Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“Why do you boast, O mighty one, of mischief done against the godly? All day long you are plotting destruction. Your tongue is like a sharp razor, you worker of treachery. You love evil more than good, and lying more than speaking the truth.”
NL Daily Devotion for Thursday, February 22, 2024
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
Who qualifies as “godly”? One might rather ask why anyone boasts of mischief done against any one of God’s creatures regardless of artificial category into which our human brains inevitably place them? This psalm specifically calls out “O mighty one,” implying it’s about those with power oppressing others, and this is key in our modern context where some lawmakers are seemingly hell-bent on passing laws that oppress the LGBTQ+ community, women, BIPOC folks, immigrants, and more. But I, as a white, straight, cisgender, Protestant, economically self-sustaining individual exercise a fair amount of power in the world, often without realizing it (read: White Privilege). And the simple fact is that by participating in society, my actions or lack of actions are complicit in doing mischief against the children of God (which is everyone no matter what). I won’t go so far as to say that I “love evil more than good, and lying more than speaking the truth,” but I will say that it can be hard to look honestly at my part in “the way things are.” So there is an effort, a commitment, to that self-honesty on a day-to-day basis, and to asking God and others when and how to take actions in my day-to-day living that are life-giving rather than oppressive.
How do my daily choices contribute to or work against oppressive systems?
