Tuesday in the Sixth Week of Easter: Picking on someone...

Lessons: Psalm 78:1-39; Deuterononomy 8:11-20; James 1:16-27; Luke 11:1-13 

One of the lessons of childhood was "Pick on someone your own size." It was used when a bully was confronted since most often the bullies I knew were lumbering kids compared to their victims.  Occasionally they were just stronger or had seduced a following to do their bidding.  Sometimes this statement was employed on me when I had taken on my younger brother.  I knew just what it meant. Occasionally in scripture it seems to be in the mind of God.  It seems to be part of God's resolve at the end of the Flood story, never again to release wholesale destruction. It shows up in today's psalm.

Their heart was not steadfast toward him, *
     and they were not faithful to his covenant.
But he was so merciful that he forgave their sins
     and did not destroy them; *
     many times he held back his anger
     and did not permit his wrath to be roused.
For he remembered that they were but flesh, *
     a breath that goes forth and does not return.      Psalm 78:37-39 

The Psalms take us through many emotions and feelings. They are invitations to reflect on our thinking, our processes of revenge, our returning to God as core to our identity, and our place in the scheme of things temporal and eternal.  They are places of rather free expression where at times we (in prayer) wonder why in the world this is in scripture.  It seems so base.  Yet almost always these are places we know within. Then from time to time they bring us back to a balanced perspective or a grace-filled one.   

Psalm 78 meditates on God in Israel's history calling them, correcting them, guiding them.  It is a meditation on God's nature as it is revealed to Israel.  In this nature is a resolve not to be a bully, to notice our size and lack of permanence. It is as if God knows the principle task is to keep creating us better.  It is as if God knows we grow and become in the forgiving places of life not the simply just places.  There is no Queen of Hearts shouting, "Off with their heads!" 

When Jesus' disciples ask him to teach them to pray, he gives them a simple focused shape for prayer. Honor God as intimate and holy, the source of perfect life breath. Focus on God's reign as present, coming. Ask only what is immediately needful, bread and forgiveness for past missed moments while forgiving all theirs. Keep us focused on the good and keep us little tempted by its opposite.  Pray thus and God will be discovered to be responsive like a loving parent who hears of a child's true need, a neighbor's dilemma easily met from the base of kind regard.  Stay at it and you will find what you sincerely need and seek.  This is a door easily opened, a longing God intends to meet.  For Jesus this is ground zero.  This is where we all find the Nature of God at work in and for us.

The author of the Letter of James says as much when he writes:

Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights... You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God's righteousness... But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. ...  Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.    James 1:17,19-20,22, 27.  

It is as if he says here, once you have set your life to be rooted in prayer to and with God, reflect God.  This is what recreates us.  Yes we are a passing breath, but let it be God's breath.  Then we are wedded to the eternal breath and while we may pass, the breath we have wedded ourselves to will go on.  This is better than picking on someone our own size.  This is sizing up to the One who has chosen us.

Now what shall I do today that will enlarge my size, my capacity as one who finds my life in God? This is a worthy prayer.