I must admit that this week’s readings leave me a bit flummoxed, and uninspired. Both “Track 1″and “Track 2” seem, as wholes, either not to feature constituent parts that fit together very well or not to feature messages that seem tremendously relevant to us, or at least to me, today.
But if I cherry-pick just Psalm 16, from Track 2, I do see something well worth contemplating — beginning with Verse 5.
Once we accept the one true Lord (allowing for a change of pronouns to make the message communal rather than personal) as “our portion and our cup,” our eyes are opened and we see, despite and through the veil of life’s troubles, that we actually enjoy “a goodly heritage.” Despite our toils, despite our pains, we are truly blessed.
Look around you. Forget the troubles of the day. Just look. See the colors. See the plants and flowers; see the birds darting through the air. See (and experience emotionally) the way your loved ones care for you. See the blue of the sky if the sun is shining; hear the rush of the wind. As Louis Armstrong sang, “what a wonderful world.”
All of this comes from accepting God as our portion and our cup — a cup whose contents, nominally bitter, nonetheless give us the grace to see the world aright.
If we have the right kind of faith, we can pray in confidence to God, as the psalmist does, that “You will show me the path of life; *in your presence there is fullness of joy.”
