James 24:7

Last night in our Psalm study we finished up with Psalm 73- the one that speaks of the profound dangers of envy and jealousy- and started into Psalm 24.  

To read a Psalm that opens with, "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof; the world and they that dwell therein" seemed like a good idea after contemplating the dangers of envy.   We need to be reminded that even if we get it well.. it's not ours.

Some of us have read that Psalm our whole lives and yet have not been touched by the boldness of its claim.  Think about it: here is this hymn being sung on a regular basis by the Jews.  Here they are making this bold claim about their God and implying that other gods in the neighborhood are nothing like Yahweh who created everything and owns everything in this plane of space and time.

That's one thing and maybe that's enough.  However, there is this one little fact that often goes unnoticed: this claim is made by a people whose history is little but conquest and oppression.  They were enslaved in Egypt, pounded by the Assyrians, hauled off by the Babylonians, beaten by the Persians, conquered by the Greeks, oppressed by the Romans, dispersed to the four corners of the world, despised in many quarters, suspected in others and almost annihlated by the Nazis. 

And all the while they sang, "The earth is Yahweh's and the fullness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein."

In the faces of those who sought to destroy them, in the presence of those who towered over them with bloodied sword and heavy shields they sang: "You belong to the God of our Fathers; You and all you claim for yourself belongs to Yahweh."

I can only speak for myself but when I left our study last night I could not escape the thought that this was and is a song sung by those who go on believing, go on asserting, and go on standing for their God even in the face of evidence that seems to contradict their claim.

And, as I drove home, it occurred to me that we ought to practice repeating those lines everyday of our lives. When our crisis emerges and when all the apparent evidence argues against it, will we go on singing?  Will we say in the face of that which would destroy us: "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof; the world and they that dwell therein?"