Trust and delight

Epiphany 7 – February 23, 2025

Genesis 45:1-11,15
Psalm 37:1-11, 39-40
1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50
Luke 6:27-38

While we do not know when our psalm for today was written, we can surmise that it was during a time when the devout in Israel were being mistreated. It might have been a time of persecution from outside forces or just ridicule and abuse from other Israelites who had abandoned the faith and were enjoying prosperity possibly at the expense of those who still followed the Law. This psalm was written for those who still kept the faith who were wondering why the wicked seemed to be rewarded while they were suffering. I suppose that is the all-time big question of every generation of believers: Why do the evil and wicked seem to be rewarded and the faithful punished? The psalm does not answer this question. Instead it calls for the faithful to delight and trust in the Lord. The wicked and their ways will fade away but the faithful will receive salvation.

This psalm is an acrostic or alphabet psalm. There are twenty-two two-line sections. The first word of the first section begins with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The second with the second and so on through the whole alphabet. This difficult task – as we have said before – is one way that the psalmist assures the reader that the world has been built and ordered by God in a certain way. Just as we order things alphabetically, God has ordered the world. Since God has done this the faithful need not worry about the wicked and evil in the world. God will take care of that. For the faithful, for you and me, the psalmist tells us to take delight and put our trust in the Lord. 

The message of this psalm is the same as many others like the 23rd and even the first which we read last week. They are psalms written for a restless people who struggle with the seemingly mixed up world. A world where the wicked and evil benefit while the faithful struggle. Why is it that the wealthy live lives of luxury while the poor suffer and struggle to just get by. If you too are looking for an answer to this riddle you will not find it here. The psalmist does not try to answer that question. He writes to remind us that it is not our task to find the answer to that question but to, instead, trust that the Lord has ordered all things so that we can live lives that are faithful, that delight in the Lord and all that the Lord has given us. 

Finally the psalmist tells us that in spite of our troubles and the unfairness of the world we are to do good. Although our reading from Genesis tells the end of a story of Joseph and his brothers in which much evil was done by God’s people from Joseph’s bothers who sold him into slavery to Joseph’s own wickedness in how he brought revenge upon his brothers when they came and asked for help. It is God who turned those evil and wicked acts to good. (I encourage you to read the story of Joseph and his family – Genesis chapters 37-47.) For us, though, we are called to begin by doing good. That is Jesus’ message to us in our reading from Luke. There it tells us how we are called to live: Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, turn the other cheek, give even our shirt to all who beg, and do not ask for anything in return. Seemingly tall orders from Jesus to us. But, they are not orders. They are a gift. A gift bundled up in the gift of salvation that Jesus won for us by his life, death, and resurrection. No longer are these requirements to receive God’s salvation. They are how we live our lives. No longer are we in bondage to sin and death. Now we are able to follow Jesus and to share all that God has given us to a world that is in great need of God’s love. 

Take the words of the psalmist to heart. Do not worry or fret over the evil and wicked whose actions are selfishness and revenge but rejoice and delight in the Lord God. And how better to rejoice than to share the gifts that God has showered upon you. The sharing of God’s love to an evermore restless and violent world that needs to experience that love.