Psalm 37

Once, while having coffee with a friend and talking about the sad state of affairs in our world, my friend looked at me and said, "The sad truth of the matter is that there are people who are going to do very evil things today and sleep soundly in their comfortable beds tonight." Those words stuck in my mind and they come back to me as I read this psalm.

Israel also knew these words well. After all, compared to the empires of Assyria and Babylon around them, along with united tribal powers before the empires, Israel was very small. The entire nation is smaller than Rhode Island, and they constantly dealt with invaders of many kinds. Not the least of which would be the Philistines, a five-city kingdom that boasted the most advanced weapons and technology (as well as an advanced civilization/religion) of the time. Goliath, for example, was carrying an iron-tipped spear at the beginning of the iron age. The Philistines were loaded. And oppressors constantly moved in on the people of Israel.

Similarly, there are people all across the world who are bearing the brunt of the wicked. People scoff at righteousness and justice (the same word throughout much of the Bible). And schemes to commit injustice happen everyday, and the perpetrators sleep soundly in their beds. What gives?

This passage gives us hope. This passage reminds us that the "justice of our cause shall shine like the noonday sun" (vs 6), that the world belongs to the meek and that God cares about these things. So we do not need to envy the people who profit from others' suffering, we do not need to be scared that God will never act. Indeed, Christ lives through us and allows us to act, and we know that injustice has no part in the Kingdom that Jesus brought to Earth. Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven. Amen.