Psalms for Today ~ Lectio

 

Read Psalms 106-108

 

As we turn to the last fifty Psalms in the coming weeks, I want to introduce and invite a different way of reading.  The process is called Lectio Divina, don’t let the Latin name throw you, it simply means ~ Holy Reading…and you have already been doing this.  And I hope it is helpful to describe and define the process.  There are five steps to Lectio Divina.

 

Step one: read the three Psalms for today slowly, savoring the syllables and noticing the meaning you are making of the sentence.  Please pay attention to a word that jumps off the page ~ you can circle that word or write it down.

 

Step two: take a deep breath and look at the word or words from the Psalms that you wrote down or circled.  Take as long as you would like to contemplate, meditate, and let those words roam around your imagination.  You may ponder, “I wonder why that word or those words caught my attention?”

 

Step three: take a deep breath and pray.  Maybe you pray for God to cut through the confusion.  For example, I may pray, “God, I want to live verse 3 of Psalm 106 ~ of living Your justice ~ but I get so frustrated by those who hurt and harm others, especially Your beloved on the margin.”  Or may you pray, “God, when like the Israelites wandering the wilderness do I forget You?” (see 106:6 forward for a full, almost exhaustive, and exhausting account of what went wrong in the wilderness).  Or maybe you pray the words of Psalm 107, which to me sound like they inspired the hymn, “Guide Me O My Great Redeemer” and “God of Grace and God of Glory.”

 

Step four: breathe.  Rest in the connection with the Composer and Conductor of our lives, listening to God’s unfinished symphony and sacred silence holding you.

 

Step five: embody/enact/intention.  This is not always included in traditional Lectio Divina, but I like having a commitment that I carry with me.  So, I may say, “God, help me seek justice and be non-violent in my words today.”  Or “God, when the sea billows roll or I feel lost in the desert, help me encounter Your steadfast love” (from Psalm 107).  Or maybe, I pray, “Keep me awake to Your presence wherever and whenever I find myself today.” (from Psalm 108).

 

I will walk through this prayerful reading process each day this week, but feel free to reach out to me if you have questions.  This is a different way of reading ~ it is less about information and more about paying attention and asking God for transformation.  As we head into the last set of 50 Psalms, this is my most heartfelt and honest prayer.  Amen.  

Psalms for Today ~ Prayer

 

Read Psalms 103-105

No matter the religion or denomination in which we are raised, our spirituality still comes through the first filter of our own life experience.  —Richard Rohr 

 

What has your experience of reading Psalms been like so far?  I am asking you this intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, and physically.  What is lingering?  What has left an impression?  What questions percolate and persist?  Where has your soul been blessed and where have you felt confused and confounded by these ancient words?  “Bless the Lord, O my soul,” Psalm 103 sings.  The soul in the Hebrew Scriptures is not just an organ within us, like your appendix, but your soul is your life force ~ the song you are singing to the world ~ the way you are showing up and what happens when you walk into the room.  Your energy can let loose God’s blessing through you or can hold back (even hoard the blessing).  Your soul can be a flowing stream or a cul-de-sac.  How can you bless God uniquely in the world?  How you answer that is based on your experience in life.  The first filter, as Rohr says above, is the collection of life that is your autobiography.  You are who you are because of where you have been, who you have been around, and how you were taught/told to sing the song of the Sacred.  I encourage you to note verse 8 in Psalm 103, God is merciful from beginning to end.  In other words, God is mercy in every fiber of God’s being. God is grace evolving and expanding. God is abounding in love that radiates from the very center and core of the Creator.  This is one of the most persistent ways the Holy is described.  How do we encounter God in forgiveness, grace (unearned), and love?   How does God’s blessing get a word in edgewise?  I think it is when we mediate and marinate in the forces of grace, mercy, and love that God shows up.  When we focus on grace, mercy, and love, we recall this is who God is.  Psalm 104 points to Creation as a reminder of this.  In the seasons of Creation, there is a time to grow and a time to rest/lay fallow, there is a time to bloom and a time to be barren.  In the world where we think everything must constantly be bigger and better, we work against the very song, rhythm, and refrain of Creation.  No wonder we pave over paradise, because we don’t want to be burdened by living with the land and think we can control the land.  Let these three Psalms today sing truth to your life.  Where does a verse from these three Psalms connect to your experience?  Where does a verse contradict your experiences of life?  Where do you shout, “Amen!” or shout, “Objection!”?  Open your life, your soul, to these words to be for you wisdom in these days. Amen.  

Psalms for Today ~ Joy as Protest

 

Read Psalms 100-102

 

Make a joyful noise because you are now two-thirds of the way through the Psalms.  Woo hoo!!  Make a joyful noise because the world needs to hear praise amid all the anger and praise can be protest in beautiful ways.  Make a joyful noise because God is God, God infuses us and inspires us in meaningful ways.  Make a joyful noise because people are still creating new songs and creation is still letting loose with blooming flowers (that I pray you noticed and heard yesterday).  Make a joyful noise because God is still claiming you and naming you, “Beloved.”  Make a joyful noise because right where you are is a sanctuary, a holy place.  There is no place where God is not; God’s center is everywhere, and God's circumference continues to expand and evolve.  As you sing, let the song be for all people and for all our planet to be seen as holy.  Let our song be one of justice, where all can show and share the glory God has imprinted upon each of us.  Let our song be one of integrity, interconnectedness, healing, and wholeness.  Let our song invite people to sing with us, rather than judge those who cannot hold a tune in a bucket or can’t be part of our choir club; let all voices sing.  Let our song leave space for hurt and heartbreak, let our song not try to sugar coat life, but hold space for those who feel like their bones ache and souls churn.  May we listen to the cries, especially of those who are being treated as less than fully human and those who are scapegoated as being the source of all our problems.  Let our songs remind us that we didn’t create this melody we sing ~ from praise to praying our pain has been woven into our DNA from the very beginning.  Throughout the last 100 Psalms, the Hebrew Poet has laid the groundwork for the work of our lives.  In the words you have read, our ancestors taught us the rhythm.  Remember your grandparents and Spiritual mentors gave you the hymnal that plays in our hearts.  This joyful noise expands, evolves, and embraces teaching and telling us how to live our life, especially in these days.  Open our ears, hearts, and whole lives to enter the song You are still composing, O Creator and Conductor of life.  Amen.

One New Song and New Sight in Creation

 

Read Psalms 97-99

 

I find the metaphors of the Psalms so powerful and profound.  Psalm 97 invites us to pay attention to creation.  How does what you observe when you step out your door impact and influence your life?   Psalm 98 reminds us that new songs are being created by the Composer and Conductor of life.  Psalm 98 draws our attention to the metaphor of the seas roaring (which in previous Psalms points to the chaos of life), and now the crashing waves of creation help us find new words for a song.  Today, I invite you to pay attention to one part of creation and try to find one new song.  Don’t feel like you must discover some new galaxy or go to the depths of the sea in search of a new creature.  You could notice a different shade of green on a leaf or a blooming plant.  You could open YouTube and search if an artist you like has released a new song.  Or you could go to Amanda Udis-Kessler’s website, queersacredmusic.com, and listen to one of the hymns she wrote in preparation for this coming weekend.  This prayer practice reminds us that God is not finished.  Even though we often think we know the end of the story, where the plotline of the play of life is going right now, we don’t.  There is mystery and movement of the Divine guiding and grounding us in ways we did not see coming.  There are twists and turns, vistas and valleys, good and bad and ugly, and experiences/encounters we cannot classify or compartmentalize today.  The Psalmist’s wisdom is that there is variety in life that we can never exhaust or fully explore.  And yet, we do experience so much more than we could ever fully process.  So today let the invitation of the Psalmist move you to experience something new ~ a song or Creation’s glory on display or an openness to the ongoing, unfolding work of God in these days.  Amen.

Psalms for Today ~ Emotional Rollercoaster

 

Read Psalms 94-96

 

I think the Psalmist woke up on the wrong side of the bed when they wrote Psalm 94.  I think the Psalmist woke up with a bad case of the “Grumpy Dwarfs”.  And it is so easy for me to think, “Lighten up a bit,” without a hint of irony that I can sound just as defeated and deflated and defiant as the Psalmist, especially after I check my newsfeed on my phone.  I can get frustrated and flummoxed by the state of the world today.  I can feel outrage simmer in my soul, ready to boil over the moment I hear one more piece of bad news from gun violence to war to a multitude of humanitarian crises to cutting funding to the least and lost to how we treat people who immigrate to this country.  To be sure, anger can be healthy.  Anger points out where our values have been violated.  I get upset, smoke fumes from my ears, when I see the beloved of God dehumanized and used as political pawns for power and control.  I get upset when our leaders act like money is the only thing that matters.  I get upset when the word “Christian” is attached to folks who I don’t understand how we are reading the same gospels.  Given this, I relate to and resonate with Psalm 94, where I just didn’t know you could say the quiet part out loud—where God might hear you.  To be sure, I think the Psalms of lament offer us a chance to process our pain so we don’t pass it along.  But, I also know that sometimes I can get stuck, stymied in cycles of cynicism and criticism, where nothing seems good enough.  Then, just when things seem hopeless, helpless, and going to hell in a handbasket, you turn the page to Psalm 95, and it is emotional whiplash.  Suddenly, the Psalmist belts out, “Come, let us praise God!”  Wait, what?  Weren’t we just listing all the ways the world has gone off the rails, now we are supposed to make a joyful noise?  And Psalm 96 continues this theme of singing with Julie Andrews that, “the hills are alive with the sound of music.”  As you read, Psalm 96, there is a gem of a verse, “For all the gods of the peoples are idols.”  This might be a reference to the time in Exodus where the people made a golden calf because Moses was on an extended vacation upon the mountain chit-chatting with God (who approved Moses to have that much time off??).  I don’t have to know if this actually happened, but I know it is true because we still make gods today.  We pour our attention and affection toward influencers, politicians, and athletes because part of us wants to be like that.  At the same time, I know that I will never dunk a basketball or throw a football or hit a ball in any way that anyone would want to pay me for ~ unless it was never to watch me do that again.  The Psalms are complex and contradictory because life is like that.  We can wake up with a case of the “Grumpy Dwarfs,” wear a sneer on our face as if to dare anyone to make us smile, only to have a friend call us and start telling us a joke that breaks through our blahs, turning our souls to dancing.  Life can move from Psalm 94 to 95 in the blink of an eye ~ and back again, too. 

 

As you ponder these three Psalms today ~ where is your soul?  Which lines from 94, 95, or 96 did your shy soul shout, “Amen! Preach!” as you read the words?  Which lines did you cringe and wonder, “Why am I reading the Psalms again?”  As I am reading I think, “Haven’t we reached fifty lament Psalms yet, because it feels like more right now!?  Hold the real, raw, heartfelt, earnest honesty in these Psalms, letting them meet you in the emotions that stir and swirl within you in these days. Amen.

Psalms for Today ~ Marinate

 Read Psalms 91-93

 

Prayer based on Psalms 91-93

Protecting, providing, pervasive God, shelter me amid all that swirls around and surges within me.  I long for you to raise me up on eagles’ wings, where I might get a glance/glimpse of the bigger perspective.  Too often, O God, I don’t see the forest for the trees; I get caught in the weeds.  My normal way of seeing, O God, is to give more weight to the negative and broken, rather than the truth of beauty that sits alongside the bruises of life.  I long to rest and abide in the abode/home of Your affection.  Let Your angels hark, sing into, and shape my life, as they did six months ago on Christmas Eve.  I long to give thanks to You, O God, because Your steadfast love is found in such granular places, when I shift my seeing to what is right in front of me: listening to music; moments of laughter; someone holding my hand; ordinary grace of sunrise streaming in my window right now.  So, awaken me to Your work around me so that You might work through me.  As I continue to marinate and meditate in the Psalms, may the metaphors deepen my connection to You.  When the Psalms disrupt my tidy theology, let these ancient words stretch me in new directions and give me permission to question and hold my doubts.  Thank you, God for how Your presence has evoked poetry and prayer and praise and perplexity that are all still doorways to You today.  In Your many names and how You move in many ways.  Amen.

Psalms for Today ~ Prayer

 

Read Psalms 88-90

 

Prayer based on the Psalms today.

 

God of the blues, where minor keys don’t always resolve into major melodies; God of moments when life is not a half-hour sitcom where everything turns out just fine in the end, hear the heartbreak and soul ache for the brokenness and bruises of life.  Listen to our cries when our efforts for peace, justice, caring, and love to rule the day are laughed at by others.  When we feel our works and the church are in vain, let Your holy spirit revive our souls again with a balm in Gilead to heal, help, and hold us.  As we rest in Your refuge, may we find a song of truth that is Your love, even when all the exterior evidence seems to object, for Your love is still true and can be trusted.  Even when leaders scoff or sneer or gnash their teeth, may we find places and spaces to sing another song that life is measured by more than success, bottom lines, and followers on social media.  Even as the waves crash down, help us keep singing the story of Your endless love.  For the days are long and the years are short in Your time.  Even as I mark and measure time by my standards, remind me, O God, of Your wisdom that I can never understand but am called to stand under with hope in You.  May Your song continue to be written in me so that Your holy tune can be sung by we ~ Your Divine Diversity in life.  When the notes are sour, off key, call me back with a voice that tunes my soul to You, my rock and redeemer, and restorer.  Let Your melody carry me through the hours ahead.  Amen.  

Psalms for Today

Read Psalms 85-87

 

Show us Your steadfast love, O God, and grant us Your salvation (Psalm 85:7)

 

Teach me Your way, O God, that I may walk (go, incline my heart) in Your truth (Psalm 86:11)

 

Glorious things are spoken of You, O God (Psalm 87:3)

 

I love these three verses.  The verse from Psalm 85 reminds me, invites me, and calls me to live life with openness and wholeness that comes in community with the Creator and creation.  The second verse from Psalm 86 tells me I am still learning, I don’t have it all figured out.  And the third verse from Psalm 87 calls me to share my voice still to process what I am learning ~ as the cliché goes, those who teach learn more than their students.  These verses call me to notice and name: when, when, and how have I recently felt God’s affection?  When was the last time I showed up fully as myself and felt safe?  Where do I long to know more about God?  Who is God for me?  And what song would I sing to God today? 

 

I invite you to find one verse for each of today’s Psalms to lay side-by-side to mix and mingle in the Scriptural chemistry lab of reading.  I invite you not just to read these words, but to let them read your life and meet you today.  May this exercise offer you an experience of the Eternal that you can share with others.  And remember today to celebrate on this Juneteenth the God of liberation and transformation who is at work in the world, even (especially) here and now in, around, through, and sometimes despite us.  Amen.

Psalm for Today ~ Doing Our Best

 

Read Psalms 82-84

 

Yesterday, we prayerfully pondered communal laments.  Today, Psalm 82 reminds us that our human imaginations and incarnations are not the same as God’s justice.  I love how Psalm 82 is a lesson of living Micah 6:8 to do justice, embody love/kindness, and walk humbly with God.  Read Psalm 82 slowly, letting it sing to your soul and guide your decisions (where you go, how you go, and with whom you go) these days.  As you do that, hold the truth of Psalm 83, that just because we commit our hearts toward justice doesn’t mean that everything will be immediately and instantly better.  It feels to me like the Hebrew hymn writer got up, prayed Psalm 82, went out to be God’s love in the world to the least, lonely, left out, and left behind.  In the midst of experiencing the rough edges of our humanness, that was like sandpaper to the soul of the singer.  After seeing the brokenness, the Hebrew Hymnwriter comes back and writes Psalm 83.  The summary of this Psalm is, “Um God, I am doing the best I can, and it doesn’t feel like enough.  A little help here.  Let me tell You, God, what I would like You to do…I have some ideas to take care of those people.”  I view Psalms 82-83 as lessons we need today.  There is the Jewish wisdom from Pirke Avot: “It is not up to you to finish the task, but you are not free to avoid it.”  Or the wisdom of the brick layers who began great cathedrals in Europe they never saw completed.  Or the work of justice, which is ongoing and unfolding.  To be sure, this can be discouraging.  We love moving things from the to-do list to the to-done list.  We love checking and crossing something off, even if we add three more things right away.  But when it comes to our core values (worship, welcome, belonging, caring, justice, and faithfulness), these take more than our lifetimes because these words never stop expanding and evolving.  And, these words feed and fuel us so that we can sing out with Psalm 84.  You see, we commit to the work of justice not out of obligation but as holy joy with God.  We don’t need to be sober; we can be joy-filled.  We can sing with God, who has a hammer and nails, building a place for all people; we are not alone.  Let this truth simmer and sing to your soul, and let's keep talking about how justice doesn’t wear a frownie face all the time or a dour, sour tone, but can sing out for a world God is dreaming and designing, calling us to part-take with the Creator.  Amen.

Psalms for Today

 

Read Psalms 79-81

 

Psalm 79 is a communal lament.  That sometimes the brokenness isn’t just in us, it is shared between us.  This happens in times of war, hatred, racism, homophobia, sexism, xenophobia, and all forms of discrimination.  We, as humans, are not the “we” God created us to be.  We smudge and smear the image of God we are called to let loose through us.  How does a country lament?  On Thursday, we honor Juneteenth, the day federal troops arrived in Galveston, TX, in 1865 (two and a half years after signing the Emancipation Proclamation) to ensure all enslaved people were free.  It is so easy to skim and skip through history, thinking Lincoln signed that proclamation and that next day there were chocolate rivers and pony rides for everyone.  Let’s face it, we also know that even after June 19, 1865, racism still persisted and pervaded people’s hard hearts right up until today.  Communal laments ask for God to interrupt and intercede, not just for those people over there, but for us people right here.  Psalm 79:11, “Let the (collective) groans of the prisoners (because all of us can feel caged and confined in life) come before God.”  Too often, the church, especially in America, has idealized the individual and forsaken the communal.  We shine a spotlight on each person as an end to him/her/them self, rather than caught in a web of mutuality.  The tension is that both are true.  There are places where I am free to choose, and there are spaces where systems of brokenness give me the privilege to take an easier path.  What would you have us lament as a church, community, country, and creation today?  Then, as you turn to Psalm 80, I love verse 8, remember God brought a vine out of Egypt, God listens to God’s people, our collective cry, even when it comes from individual beds.  We are part of a chorus even when we feel like we are singing a solo.  While there are concerns about social media, this tool allows us to connect in both healthy, healing ways as well as ways that hurt and harm.  What does it mean that God will bring a vine, something that could be easily transported and transplanted?  A vine isn’t splashy or spectacular, but Psalm 80 says it is sacred.  What is that vine, that one part of life, God is tending to in your life?  What and where would you like God to be the Gardener of your life today?  Where do you need restoration or recitation, or release this day?  Where do you need good news, like our enslaved siblings back on June 19, 1865, to come into your life so that you can sing Psalm 81?  May these questions provoke prayers in and through you this day. Amen.

Psalms for Today

 

Read Psalms 76-78

 

God’s abode, home, dwelling, residence, and resting place is not some heaven light years away, Psalm 72:2 declares, God is here ~ right here.  This is one of the great spiritual truths that we never fully explore or exhaust.  It is easy for me to sense God in creation, where in communion and communication with the towering trees, we are exchanging carbon dioxide for oxygen.  Where the trees, whose rings I cannot see, tell a story of life through sunshine, floods, fires, and storms.  Where the squirrels and rabbits race and run, and where my heart rate slows down and my mind stops endlessly spinning.  Yes, I like Jacob says, God is here, and I didn’t know it (Genesis 28:16).  But then I come back to my car, look at the newsfeed on my cell phone or pull up my email, and suddenly all the good vibes vanish and seem vanquished.  Where is God now?  That is where Psalm 77 comes in.  Once again (just like in Psalm 22 and 23 sitting side-by-side without a lot of human explanation), we have a Psalm that praises God only to turn the page and read, “I cry aloud to God, aloud to God for God to hear me.”  Wait, wasn’t the Psalmist just frolicking in the forest?  Wasn’t the Psalmist just walking on sunshine?  Where did those good vibes go?  Then, I think of my own experience above.  How a good walk in the woods can be spoiled when I decide that the news has more sway on my soul than the trees that just gave me oxygen.  When I choose to pour my attention toward that which is bruised and broken rather than life-giving, to be sure, it takes a lifetime to hold both loosely.  I believe the theology of the Psalms is trying to tell us that in human life, there are Psalm 76 moments and 77 times too.  And that leads many to be pessimistic, waiting for the other shoe to fall, believing that somehow the goodness and God-ness of one moment is negated because of the brokenness of another.  What if the goodness is there in Psalm 76 to give us strength for the 77 moments?  Look at verses 7-9 of Psalm 77; those are the questions each human answers daily in our lives.  Can we hold the brokenness and forsakenness with an earnest, honest trust that God has been God in the past, present, and future, even when we cannot perceive what will happen?  Can we stay curious about the Creator to the point of collaboration?  If we can, then Psalm 78 gives us something to say.  This Psalm preaches and proclaims that I am not going to wear rose colored glasses, that the sun will come out tomorrow, it may rain for forty days, and we can feel caught in the waves of life.  In those moments, we seek to stay open to the One who surfed the chaos in the beginning.  Remember, we are approaching Psalm 88, which I preached on at the end of May.  I invited you to the wisdom of the mystic that says, “If you are going to walk through hell, don’t come out empty-handed.”  There are some moments in human life bursting with goodness, where our cup overflows.  There are some moments when the coffee mug shatters on the floor, spilling all that delicious brew before you had a single drop.  The Psalmist is encouraging us to practice the presence of God wherever, however, and whenever we are.  While there is a universalness to this invitation, there is a uniqueness in how each of us will live this spiritual walk ~ and we do not do it alone.  I pray you will find a partner today to share how these three Psalms sing to your life.  Amen.

Psalms for Today

 

Read Psalms 73-75

 

These three Psalms are lengthy, filled with countless emotions, cries for help, complaints that things are not okay, and then (just for funsies) even praise and thanksgiving.  Rather than trying to dissect and discuss every single verse, I simply invite you to find one verse in one of the Psalms today to carry with you.  For me, I am taking Psalm 73:28 with me in the hours ahead. But for me it is good to be near God I have made the Lord God my refuge, to tell of all your works.  Or from the Message translations, I’ve made Lord God my home.  God, I’m telling the world what you do!  How can my actions sing praise of God’s love?  How can my words get caught up in the unending symphony of God?  How can I breathe and be in God’s presence with joy and honest frustration?  How can I let God get a word in amid all the scrolling and noise of the world today? 

 

Let us pray: Conductor and Composer of life, let loose Your presence in my life.  I pray You will listen to what is in my heart and all that sings from my soul ~ the good, the bad, and the ugly.  When I get frustrated and flummoxed, incline Your ear.  When I get caught in a cycle of cynicism or convinced that the world is not worth trying to help, interrupt and disrupt my pity party.  When I am unsure of what to do, God, sing with a wisdom that maybe I need a nap or to roll up my sleeves or to phone a friend or dare to stop doing and listen to You!  God, who inspired the songs of the Psalms, infuse my life with a melody I need and help me realize that I am not the only one singing!  Tune and turn my ear toward the chorus of people who come together in places and spaces to praise You this day, every day.  Open me to that truth amid all that I encounter and experience this day.  Amen. 

Psalms for Today

 

Read Psalms 70-72

 

Yesterday, we let loose our inner Aretha Franklin and sang out praise to God from whom all blessings flow.  Today, we join B.B. King in singing the blues.  This began yesterday with Psalm 69, the thread and theme of brokenness continues in Psalms 70 and 71.  Remember, over one-third of the Psalms are lament, so every week you are getting a healthy dose of the Psalmist crying out, pleading with God to be God.  I am aware of how often we have sold Christianity as a commodity in our world.  As clergy, we lay out a formula of Psalm 1 ~ be a good person, pray, help others, and don’t let Darth Vader sell you a set of steak knives ~ equals ~ all will be well.  So many people have walked away from the church because that formula was practiced in their life…and their life turned out to be more tragic than beautiful.

Then, to add salt to the wound, the pastor told them that they just needed to pray harder and trust or that it was their fault.  Ouch!!  No wonder people think, “I’m outta here.”  This way of Christianity is our human desire to reduce religion to something we can control or comprehend.  But remember, “Praise is the final mystery”.  There is more than an orientation or a formula to religion.  Faith is a messy chemistry experiment in our lives.  This is the disorientation or the reality that bad things happen to good people.  Sometimes my prayers, passionate as they are, don’t seem to be answered in the way I want, when I want, exactly how I want.  When I face the obstacle of pain, I can either walk away from God, or wonder who is this God I seek and how is God seeking me?  Recall the Parable of the Prodigal family where the father does not go out seeking either of the wayward sons (because I believe both sons left ~ one physically and the other emotionally).  God watches, actively waits, and runs toward us as we move toward the Divine.  God doesn’t swoop in and save us from all brokenness and bruises of life, because in life and faith, we are free to choose; we need only face the consequences.  How am I living?  What are my expectations, and why am I living this way?  That is, am I living kindness because I believe this will earn me a gold star for my heavenly sash?  Or am I living kindness because I feel deep in my soul that is God’s way?  Can I live in the tension that while I choose love, others do not and will not?  Can I be in the uncomfortable place of affirming/celebrating others as fully formed in God’s image, while others cling to rating and ranking?  The Psalms cannot be reduced to some formula for life, but rather hold a mirror to our beautiful human messiness!  I pray today you won’t hide from your one wild, precious, broken, beautiful life, but let all of that be part of the praise you offer God, others, and the world.  Amen.

Psalms for Today

 

Read Psalms 67-69

 

Yesterday, I invited you to bring your full self into God’s presence.  Hold that as I rewind, revisit Psalm 66 from yesterday as important wisdom for these days.  When we gather as people who are seen and loved and held in God’s love, we can sing Psalm 66.  What is bringing you joy today?  Notice how just this week we have ridden emotional rollercoaster of whimpering, whining, and wishing the world was different, now to praising.  This is the journey of orientation to disorientation to reorientation.  Praise, not because everything is perfectly polished and going according to our plans.  Praise because God is God and God is still at work in us and through us and sometimes despite us and other times inspiring us.  God is God.  I love the line in the hymn, God of Abraham and Sarah, where the writer invites us to sing, “Praise is the final mystery.”  That line takes a lifetime to explore and experience and express.  Praise is a way of life.  Praise is what the tree and wind do as they dance together.  Praise is what the squirrels do as they scurry around.  Praise is what my dog does when I rub his ears.  Praise is what my heart does when I hear music that moves me or am with my family.  Praise is what I feel from the top of my head to pinkie toe when we sing together on Sunday.  Praise is not some destination we reach at the end of life, praise is what our hearts long do every day of life.  This does not diminish or discount the disorientation of life ~ the hurt and heartbreak ~ nor does it say that those who hate and discriminate get to have the final word.  Praise is protest and prophetic in participation with the Holy is still at work in this world creating a realm where all (and I mean all creation, animals, plants, and featherless bipeds) will be fully alive and awake.  Praise is important because it lets loose a vision toward the possible rather than only pointing out what is wrong through constant criticism.  Praise is an antidote to apathy and enlivens the heart and lightens the soul to be in tune with the Holy hum of the universe.  How will you praise today?  What wisdom do you hear to inform and inspire your praise in Psalms 67 and 68?  And how does that sit with the heartbroken honesty of Psalm 69?  I encourage you to keep noting what verses in these Psalms awaken your soul to sing, which verses feel like sandpaper to your soul, and which Psalms you skim because the words right now are just not connecting to your experience.  Bring your full self to this project as we continue to sing these ancient words afresh as wisdom for our lives these days.  Amen.

Psalms for Today

 

Read Psalms 64-66

 

Listen and help, O God. I’m reduced to a whine And a whimper, obsessed with feelings of doomsday.  Psalm 64:1.

 

Who knew that the Psalmist could predict my feelings today!  There are moments when we find ourselves struggling under the stress of this art project called, “Life”.  There are times when we cry out for relief and release, to feel renewed and restored with the Spirit.  Where are you whimpering today?  Where do you feel like things have gone to hell in a handbasket?  What external evidence do others keep shouting that, “The end is near”!!?  Notice how the Psalmist suggests that God will swoop in and save the day in verses 7-8.  Too often, God doesn’t conform to our timeline.  As I keep reading, I wonder if the Psalmist is working through our ideas about a God of vengeance who is on “our” side?  To be sure, people of all different, diverse understandings are convinced of their correctness and cancel others who do not agree.  We call out those who are hateful and hurtful (which happens within every human heart) believing that we can fix or save the other person if only they will listen to us! But remember just a moment ago we were whimpering with the Psalmist seeing only the brokenness of life.  Hold the tensions of the Psalms that sit side-by-side.  Hold the vast variety of emotions that stir within us that the Psalmist giving us permission to feel what we feel and say what we need to say to God ~ God can take it.  We can go from throwing up our hands to throwing verb punches at others, often both are fueled and fed not by processing our pain but instead passing it along.  Listen today for how so many people still scapegoat “those” people.  If “those” people got a clue, if “those” people could only be as enlightened as we are, if “those” people would…fill in the blank with your frustration of choice.  Then, listen to Psalm 65:2, “We all arrive at your doorstep sooner or later, loaded with guilt”.  It is important to remember that “guilt” means I did something bad and “shame” is I am someone bad, maybe even irredeemable.  The difference matters because we conflate and confuse the two emotions in our souls every day.  You are not irredeemable; you are beloved of God.  You are, remember the Psalmist said, the apple of God’s eye.  You are seen fully and all of you is welcome here.  There are parts of me that stumble and struggle.  I think back to a few weeks ago when anger freely flowed from my lips as someone crunched my car.  I did not act Zen-like thinking, “What is a car but a material item whose only value is to transport me from A to B.  All shall be well, go my friend and crunch cars no more.”  Nope.  I was mad with a capital “M”.  There are times I get so upset about my inability to fix or save others or end up valuing my work based on the number of people who view this Morning Meditation.  In other words, I am human.  In verse 4, the Hebrew Hymn writer sings, happy are those whom you choose and bring near to live in your courts.  In other words, when we face our fumbling and bumbling beloved fully human selves, that is the doorway to resting and residing in the Divine.  We don’t need to impress God with our fancy theological degrees or well-read Bibles or eloquent prayers.  God knows us fully, loves us fully, and asks us to be fully ourselves before God.  Can we trust this?  Can we live this?  Let those two questions simmer and be explored/expressed in your life this week.  Amen.

Psalms for Today ~ Breathing Room

 

Read Psalms 61-63        

You’ve always given me breathing room, a place to get away from it all. A lifetime pass to your safe-house, an open invitation as your guest. You’ve always taken me seriously, God, made me welcome among those who know and love you. Psalm 61:3-5 Message translation

 

Yesterday in worship we celebrated Pentecost, the birthday of the church, when the people of God were inspired and infused with the Spirit.  We honored how the Spirit doesn’t advocate for assimilation, but celebrates diversity, equity, and inclusion through the vast variety of languages being sung today and how all understand.  This is the mission and vision of the church, then and now.  The call of us to be caught up in the Spirit.  I love that the Psalmist above starts by saying, God gives us breathing room and a place to be fully ourselves.  And the prayer of the church is that this is not just as isolated individuals, but we gather to be and breathe with each other in our uniqueness and universal need to be seen, loved, heard, and blessed.  Brian McLaren says, the church is where we proclaim and practice, “All of you are welcome here and all of you is welcome here.”  All of you, not just the polished parts that we post to social media.  All of you, the shadow side of yourself when you lose your temper in traffic.  All of you ~ when you do something kind for another and when you make Oscar the Grouch look cuddly and caring.  The beginning of Psalm 62 echoes what we read in 61, but the twist and turn comes in verses 3-4 where the Psalmist laments feeling bullied and betrayed and bruised and battered by the world.  “You talk a good line, but every ‘blessing’ breathes a curse.’”  What a powerful description of people in our world, where we are promised the moon by tricksters and hucksters and politicians and pastors, only to be left holding the bill when the day is over.  To trust in God is both the direction and destination of life (remember the word asher or esher, which was in Psalm 1 inviting us to dwell in God and let God dwell in us).  This leads us to the opening words of Psalm 63, “God, you are my God!  I can’t get enough of you!  I’ve worked up such a hunger and thirst for God, traveling across dry and weary deserts.”  Where do you long for God right now?  Be specific.  In that relationship, in that situation, inside the cobwebbed corners of your shy soul, in that meeting this week.  The promise of God is that God goes before, beside, beneath, behind and beyond us.  Wherever we are, there is God already.  Hold this promise, lean into and live this promise, be awake and alert to the possibility of this promise, and let loose your inner-Sherlock Holmes to search for the Sacred showing up, like the beautiful pigeon of the Spirit, in your life this day.  Amen.

Psalms for Today

 

Read Psalms 58-60

 

Snakes.  Snarling dogs.  Lions.  Slugs.  Howling.  Singing out with gusto.  There is a technicolor vividness to the Psalms.  Creation is part of the holy hymn (we heard this last Sunday with Psalms 100 and 150), which is why I think reading the Psalms outside and aloud helps us embody and internalize what is being sung here.  I love the sacred imagination of the hymnwriter.  I love how order, disorder, and reorder are all being thrown and tossed together, in an almost stream of consciousness way.  I love how the Psalmist gives you permission to feel all the feels, don’t hold back.  Yell about the enemies, sing loudly to God with tears of hurt and hope streaming down your face, and remember God is God, which means you are not.  As Richard Rohr says, “When we pray, ‘Thy kingdom come’, it means, ‘My kingdom go.’”  But we live in a world that declares and demands that I have it my way right now.  I want to worship my way.  I want to go where I want, get what I want, how I want, and be told I am awesome for wanting it.  When we worship at the altar of self-fulfillment, there is a cost that the Psalmist is trying to point out at a time long before capitalism was even imagined or implemented.  Perhaps today, reading these Psalms, you think, “Who wrote this?  Oscar the Grouch and Eeyore and Grumpy Dwarf (which I think would be a fabulous trio!)?”  There is a raw honesty to the Psalmist which sometimes can be too much.  We may think, “Whoa, let’s dial it back”.  Or you may think, “That’s right!  The world is going to hell in a handbasket, and I have the headlines to prove it.”  Or you may think, “I think I am going back to bed to worship God at the Church of the Holy Comforter.”  Whatever your response and reaction today to these three Psalms, I invite you to pray it.  Pray to God about how we don’t like to admit or accept that we are not in control.  Pray to God our frustration that we are not consulted on all the ways the universe unfolds, much of which goes against our plotting and planning.  Pray to God about how cycles of cynicism and criticism take hold of our lives.  Pray to God that we need that sheltering refuge just as much as humans have from the beginning of time.  Pray to God your indifference, inability, ineptitude and your inspiration to let the Infinite infuse you again and again.  Pray the words you need to pray this day knowing that the Psalmist has paved the way for such raw, technicolor vividness for you.  Amen. 

Psalms for Today ~ Explore and Express

 

Read Psalms 55-57

 

I encourage you to read all three Psalms today as a model for prayer.  As you let the words of Psalms 55-57 sink, settle, and sing to your soul today, where does your heart feel strangely warmed that someone at some point in ancient history found words for what you are feeling right now?  I, like Psalm 55, want God to listen to my prayers.  But does that mean that I expect God to do what I want?  Is God a genie in a bottle who must respond to every request?  When do I need mercy, perhaps because of suffering or because I made a mistake or because the voices in my head keep pointing out all the ways I messed up?  When do I get frustrated by “enemies”?  Is naming that frustration helping or hurting?  Does admitting and accepting the emotion of anger help to engage or further enrage?  These are powerful psalms to group together because they echo each other and add new dimensions/depth when taken as a whole.  One of my prayers for reading the Psalms was to give you permission to pray all the emotions that are in your heart ~ the anger and anxiety and praise and ordinary moments.  Too often we can rely on others to pray for us rather than finding the words our shy souls need to sing by our own voice.  Let these words of these three psalms help you find a way to explore and express all that you are carrying into this new month of June.  Amen.

Psalms for Today ~

 

Read Psalms 52-54

 

I encourage you to read Psalm 52 in the Message translation, purely for the comic value!  I think Psalm 52 is meant to be a farce, a moment of delicious sarcasm amid all the somber and serious study we usually think we “have to do” with the Psalms.  Laugh with the hymnwriter on this one.  I love how Eugene Peterson, author of the Message, writes, “Why do you brag of evil, “Big Man”? God’s mercy carries the day. You scheme catastrophe; your tongue cuts razor-sharp, artisan in lies. You love evil more than good, you call black white. You love malicious gossip, you foul-mouth.”  First, who knew this was in the Bible??  Second, I am amazed that this could have been written today.  We still have people who scheme catastrophe; lie; love evil; and gossip all the time.  Good Lord, it is both funny and sad at the same time.  As you read this psalm notice the throw back to Psalm 1 in verse 8, “But I am like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God.”  Recalling one of the frameworks for reading the psalms is order-disorder-reorder.  Order is what we grew up being taught and caught from family and friends ~ the way the world is supposed to work.  Disorder is when all those rules seem to be shredded before our eyes, or we see people flourish who do not show love or work for justice.  Reorder is not simply brand-new, never seen before ~ reorder transcends and includes what was.  Reorder is both new as well as hold the disorder (which will still exist) and the order we thought we were naive for trusting still holds truth.  The Psalmist in 52 sees through the so-called hucksters and power-hungry politicians and flawed pastors as fully human.  Rather than pouring all our energy into lament (criticism or critique or rage), there is also energy for that which is life giving ~ sinking our roots deep into the Divine and the Holy in community with others.  If you keep reading, Psalm 53 echoes 52 ~ trying to explore and examine the contradictions of life as we know it.  But then, Psalm 54 returns to the refrain we’ve heard before in the last few weeks.  I try to live my life rooted in God and being aware/awake to the contradictions and the uncertainty, but that doesn’t feel like a winning strategy.  Sometimes my fear still grabs hold of the steering wheel, blasts the melancholy music of pain, and takes the exit ramp to a pity party table for one please.  Psalm 54 says that the reordering of life isn’t going to lead you to be above the fray and frenzy.  Reordered life doesn’t guarantee a Zen-like ability to rise above it all.  Reordering is a way that sometimes goes right back to disorder and longing for the order where everyone should follow the rules of being both human and kind.  I still get frustrated and flummoxed by the creativity of humanity to bring chaos and still cry out to God and need help.  I wonder, what is your takeaway now that we are one-third of the way through the psalms?  (By the way, you should totally treat yourself to some ice cream and throw confetti here because you are one-third of the way through).  Take time today to reflect on what you have read, experienced, and encountered so far.  What truths do you hold?  What questions still linger or needle at you?  What do you long/hope for as we continue to listen to the Hebrew hymnal?  May your contemplations find connection with the Creator, Composer and Conductor of this unfinished symphony called, “life”.  Amen.

Psalms for Today ~ Amid the Contradictions

 

Read Psalms 49-51

 

Yesterday, we held close to our hearts the truth that much of life is contradictory ~ a compilation/collection of the good and not so great.  Whereas some philosophy and religion suggest that life is suffering or focus only on the brokenness, Christianity holds suffering and salvation (or you could use the word, “heal” or “hope” or “wholeness”) together in the symbol of a cross.  To be sure the cross in Jesus’ day evoked terror and torture and fear; but as an Easter people we see the cross also as transformational.  Our faith is built upon a contradiction that wholeness and woundedness somehow are woven together, just as creativity and chaos played/prayed together in the beginning.  When you seek to be in that space (which is not easy because the world craves ceasing all suffering forever and ever), we can hold a verse like Psalm 49:5, “Why should I fear when evil days come, when wicked deceivers surround me – those who trust in their wealth and boast of their great riches?”  One of the reasons I invited you to sing the Psalms with me this summer is because of a verse like this.  I believe that is as true today as it was when it was first sung.  The wealthy still boast and tell others what to do.  Evil persists and insists on hurting and harming, especially the most vulnerable.  Keep reading, “No one can redeem life of another (not politics or economics or any individual/institution/church or pastor) or give to God a ransom for them…(skipping down to verse 15), “But God will redeem me from the realm of the dead.”  How?  Not in some cookie cutter, one-size-fits all plan offered to you by some trickster or traveling salesman who pedals ointments for all that ills you.  No, God redeems our life both intimately and personally ~ as well as communally. 

As you keep reading, I would encourage you to read Psalms 50-51 back-to-back.  Psalm 50 is one of confidence and 51 is one of confession ~ hear again that juxtaposition of having a strong back and a soft heart.  I am blessed and broken, I am beloved and breath/dust, I am full of moments when bad things happen and the glory of being a human fully alive.  Let these Psalms speak to you, sing into your life right now.  One suggestion is to select a verse from each Psalm you’ve read to lay side-by-side to seek how the words play together or contradict each other or maybe even ignore one another.  The power of a Psalm is when you actively engage in letting the verses have a conversion in your sacred imagination and your life.  The power of the Psalms is how they meet you right where you are even though you never met the Hebrew hymn writers who penned these words.  Hold this truth and be held by this truth today.  Amen.