Daily Devotional • July 1
A Reading from Psalm 106: 1-18; 19-48
1 Praise the Lord!
O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,
for his steadfast love endures forever.
2 Who can utter the mighty doings of the Lord
or declare all his praise?
3 Happy are those who observe justice,
who do righteousness at all times.
4 Remember us, O Lord, when you show favor to your people;
help us when you deliver them,
5 that we may see the prosperity of your chosen ones,
that we may rejoice in the gladness of your nation,
that we may glory in your heritage.
6 Both we and our ancestors have sinned;
we have committed iniquity, have done wickedly.
7 Our ancestors, when they were in Egypt,
did not consider your wonderful works;
they did not remember the abundance of your steadfast love
but rebelled against the Most High at the Red Sea.
8 Yet he saved them for his name’s sake,
so that he might make known his mighty power.
9 He rebuked the Red Sea, and it became dry;
he led them through the deep as through a desert.
10 So he saved them from the hand of the foe
and delivered them from the hand of the enemy.
11 The waters covered their adversaries;
not one of them was left.
12 Then they believed his words;
they sang his praise.
13 But they soon forgot his works;
they did not wait for his counsel.
14 But they had a wanton craving in the wilderness
and put God to the test in the desert;
15 he gave them what they asked
but sent a wasting disease among them.
16 They were jealous of Moses in the camp
and of Aaron, the holy one of the Lord.
17 The earth opened and swallowed up Dathan
and covered the faction of Abiram.
18 Fire also broke out in their company;
the flame burned up the wicked.
Meditation
Telling the story of ‘us’ — any ‘us’ — is tricky business. There are countless divisions and controversies in countries and churches and institutions over how its members recount their corporate story. The stories we tell ourselves about ourselves shape nearly everything about us: our past, yes, but even more so, our current identities and our hopes for the future. And in a world marred by sin, division and controversy in how we tell these stories is really just what we should expect.
When I first started praying the office, this psalm always felt a bit odd to me in its long stretches that seemed to merely poeticize historical events that are recounted elsewhere in scripture. Perhaps something like what I sketched above is happening: Israel sings the story of themselves to themselves not just to recount the bare facts of history but in order to shape their current identity and their future aspirations. In this way, singing these stories to one another performs and in some way partially accomplishes the psalm’s petition to God to gather them from among the nations. By remembering these stories they re-member themselves as a people — as God’s people.
And how interesting and instructive that these stories are not endless hagiographies or the myths of steadfast faithfulness! No, what we have here is really just a collection of sins, and one that begins with the simple affirmation that “we have sinned as our forebears did; / we have done wrong and dealt wickedly.” The sins of the past are not recounted to shore up faith in a naive belief in the inherent progress of history or to distance themselves from their ancestors and their sins.
Perhaps we might learn something about the necessity of truly recounting our corporate sins — historical and contemporary — in our singing of this psalm. Perhaps we might be able to then sing with each other, our ancestors, and our psalmist: “Save us, O LORD our God, and gather us from among the nations, / that we may give thanks to your holy Name and glory in your praise.”
Maxine King is a lay Episcopalian and student of theology at Virginia Theological Seminary.
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Daily Devotional Cycle of Prayer
Today we pray for:
The Diocese of Gogrial – Province of the Episcopal Church of South Sudan
Church of the Redeemer, Sarasota, Florida