Friday of the Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time
Friday, Sept 4, 2020
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 37, a psalm which Walter Brueggemann says describes “a world that works!”
Living in a world that sometimes feels like a crumbling old jalopy, “a world that works” sounds very inviting. So how does the psalmist imagine such a world’s genesis?
Trust in the LORD and do good,
that you may dwell in the land and be fed in security.
Take delight in the LORD,
you will be granted your heart’s requests.
When we hear a consoling verse like this, we might be tempted to picture a magical world where whatever we desire is granted to us – you know, sort of like the genie in the lamp! We’re good people – we deserve that, don’t we???
Rather, what we have been given, undeserved, is the eternal assurance that God is with us, and that as we open ourselves to God’s gracious Presence, our hearts will be transformed.
For ancient Israel, that heart-opening was accomplished by making just choices, remaining faithful in difficulty, and building a community of mutual care.
Turn from evil and do good,
that you may abide forever;
For the LORD loves what is right,
and forsakes not his faithful ones.
Criminals are destroyed
and the posterity of the wicked is cut off.
So, in the end, it is surely not that our “every wish” is granted. It is, instead, that we become so aligned with God’s hope for all Creation that it becomes our greatest desire and delight. We trust and live within God’s loving and Omnipotent Will for our good.
The salvation of the just is from the LORD;
God is their refuge in time of distress.
And the LORD helps them and delivers them;
delivering them from the wicked and saving them,
because they take refuge in God.
Poetry: Primary Wonder – Denise Levertov
( I am repeating this poem and, oh my, it is so worthy of the repetition!)
Days pass when I forget the mystery.
Problems insoluble and problems offering
their own ignored solutions
jostle for my attention, they crowd its antechamber
along with a host of diversions, my courtiers, wearing
their colored clothes; cap and bells.
And then
once more the quiet mystery
is present to me, the throng's clamor
recedes: the mystery
that there is anything, anything at all,
let alone cosmos, joy, memory, everything,
rather than void: and that, O Lord,
Creator, Hallowed One, You still,
hour by hour sustain it.
Music: I Delight in You, Lord – David Baroni
Lavish Mercy 