Abilene, TX
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| Mercy Street Church of Christ Abilene, TX |
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From the beginning, the writer of the Psalms is clear about the purpose of this worship book. We are to become transformed people. The Psalms don’t begin with a beautiful praise hymn or a declaration of God’s majesty. No, they begin with a poem about how one is to be transformed by God’s instruction and the risks if one is not. I was originally drawn to this psalm from the lectionary because of its beautiful imagery of a tree planted near a stream. I am instantly taken back to one of my favorite places, Sipapu, NM, just outside of Taos. A camp is put on at this quaint ski resort and twice now, I have been blessed by my time there in nature, in scripture, and in community. Our day begins with quiet meditation just as the psalm states. I found myself going to the same spot everyday and continually being amazed by its beauty. There is nothing special about my spot. It is a small cleared area with a small tree stump next to the stream. I lean against the stump, being mostly shaded by the surrounding trees and having the sun warm my face. The rush of the stream is both calming and deafening. My ears are attuned to hear everything around me and yet nothing at all. I watch the water rush over the rocks, slowly transforming them into smooth stones. This is the image that comes to mind as I read this psalm. However I am taken aback by the stark contrasts within it. There is no grey area within this psalm. One is either on the path of righteousness or wickedness. When its put that way, I can feel myself squirm. I am uncomfortable with such absolutes, such defined categories. I find myself avoiding such dichotomies or stark labels because I know myself all too well. I know that I am often a mixed bag. But that is not what is being described here. Perfection and absolutes are not what the psalmist had in mind. The psalmist is concerned about the direction you are headed, the path you’ve chosen, not how perfectly you walk the trail, how large of steps you take or even if you get lost along the way. The psalmist wants to know if you choose to be rooted near the stream or not. But how does one know what path they’ve chosen? I know I rarely intentionally choose wickedness. In fact, I can’t think of anyone who begins down a path intentionally choosing to pervert justice and exploit others. It doesn’t work that way. It seems to happen slowly, often without notice. It reminds me so much of the movie “The Last King of Scotland”. Warning, I might spoil the movie for you so close your ears if you have been holding out to see it. It begins with a naïve young man straight out of medical school. He wants to do good in the world, but more than anything he is running away from the expectations of his domineering father. He decides to go to Uganda and work in a small mission hospital so he can make a difference among the locals. By some strange course of events including a coup and the ever-increasing political instability, this young doctor is asked to be the personal physician of the new national leader. He is sucked into this regime by the thought that maybe, just maybe, he could help more people through the national system and he ignored the rumors of this leader’s corruption and disregarded the ‘questionable disappearances’ of previous administration members. This young buck defends the leader, stands in for him at international meetings, and it is only when he has indirectly contributed to the murder of his coworker that he sees the consequences of his actions. Only then does he realize the path he is on. Getting out is even riskier. It’s a great film and captures this path of wickedness poignantly. It begins with silence in the face of injustice, passively sitting back and doing nothing. Maybe is it dismissing or chuckling at acts of injustice or exploitation. For example, when we sit back in silence or make jokes about our president being called a monkey or other racial slurs. When we sit back in silence as opportunities are denied to people simply because of their race, gender, socio-economic status, or sexual orientation. Or maybe it is more subtle than that. I still shop at the same stores, knowing they have a terrible record on human rights violations and child labor but what I am supposed to do? Should I really pay more at another store, especially in this economy? And then we rationalize. I guess really, I am providing job security for that person who otherwise would go hungry. I know the conditions are “less than desirable” but how bad could it really be? And really, what difference would my purchase make in the overall scheme of things? If I don’t buy it, someone else will, right? So I passively continue doing what I always have, in silence, because really, what difference does one person make when it comes to a joke, missed opportunities or where I shop? As I continue down the path, I then begin to stand with those actively enabling and protecting injustice. While I certainly may not pursue exploitation, murder, torture or other forms of oppression, I stand with those who do. We prop them up. We endorse them. Now I don’t agree with everything this person does but they aren’t a bad person. I choose ignorance over awareness. This is often couched in terms of self-protection. The other, who is ‘supposedly’ at risk or vulnerable, is stereotyped in caricature like form, demonized, discredited and made the enemy. “Those people”, they are the ones who are out to hurt us and so really we are the victims, the vulnerable ones, and we are just being preemptive. Before we know it, we are walking with the wicked. Like the young doctor, we have become the wicked, the unjust, the oppressors of society. Rarely does this look like the Pharaohs and taskmasters we read about in Exodus or the evil regime leaders that mark the pages of our history books. Many of us never go this far, but that is not the point of this psalm. The psalmist says whether you are walking with the wicked, standing in their path or simply sitting in the seat of those who laugh at such things, this is the path of wickedness which leads to death. This path does not lead to life. As long as the oppressed and oppressors are abstract categories without names, families, and stories, we will continue mindlessly on the wrong path. And all this happens not by intentionally setting out to do evil but by mindlessly choosing passivity, by not actively choosing the good. The choice to do good, to do justice, to be rooted in the ways of God must be an intentional one. It does not happen by chance or accident. You do not stumble upon doing justice, defending the poor and vulnerable, but one must actively choose to do such. Until we see how even our passive acts of injustice dehumanize actual people with names and faces, we will never see how these same acts dehumanize us as well. It is in this discovery that transformation begins to take place. One must intentionally choose to meditate on God’s word, what God wants and is working toward for the world. One must intentionally choose to be aware of how, where and under what circumstances your purchases get to you. One must intentionally choose how she will hear political issues regarding the vulnerable of society. One must intentionally choose to be planted near the stream of water. It will not happen by accident. Without choosing to plant oneself near the stream we inadvertently choose to be like chaff, blown here and there by the wind. While internally I resist such dichotomies of righteous and wicked, that is what we have here in this text. We are confronted with a choice of paths and there is no middle road. No one is given the option of playing the victim or the excuse of passive ignorance. We are described here in this text as people with opportunities to choose and act. We are called here today to hear a word from God, to be active participants, sojourners on a path. We are reminded that those who choose the path of righteousness are blessed. The blessed life comes only with intentionality. We cannot sit back passively and expect to become transformed people. We must intentionally set out to meditate on God’s instruction to do justice. We must plant ourselves deeply, firmly in God’s instruction and trust this instruction to begin to transform us. While the text is very clear about which path we are to go on and that we learn about it by meditating on God’s instruction for justice, (pause) actually living out this path of justice in tangible ways is not always so clear. Each of us comes from a different walk in life, from different cities, and in different contexts. In fact, I just recently moved to Abilene and am still looking around and listening for what it would mean for me to live a life of righteousness and justice, right here, right now. I want to encourage you to get together with friends, family, some classmates, or mentors and begin praying and dreaming about ways to tangibly live out this call to justice in your particular context. And together we will trust that even the smallest act that works toward justice will not return empty but will yield its fruit in season. Then we will be like trees planted near streams of water that slowly transform even the rocks within it into smooth stones.  |
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