Praying the Psalms - October, 2008

I decided several months ago in preparing a pastoral prayer for Morning Worship to pray through the psalm for the day with its text spread out in front of me while praying. It was a moving experience to merge the psalm with the theme chosen from all the texts for that day, and to do so spontaneously in light of what the people and I were bringing to worship that week or facing the next. In light of that experience, and the many comments from others on how helpful it had been to them, I have decided to adopt this practice as a weekly discipline for my own benefit—both to let the Psalms shape my praying and to offer up, in that context, what I and those to whom I minister are facing and feeling week by week.

In doing so, I am fully aware that I am only entering in on a historic practice, followed by God’s people in every age. My hope is simply to learn myself from the discipline how to better enter into God’s sovereign presence and be filled with his Spirit.

Week of October 5 (Twenty-third after Pentecost) – Psalm 19

Where am I, Lord, with you as autumn begins and we move on earth toward this year’s harvest? Am I and are we, your children, prepared and preparing still for your final harvest in our lives and land? Today’s gospel text in Matthew 21:33-46 makes me wonder—knowing that you see us more truly than we sometimes see ourselves.

You own the earth and our lives on it. We know that and have confessed belonging to you. But could you be warning us that confessing your Lordship requires living it out? Have any of us been guilty of killing your servants, sent to gather the harvest among us? Is it even possible that we could be as guilty as those in Jesus’ parable of killing him, your only begotten Son?

“Clean the slate, God, so we can start [this] day fresh. Keep me from stupid sins, from thinking I can take over your work” (The Message). Help me not to presume on being a faithful steward of all you have given me, but keep me and others here focused on the “surpassing worth of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord … in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own … but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith” (Philippians 3:8-9, NRSV).

Week of October 12 (Twenty-fourth after Pentecost) – Psalm 106:1-6, 19-23

“Rejoice in the Lord always,” the Apostle says (Philippians 4:4, NRSV), repeating it twice as if to remind us. Then he calls us to gentleness, freedom from worry, and “constant prayer and supplication with thanksgiving.”

Evidently two sisters in the faith at Philippi had been arguing with each other, causing some division, not unlike believers in today's psalm who “were barely beyond the Red Sea when they defiled the High God…. They only cared about pleasing themselves in that desert, provoked God with their insistent demands” (Psalm 106, The Message),

Why do we sin so much against you and others, God, and forget so quickly all your benefits? Why when you so clearly and graciously invite us to your banquet table of grace do we excuse ourselves in favor of lesser appointments? How dare we make light of your calls to pay attention to you and find our way to your house and table?

Remind us this week—wherever we may go and whatever we may do—that nothing is more important in life than heeding your call. And when we do respond, Lord, help us always to come dressed properly to your banquet, not in clothes of our own but in the robes of your righteousness (Matthew 22:1-14, NRSV).

Week of October 19 (Twenty-fifth after Pentecost) – Psalm 99

To know that we have been chosen by you, Dear God, as Paul reminded the earliest Christians (1 Thessalonians 1:1-10, NRSV)) is truly wonderful! And to know as well that we are part of a family of faith that goes back not only to Samuel, but Moses and Aaron, as our psalm reminds us, only deepens the joy.

Why do we then, like so many of the religious leaders of Jesus’ day, focus the lineage more on us than on you? Ought we not rejoice rather that our names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life and cease those religious comparisons that only drive us away from you and one another rather than toward you?

Ground us once more, Dear God, in you. Help us to lift you high and “worship in your holy mountain” (Psalm 99:9, The Message). And whenever we are tempted to argue among ourselves, like Jesus’ antagonists did, over who belongs to whom (Matthew 22:15-22, NRSV), save us from ourselves by listening together to him.

Week of October 26 (Twenty-sixth after Pentecost –Reformation Sunday) – Psalm 1

Blessed Paul reminds us today how we as Christians ought to approach others, even when we may be persecuted, as he was, for doing so (1 Thessalonians 2:1-8, NRSV). Following his model we are to “share … the gospel of God but also our own selves…”. And Jesus, in the gospel text, says that witness must be based both on our unconditional love for God but our love for our neighbor as well (Matthew 22:34-46, NRSV).

The motive power comes both of being accepted by God and empowered by his Word. “You’re not at all like the wicked, who are mere windblown dust—without defense in court, unfit company for innocent people. Yahweh charts the road you take. The road they take is Skid Row (Psalm 1:4-6, The Message).

We are those who must “thrill to Yahweh’s Word, …chew on Scripture day and night.” Think of yourself as “a tree replanted in Eden, bearing fresh fruit every month, never dropping a leaf, always in blossom.” Show us again, Lord, that where we are planted and where we walk and where we refrain from going in our spirits and attitude make all the difference. Reform us as the children of Reformation we are to remember that always.