Wednesday, July 5, 2023

Today’s Scripture Reading
Psalm 7

O Lord my God, in you I take refuge; save me from all my pursuers, and deliver me,

or like a lion they will tear me apart; they will drag me away, with no one to rescue.

O Lord my God, if I have done this, if there is wrong in my hands,

if I have repaid my ally with harm or plundered my foe without cause,

then let the enemy pursue and overtake me, trample my life to the ground, and lay my soul in the dust. Selah

Rise up, O Lord, in your anger; lift yourself up against the fury of my enemies; awake, O my God; you have appointed a judgment.

Let the assembly of the peoples be gathered around you, and over it take your seat on high.

The Lord judges the peoples; judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness and according to the integrity that is in me.

O let the evil of the wicked come to an end, but establish the righteous, you who test the minds and hearts, O righteous God.

God is my shield, who saves the upright in heart.

God is a righteous judge, and a God who has indignation every day.

If one does not repent, God will whet his sword; he has bent and strung his bow;

he has prepared his deadly weapons, making his arrows fiery shafts.

See how they conceive evil, and are pregnant with mischief, and bring forth lies.

They make a pit, digging it out, and fall into the hole that they have made.

Their mischief returns upon their own heads, and on their own heads their violence descends.

I will give to the Lord the thanks due to his righteousness, and sing praise to the name of the Lord, the Most High. (NRSV)

Reflection
Pursuers, foes, enemies, and the wicked: Psalm 7 is the product of a soul (King David’s) troubled by people who mean him harm in a way that I, thankfully, can’t completely relate to. It’s a “Shiggaion,” or a song or lament. It’s “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen.”

The introductory text tells us that David sang this to God concerning Cush, a Benjamite, though no such person can be found in the biblical stories of David. It could be anyone, though; what matters is the experience of wrongful, unwarranted hostility, even violence, and the response of faith to it.

The first response is for the psalmist to cast himself completely upon God’s mercy as a “refuge.” The notion of God as a refuge is abundant and vivid in the psalms, vividly expressed in the first lines of Psalm 46: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” It’s a stirring image, but I wonder what practical good it provides when you’re really being pursued by those who seek to “tear you apart”; it’s a metaphor more than a defense.

The psalmist ultimately appeals to his own righteousness for his defense, entreating God to let what’s coming overtake him if, in fact, he has done anything to deserve it. That he is so convinced of his blamelessness need not put us off, for this is the same psalmist who elsewhere adeptly expresses their own sin and guilt (“Indeed I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me” — Psalm 51). In this case, he is certain of his innocence, and we have no reason to disagree. He has receipts.

And so the psalm appeals to God’s righteousness, apart from which neither the psalmist nor any of us could stand, and subjects itself to God’s judgment, which will surely vindicate the guiltless.

Whether in a classroom, the workplace, or at the borders of nations, the innocent today find themselves targeted and pursued as much as they ever have been. May our voices join the voice of the psalmist in praying for an end to the evil of the wicked, trusting not in our own goodness but that of God, who is as indignant today as ever and who will not fail to save.

Prayer
O God, righteous judge of all, hear the prayers of the pursued today, who are threatened through no fault of their own. Give us faith to rely on you when we are counted among those pursued, and grant us vision to recognize when we keep company with the pursuers. Then may we repent and turn to you. Amen.

Written by Rocky Supinger, Associate Pastor for Youth Ministry and Worship

Reflection and Prayer © Fourth Presbyterian Church

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