Daily Devotional • September 10
Psalm 53
1 The fool says in his heart,
“There is no God.”
They are corrupt, and their ways are vile;
there is no one who does good.
2 God looks down from heaven
on all mankind
to see if there are any who understand,
any who seek God.
3 Everyone has turned away, all have become corrupt;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.
4 Do all these evildoers know nothing?
They devour my people as though eating bread;
they never call on God.
5 But there they are, overwhelmed with dread,
where there was nothing to dread.
God scattered the bones of those who attacked you;
you put them to shame, for God despised them.
6 Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion!
When God restores his people,
let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad!
Meditation
Today the Psalmist definitely has a “glass half empty” perspective, an attitude of thoroughgoing pessimism. “Everyone has turned away, all have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.” There can be no bleaker assessment than this! While any who observe world events can conclude that there are certainly “bad actors” out there, most would contend that there are also “good guys,” forces at work toward good and worthy ends—justice, fairness, overall human flourishing. And our impulse is surely to place ourselves on that “side of the angels.”
This is understandable. The Psalms never pretend to be impartial. God’s interest is always in the prosecution of justice, the righting of wrongs, the redress of legitimate grievances. And there are always consequences that flow from such divine activity, consequences suffered by the malefactors, the perpetrators of oppression. “Have those who work evil no knowledge, who eat up my people as they eat bread, and do not call upon God? There they are, in great terror, where there is no terror!… you put them to shame, for God has rejected them.” We don’t wish to see ourselves on that end of the transaction, so we instinctively number ourselves among the “good guys.”
Yet, we only deceive ourselves if we deny our own complicity in the evil around us. Any wise and experienced counselor knows that, in a relationship breakdown, one party may indeed be more at fault than the other, but neither party is ever purely innocent.
The Psalmist’s pessimism invites us to take a sober look not only at our outward behavior, but at the disposition of our hearts. “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’”
If you’re reading this reflection, you’re probably not an atheist! But sometimes even believers can be functional atheists, thinking and acting as if God is not a factor in the equation. The pessimistic attitude cannot hold. Faith knows that God wins. “When God restores the fortunes of his people, let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad.”
The Rt. Rev. Daniel Martins is retired Bishop of the Diocese of Springfield in the Episcopal Church.
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Daily Devotional Cycle of Prayer
Today we pray for:
The Episcopal Diocese of Springfield
The Diocese of Oklahoma – The Episcopal Church
The Rt. Rev. Daniel Martins is retired Bishop of the Diocese of Springfield in the Episcopal Church.
