A Meditation on Psalm 1

The Collect for this Sunday is a prayer that the Lord would hear the prayers of his people and in our time grant us peace. As we draw to the end of 2020 this is a fitting prayer for our nation. It seems in the midst of hurricanes and fires that Mother Nature has waged war on us. They named so many storms this year, that they are now using Latin names and starting with the alphabet all over again. The entire west has been so dry that much of it is on fire. Our cities burn as we wage war on each other. We all are at war with a virus that has stripped away our safety and destroyed many lives, many losing the battle against the virus in isolation without the consolation of family and friends. Our election feels more like combat than a peaceful transition of power. We long for a safe place to stand. We long for peace in our time.

I believe that the answer lies in the introduction to the Psalter or what we call Psalm 1. The Psalm contrasts the way of the wicked and the way of the righteous. There is no middle way. Jesus himself, in the conclusion to the Sermon on the Mount, speaks of either the broad road that leads to destruction or the narrow road that leads to eternal life. —Matthew 7:13-14 John the Baptist speaks of the two ways, “The Lord’s winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear the threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” —Matthew 3:12

In the end, it boils down to where we seek to be nourished. We either seek sustenance from evil friends or from the Word of God.  Psalm 1 describes bad friends as “ walking in the counsel of the ungodly, standing in the way of sinners, and sitting in the seat of the scornful.” This is contrasted with the righteous who “delight in the law of the Lord and meditate on it day and night.”

To use imagery a westerner can understand, those who love the word are like cottonwoods planted beside the Rio Grande. Those who listen to an evil society will be like tumbleweeds, blown to and fro by the desert wind. road crews gather them by the truckload only to be burned.

Loving the Law of God can be difficult. There are so many things to remember. There are so many laws to “modify’ and make it easier. (This was the game of the Pharisees.) As Anglicans, we should not fall into this trap. Our whole service is built around a summary of the Law that we should all be able to remember and it is sufficiently clear that we destroy it when we try to “modify” it for our convenience. This summary is found in our Gospel for this Sunday. Please note that the question of the Gospel is asked by a Pharisee whose only goal is to trip up Jesus, not to sincerely understand the Law much less to follow it. Jesus states clearly that the greatest commandment is to “ love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. The second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” —Matthew 22:37-40

As Anglicans, we begin our service every Sunday with this reminder. To be honest we also confess every Sunday that, “We have not loved you with our whole heart, and we have not loved our neighbor as ourselves.” Lord have mercy upon us.

The bottom line is this:

If we truly desire peace in our own time, and if we long for the Lord to hear our prayers for that peace we need to forsake the counsel of the ungodly and turn to the Word with our whole heart and make the Law of God our delight. On a practical level, this would mean getting off of social media. As a matter of fact, it wouldn’t hurt to abandon all media for a while, at least until we can get rooted in the Word. We should not hang out with friends who fan the flames of anger and division. Instead, we should spend time in the Word, time in church, time with Jesus in prayer, and time with Christians who not only talk the talk but walk the walk and love God with their whole heart, soul, and mind, while loving their neighbor as themselves. These folks are not a dime a dozen, but they are out there. It will not be easy, but the reward is eternal.

“For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish.” —Psalm 1:7

The Lord doesn’t just know the way of the righteous, he knows them personally, and answers their prayers. He will grant them peace in our own time.

†Bp. Mark