Proper 5 / Pentecost 3 / Ordinary Time 10
Devotional
Water From the Rock
Lectionary Devotional for Cycle C
Object:
The Lord watches over the strangers; he upholds the orphan and the widow, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.
-- Psalm 146:9
The lectionary offers this psalm as a response to the story of Elijah's experience with the widow of Zarephath. It is a prayer of commitment to place praise at the very center of one's life (vv. 1-2). It could easily have served as the prayer of the widow in response to the restoration to life of her son when she said, "Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth" (1 Kings 17:24). You can hear her bursting out in song, "Praise the Lord, O my soul! I will praise the Lord as long as I live..." (vv. 1-2).
Such praise shifts the focus of where one places trust. Praise of God exposes the pretensions of power of rulers whose plans are limited by their life span (vv. 3-4). Neither Ahab, the King of Israel, nor the one who governed Sidon was able to break the famine or feed the poor in their midst. God is able to do what rulers often fail to do. God does execute justice and feeds the hungry. It is by God's power that one can have hope to triumph over all the forces that oppress.
God rules over the politics that imprison, the physical impairment that blinds, and continually seeks to right what is wrong (vv. 7-8). All of the vulnerable in the world from sojourner to widow to orphan, all who lack a protector, can count on God (v. 9). This God cannot be defeated by the march of time that finally defeats all other rulers. Therefore generation after generation can respond to God's continual reign in their lives (v. 10).
It is by our continual praise that we call to mind the only true focus of praise in life. The prayer becomes our prayer as we recognize how truly vulnerable we are and the limited way we can protect against such vulnerability. It is with such awareness that we turn again to the God who is not defeated by the physical limits of life.
-- Psalm 146:9
The lectionary offers this psalm as a response to the story of Elijah's experience with the widow of Zarephath. It is a prayer of commitment to place praise at the very center of one's life (vv. 1-2). It could easily have served as the prayer of the widow in response to the restoration to life of her son when she said, "Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth" (1 Kings 17:24). You can hear her bursting out in song, "Praise the Lord, O my soul! I will praise the Lord as long as I live..." (vv. 1-2).
Such praise shifts the focus of where one places trust. Praise of God exposes the pretensions of power of rulers whose plans are limited by their life span (vv. 3-4). Neither Ahab, the King of Israel, nor the one who governed Sidon was able to break the famine or feed the poor in their midst. God is able to do what rulers often fail to do. God does execute justice and feeds the hungry. It is by God's power that one can have hope to triumph over all the forces that oppress.
God rules over the politics that imprison, the physical impairment that blinds, and continually seeks to right what is wrong (vv. 7-8). All of the vulnerable in the world from sojourner to widow to orphan, all who lack a protector, can count on God (v. 9). This God cannot be defeated by the march of time that finally defeats all other rulers. Therefore generation after generation can respond to God's continual reign in their lives (v. 10).
It is by our continual praise that we call to mind the only true focus of praise in life. The prayer becomes our prayer as we recognize how truly vulnerable we are and the limited way we can protect against such vulnerability. It is with such awareness that we turn again to the God who is not defeated by the physical limits of life.
