Monday 08 August 2022

Psalm 25:1-10

Background

When I first looked at these passages I was taken back to a workshop on Celtic Knots. Celtic crosses are often decorated with interwoven ribbons. Drawing patterns like this can begin simply and become complex. You usually begin with a single ribbon, then add a second and perhaps a third.

Reading Micah we find that, instead of it being a continuous narrative, it comprises sections with different emphases, in sets of three, like the ribbons. The pattern repeats itself.

Verses 1 -7 sound like judgement and the prophet doesn’t mince his words: "Alas for those who devise wickedness and evil deeds on their beds!’" (v. 1);  ^“On that day they shall take up a taunt song against you…" (v. 4)

All of this might seem distant and irrelevant to us were it not for the substance of the condemnation. To my ears it sounds as though it is still pertinent. People dream dreams of oppression then, waking, as in this passage, they make those dreams real. This destroys peace, harming women and children. It feels so familiar.

There is a second strand, the prophecy turns round. It is as though the people have been utterly condemned, but hope is held before them.

Verse 12 continues: "I will surely gather all of you, O Jacob, I will gather the survivors of Israel… like sheep in a fold, like a flock in its pasture." It has echoes of Psalm 23 and sounds calming and hopeful.

A single stanza forms our third ribbon: verse 13: "Their king will pass on before them, the Lord at their head."

The pattern is judgement, hope, then assurance that the people will be led out of this complex of confusion and contradiction. What strikes me is that our leaders today often seem to be models of those who are being judged here. But before I become over-critical I remember they are the products of an electoral system. So, I am complicit in what I observe. I also have responsibility. Society, of which we are a part, is a mass of interwoven ribbons, each a life. Yet despite the complexity, all are held in one final strand –  hope.

To Ponder:

• In what ways do we recognise our complicity in the politics of our day?
• What signs of hope and leadership can we discern in the world today?