Sermon Archive

I once heard a New Testament professor say that the main problem her students had when reading the Bible was to think that everything in it was a direct, personal word to them. That when Jesus or Paul or Nehemiah said the word, “YOU” it meant, THEM – seminarians living in New York City in the 1990s. Or, if the word “you” obviously didn’t apply – say, when Moses was using it with Pharoah – they would try to figure out who they could identify with in the story, and take the words spoken to those folks as personal instruction or comfort. It’s better, she said, to remember that – say – when Jesus spoke to his disciples, he was speaking to his disciples, and that we’re overhearing the conversation. In listening we may find God’s word of comfort or challenge to us – indeed, as a church we believe we will. But that’s different than rushing to plop ourselves into every story or assuming that all exhortations apply directly to us.

I thought that was wise advice, but I’ve always had trouble following it. And I had trouble again when I first read today’s psalm. I didn’t think about the fact that it was written thousands of years ago to people half a world away. I could see that this psalm was talking about the wicked and the righteous, and I made it my first order of business to figure out which group I belonged to. So I began making one of those mental lists. On one side was the “wicked” column; the other side, the “righteous.” Then I started the tally:

According to the psalm, the wicked are prosperous, and by any world-wide standard I’m rich, so there’s a point for the wicked column.

I’m a woman – and women are oppressed – so a point for the righteous.

I declare everything on my income tax: righteous.

I give very little to charity: wicked.

As a white person, I have unfair advantages and privileges I don’t challenge: wicked.

I’m a lesbian: righteous.

Well, by about verse 21, I’m getting nervous because my wicked column is longer and weightier than the righteous column, and it looks like the wicked are going to be in for it. They’ll fade like the grass, they’ll be cut off, the sword they’ve used to bring down the poor and needy will turn against them.... So there I am, fretting away, when it occurs to me that maybe I’m missing the point.

So let’s step back, and follow the advice from that professor. What conversation are we overhearing? On one side are those first listeners. We don’t know much about them, but we can surmise that they are fretting quite a bit, since the psalmist tells them to stop it three times. They’ve been getting all heated up about those prosperous landowners around them. Those rich folks did not care a whit for the commands of Yahweh, they followed evil devices, they oppressed the poor and needy. Why did they have so much, while the devout had so little? Land and prosperity were blessings from God. God had promised them to Abraham. God had also led their ancestors out of Egypt and given them the land of Canaan. Why were they not blessed? Had they done something wrong? Was God not so trustworthy after all?

On the other side of the conversation we have the psalmist. Don’t worry, the teacher says, those wicked people who are doing well now are going to fade like the grass and wither like the green herb. It may look like God is blessing them with land and prosperity, but God is biding time; soon you’ll look for those folks and they won’t even be there. You – the meek, the righteous, those who commit to the Lord – will inherit the land, and they’ll be cut off. You can trust the Lord.

Well, at a distance of over 2000 years, we may like to think we have a more sophisticated view of the situation. We know about economic forces. We may believe that wealth is generated through the exploitation of labor – if we’re on the left side of the spectrum – or we may believe that it comes from simple hard work, wise investments, or something in between. We may also believe that all material blessings ultimately come from God and be thankful. But, televangelists notwithstanding, few of us claim that wealth is dispensed or withheld by God to show favor.... We also pride ourselves on a more nuanced view of human nature. We’re a bundle of unconscious impulses, a product of our environment and genetics – there are no purely wicked or righteous people, with the exception, perhaps, of Hitler.

So this psalm may seem a bit primitive, especially all that stuff about vindicating the righteous and punishing the wicked. But we share something important with those folks who first listened to this prayer. We can look around us and see that things are terribly, terribly out of whack.

On Monday night there was a forum in this sanctuary on International Debt. Representatives from the World Bank, the U.N., Congress and Bread for the World spoke about the money that the so-called “poorest countries” – most of them in Africa – owed to the so-called richest countries – like the US – through the World Bank or International Monetary Fund. The panelists spoke about the hardships faced by these poorest countries and urged that their debt be forgiven. It was an excellent discussion, but there was also something surreal about it. After all, for hundreds of years, men from the now richest countries kidnapped women, children and men from the now poorest countries and enslaved them. Our prosperity rests – at least in part – on their labor and the legacy of that theft is still felt in Africa. In the late 1800s cheap rubber was important in the machinery and factories of North America and Europe. That rubber was cheap because King Leopold of Belgium and his cohorts stole it from Central Africa – and killed millions of people in the process. Who owes whom? And while we’re quibbling about this debt, millions of people are dying of AIDS and the world is doing almost nothing to help. Is this the world that the Lord has made? Dare we say that God is in charge, even “kind of?” If we aren’t fretting, we should be!

The psalmist insists that the injustice we see will not last forever. The meek – those “overwhelmed by want” may be a better translation – will inherit the land because the Lord loves justice. Believing that is a leap of faith, and for those suffering in the mean time it can be a hard word to believe. And if we’re afraid we’ll be counted among the wicked, we may find it a hard word in a different way. But we don’t have to put ourselves – or others – into one camp or the other. We don’t have to try and discern our future in the psalm like it’s a personal horoscope. We are all invited to be among the righteous: to do good, to commit our way to the Lord, to trust in God, to wait patiently. “Depart from evil,” says the psalmist later, “and do good.” Even those falling into evil ways were – and are – invited to turn back.

What it means to do good could be a whole other sermon – a lifetime of sermons, in fact. But the psalmist says one thing worth noting: “The wicked borrow, and do not pay back, but the righteous are generous and keep giving.” If we want to be righteous, we can begin by reckoning what we really owe: to God and to others. This month is Black History Month, and it’s a time for us – especially us white people – to learn more about the debt that we as a country all owe to African Americans and to pay it back with some long-overdue justice. As for generosity ... at this same forum, Congressman Nadler told us about a survey that asked people’s opinions about foreign aid. Most folk surveyed thought America gave too much foreign aid. When asked how much of the budget they thought went to other countries, they estimated 45%. When asked how much should go, people said about 10%. In fact, 7/10 of 1% of the federal budget goes to foreign aid. And I suspect this discrepency between what we think we give and what we actually give doesn’t just apply to the federal budget.