“Promises kept, promises fulfilled”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Wednesday, April 12, 2023
Psalm 105:1-8 (Forward, p. 73) CEV p. 619
Sometimes I just don’t know. Today’s psalm is all about the trustworthiness of God towards His chosen people, and yet, the designers of the lectionary decided to close out the passage for today at verse 8. This is quite odd, for it deletes a whole bunch of things that God did that illustrate His goodness and faithfulness towards Israel. It leaves a very limited and truncated version of these attributes. To leave out His wonders and miracles as pertain specifically to Israel is to leave out much of their identity and history and especially redefine who they are as a people. After all, the Exodus and the entry into the Promised Land is part of who they are—especially as illustrated and acted out in the yearly Seder and Passover celebration. So, I am wondering whether the framers of our lectionary were uncomfortable with even the concept that God would promise to give Israel and its descendants the Promised Land forever.
Verses 1-8 enjoin Israel to praise God for His actions in history, for His miracles and wonders, for His fair decisions and justice, and for His abiding faithfulness to His promises and His covenants. Verse 8 in particular says:
“He will never forget his agreement or his promises, not in thousands of years”
But then, verses 9-11 say, “God made an eternal promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, when he said, ‘I’ll give you the land of Canaan.’ I’m afraid that this is part of Israel’s story, and remains so, even if some people today are uncomfortable with it.
What this says to me is that some people today are rather uncomfortable with some things in the Christian story, some things in our history, some things in our doctrine or beliefs and some things in the Bible. To which, I say, too bad. We can struggle with these, we can seek to provide context and background, and we can seek to understand them but, in the end, they might still be perplexing and disturbing. So be it. In the end, we are not putting our trust in any of these things, in our understanding, limited as it may be, but simply in our Lord. And so, in our puzzlement and in our discomfort, we can simply rest in Him. Amen.
Forward notes: “Let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice” (verse 3b).
“What do you seek? I don’t often consider this question. I am more apt to think along the lines of ‘I want…My goal is…My next project will be...’ But to seek? This is not often a concept I engage in my regular, busy life, despite the fact that as a priest, I am supposed to seek the Lord, right?
“If I’m honest, on a day like today with meetings morning til night, I am mostly seeking some rest, some downtime. And yet, I offer my prayers to the new day by facing East in the morning. I say my prayers in Cherokee. I do some writing in the quiet of the morning before my work day begins. It is then I seek the Lord. What I am less good at is seeking the Lord once the day’s to-do list begins.
“This morning I had a meeting that started with someone expressing his anger toward me. Did I seek the Lord? No. I sought to defend myself and get one up on his arguments against me. So tonight, when I lie down in bed, I will seek forgiveness for seeking my own will and not God’s will, our catechism’s definition of sin. Only then can my heart rest—and rejoice.”
Moving Forward: “What do you seek?”