To you, O Lord, I call; my
rock, be not deaf to me,
lest, if you be silent to me,
I become like those who go
down to the pit.
Hear the voice of my pleas
for mercy, when I cry to you for help,
when I lift up my hands toward
your most holy sanctuary.
Do not drag me off with the
wicked, with the workers of evil,
who speak peace with their
neighbours while evil is in their hearts.
Give to them according to
their work and according to the evil of their deeds;
give to them according to the
work of their hands;
render them their due reward.
Because they do not regard
the works of the Lord or the work of his hands,
he will tear them down and
build them up no more.
Blessed be the Lord!
For he has heard the voice of
my pleas for mercy.
The Lord is my strength and
my shield;
in him my heart trusts, and I
am helped;
my heart exults, and with my
song I give thanks to him.
The Lord is the strength of
his people;
he is the saving refuge of
his anointed.
Oh, save your people and
bless your heritage!
Be their shepherd and carry
them forever.
Psalm 28
Reflection – Another Monday, another
psalm. This one is a classic example of a typical genre of psalmody—the cry for
help in desperate circumstances. There are many such in the psalter, a reminder
that the psalms were not written by powerful people in a place of mastery, but
by a small beleaguered tribe surrounded by stronger tribes, more often than not
at war or threatened by war from them.
We cannot
read a psalm like this today without thinking of our brother and sister Christians
in the Middle East particularly, living literally with a knife at their throats
from the terrorism and barbarous violence of ISIS. We can, and must pray for
our fellow Christians who are facing persecution and martyrdom in large
numbers.
I have never
been fond of the use of the word ‘persecution’ by Christians in North America
to describe our current situation. To have someone say something nasty to you about
your faith, or to be surrounded by a cultural ethos and messaging that it
antithetical to ones faith is unpleasant, for sure, but it is not persecution.
Persecution
is having your church burned down by a mob, having to flee your village or your
country at the threat of your life, having your throat slit and your head cut
off. That is persecution, not simply someone being rude to us about our
beliefs.
On a lower
level it is also being forced out of one’s job for one’s beliefs—for example, one
of the drafters of the new proposed ‘conscience’ policy for the Ontario College
of Physicians and Surgeons suggested that doctors who have moral objections to
providing or referring for abortions should simply not practice medicine. So
far this policy has not been adopted, but if it is adopted, in essence faithful
Catholics and others whose religious or moral beliefs forbids abortion will not
be allowed to be doctors in Ontario.
So this
psalm has its place in our lives, even though we really must be clear—we pray
this psalm in union with and as an intercession for those members of the Body
of Christ who are actually facing death for their beliefs. And in that praying there
is a great call to faith and hope. The 21 men who were killed, for example, and
who have already been declared martyrs of the faith by the Egyptian Coptic
Church, have indeed won a great victory, have indeed been delivered from the
hands of their enemies.
The Lord
heard their cry for mercy and help, and came to their rescue, not to save their
mortal lives, true, but to establish them in his kingdom forever. And this
perspective is necessary for all of us—what it means to be delivered from evil
and to triumph over those who would harm us. Our victory over the world and
over evil is our perseverance in faith, hope, and love—not some passing
temporal success.
So… let us
pray for one another and all those who are facing terrible danger and suffering
on account of their faith for any reason, that we may all keep faith with the
God who keeps faith with us. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.