"Each morning I will acclaim your love."
This is a tough psalm: living in the real world of politics, business, culture. What we might call the world of cut-throat competition. Nothing new - Pope Francis even speaks of ladder-climbing clerics. But the psalmist doesn't disappoint. As he does in every psalm of complaint, in the end he presents us with an alternative to the world of power-lust in which we live.
Verses 1-3: The word psalm means praises. But this psalmist can seem to be more often a complainer than a praise-r. He begins by asking for a rescue - not once but twice - emphasizing how stressed out he is. He's living in a world of evil people - blood-thirsty, he says.
Verses 4: The psalmist is quick to declare how innocent he is. He's feeling victimized. If this is a national psalm and not just the complaint of an individual, asking why we're hated might be in order. One Israeli news reporter says, "You Americans never ask why?"
Verse 5-6: Here, the psalmist is telling God to wake up. He feels that God is asleep on the job. Is he taunting God into action, flattering God with titles? He wants God on his side, maybe like the priests of some nations who bless bombs and rockets with holy water. Imagine that, the sacramental water through which we meet Jesus - used to bless bombs, tanks and submarines - instruments of death and wasting destruction.
Verse 7: This fellow's troubles are unrelenting. Even into the night he's oppressed. He likens his foes to dogs. Like Jim Croce's "junk yard dogs." The ancient world didn't care much for dogs. We're better at that. Dogs are wonderful. If a dog is mean, it's more often than not, the fault of someone who's treated them badly.
Verses 8-9: What's gabble-mouthed? Talking so fast you can't understand what the person is saying. Jabbering. Sounding like birds, noisy geese. Then the psalmist references mouths that are full of insults. Sounds like social media today. God laughs at us with all our big talk, posturing at lecterns, power displays, wordy advertising and nonsense.
Verses 10-11: Here the psalmist softens his tone a bit. He calls God, Strength, Stronghold and Source of Love. Maybe he has some sense that while the nation is suffering all these attacks, if he lives an interior life, he will be immune.
Verse 12: The psalmist tells God to kill the enemies. There are Christians with this kind of attitude: Let us be triumphant. Lay them low. Let us be done with them. Get rid of them for us. We can do without them. It's called otherism. Jesus forbids it.
Verse 13: Here, he ticks off the sins of others. The sins of their mouths. But do we know our national history and our terrible treatment of native Americans and immigrants? Every new group that comes to this country is cursed at, lied about, thought of poorly, excluded. Dirty Irish, Greedy Jews, Lazy Blacks, Terrorist Muslims, Rapist Mexicans, Superstitious Catholics. No one escapes. It's national shadow. We could do with putting a national day of repentance on the liturgical calendar. There are people who would bitterly resent that. Remember sayings like these: "My country, right or wrong," or "If you don't like it here, go back where you came from." It's not Jesus' way.
Verse 14: This fellow is out of control: "Destroy them Lord in your anger. Destroy them till they are no more." He calls God angry, but it's really him who's so angry. Maybe he's angry with God - expecting God to validate his own fury. He doesn't know himself well at all. Not a few people have no self knowledge.
Verses 15-16: These lines are a repeat of verse 7. Maybe it is a copyist's mistake. Or sometimes when we're out of control we just keep repeating ourselves.
Verse 17: But then, after his long, ugly rant, true to form, the psalmist wakes up to God's sustaining love. Indeed, the last word of the psalm is love. He proposes God's love as the only real power - not the power of his enemies and indeed, not the power of his own murderous anger. For the religious person, and perhaps especially for the Christian, love is the alternative. But how? Do everything you can to get Christ into your life; there is everything to take him away."
Verse 7: This fellow's troubles are unrelenting. Even into the night he's oppressed. He likens his foes to dogs. Like Jim Croce's "junk yard dogs." The ancient world didn't care much for dogs. We're better at that. Dogs are wonderful. If a dog is mean, it's more often than not, the fault of someone who's treated them badly.
Verses 8-9: What's gabble-mouthed? Talking so fast you can't understand what the person is saying. Jabbering. Sounding like birds, noisy geese. Then the psalmist references mouths that are full of insults. Sounds like social media today. God laughs at us with all our big talk, posturing at lecterns, power displays, wordy advertising and nonsense.
Verses 10-11: Here the psalmist softens his tone a bit. He calls God, Strength, Stronghold and Source of Love. Maybe he has some sense that while the nation is suffering all these attacks, if he lives an interior life, he will be immune.
Verse 12: The psalmist tells God to kill the enemies. There are Christians with this kind of attitude: Let us be triumphant. Lay them low. Let us be done with them. Get rid of them for us. We can do without them. It's called otherism. Jesus forbids it.
Verse 13: Here, he ticks off the sins of others. The sins of their mouths. But do we know our national history and our terrible treatment of native Americans and immigrants? Every new group that comes to this country is cursed at, lied about, thought of poorly, excluded. Dirty Irish, Greedy Jews, Lazy Blacks, Terrorist Muslims, Rapist Mexicans, Superstitious Catholics. No one escapes. It's national shadow. We could do with putting a national day of repentance on the liturgical calendar. There are people who would bitterly resent that. Remember sayings like these: "My country, right or wrong," or "If you don't like it here, go back where you came from." It's not Jesus' way.
Verse 14: This fellow is out of control: "Destroy them Lord in your anger. Destroy them till they are no more." He calls God angry, but it's really him who's so angry. Maybe he's angry with God - expecting God to validate his own fury. He doesn't know himself well at all. Not a few people have no self knowledge.
Verses 15-16: These lines are a repeat of verse 7. Maybe it is a copyist's mistake. Or sometimes when we're out of control we just keep repeating ourselves.
Verse 17: But then, after his long, ugly rant, true to form, the psalmist wakes up to God's sustaining love. Indeed, the last word of the psalm is love. He proposes God's love as the only real power - not the power of his enemies and indeed, not the power of his own murderous anger. For the religious person, and perhaps especially for the Christian, love is the alternative. But how? Do everything you can to get Christ into your life; there is everything to take him away."
