tend to think that we already know what any religious text must be expressing. This is what makes church so boring. God, we assume, is on the side of the righteous and the oppressed; and, as must then also be the case, God will be a fierce judge, who stands opposed to evil and those who cause others to suffer. There is, of course, the somewhat awkward Christian twist of forgiveness and redemption, even for the worst of us; but this is immediately justified by placing these within the same binary division – those forgiven have to earn this by repentance and their own resolve to join the ranks of the blessed. It all makes perfect sense, as predictable and dull as it is.
And so, exactly to pattern, Psalm 14, seems to divide the foolish atheists from those chosen by God. In theological terms, there are the elect, who wait for God’s salvation, and the reprobate, who, like Rhett Butler, frankly, “don’t give a damn.”
But is this a proper reading of the psalm? I’m not at all sure. For verses 1-3 (Part A) include everyone within the ranks of the wrong, without exception. The psalmist never announces that his focus is on a particular subset. God’s view from heaven is comprehensive. And from there, evil shows itself to be an equal opportunity employer. We all succumb in some way, at some level. In this sense, as participants, we are all peers.
But suddenly, without any explanation or delineation, the psalmist’s perspective shifts in verses 4-7 (Part B). Complete inclusion is out, for there are a number, we are informed, who qualify as the righteous. Who are they? And how did they obtain this distinction? We are not told, apart from the intimation that they are a remnant within the covenant God made with Israel. Read carefully. The second half of the psalm seems to be in direct contradiction to the first, and no resolution is forthcoming. Either all are faithless (Part A) or some are true (Part B) – but it cannot be both. The psalm pushes us up against an impossibility; it’s a classic Scriptural abutting of incompatible statements.
Read lazily, the universality of Part A is passed over and Part B can, then, be misused in support of one’s own prejudices and convictions: God will reward (us) the faithful. But this leads to so much unnecessary and tragic violence, one against another – with religion at the heart of what’s wrong. A little righteousness is a dangerous thing.
Read attentively, however, the psalm delivers a very different message and hope. For it may be that verses 4-6 describe a game that we all play, pointing at others, accusing them. And here, too, there are no exceptions; we’re all engaged in the wrongful work of self-justification, claimed by declaring others worse than us. Everyone is more than adept at this; those who consider themselves most chosen most of all.
And, thus, God’s salvation originates from where it is least deserved, where privilege is most assumed. Salvation arises as something that is as unjustifiable as it is astonishing and beautiful. For it overcomes our most stubborn binary divisions – the very divisions we lazily expect God to uphold. And this, then, is where hope begins, where it is perfectly inexplicable, where no one can be excluded.
It requires work to read closely enough to glimpse this; but God is in the details.
Prayer
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy Name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory,
forever and ever. Amen.
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