Psalm
53:1
The fool says in his heart,
"There is no God."
This
has been said before – and it has also been pegged as the Psalm for April Fool’s
Day... but think about what we were saying yesterday with regard to getting the
wrong kind of attention just to get noticed, and how that came from not trusting
in the steadfast love of the Lord; well in this case I think there is a similar
cause. When we don’t know or don’t trust God with our lives and our future we
in effect, say “there is no God,” at least not one we have any value for or pay
attention to. After all the reading we’ve been doing, I think this may indeed
by foolish; this callous disregard for who God is and for his steadfast love
for us.
In
Genesis Jacob reaches the time of his death and calls Joseph to bring his sons
near so he can bless them, and not unlike some of the earlier blessings that we
have seen, the greater blessing is for the younger son; Joseph, thinking his
father is old and can’t see or perhaps is senile, says no dad-that’s the wrong
kid. But, Jacob says nope, I got it right and I know he is the younger, never
the less he will be of greater import in the Kingdom. Jacob blesses Joseph, and
extracts a promise – don’t leave me here after I die, please take me to the
land where your mother is buried. This concept of final resting place is one we
deal with still, and it can cause grief or provide comfort. I happen to know
that eventually Jacob’s bones are removed – but it takes a while. (We’ll get to
that much later.)
More
mess in the lives of the Kings of Israel in our reading today in 2 Chronicles.
Uzziah starts out well, and we see here that “and as long as he sought the
Lord, God made him prosper.” (vs 26:5) But that is indeed the key – as long as
he sought the Lord he prospered – and as soon as his power and position went to
his head, and he thought he could do it on his own, he was soon floundering and
out of power altogether. This is what it later says: “But when he was strong,
he grew proud, to his destruction.” (vs 26:16) If nothing else we learn from
these readings it should be this; that unless we follow the Lord, we will not
prosper-not for long.
And
in Acts we have the classic money trap – Demetrius, the silversmith gets very
upset because people will not need to buy his little graven images and tries to
get everyone in an uproar, but in the end, he fails. Nest is one of the
funniest things I have read recently, Paul is talking – at length – actually he
must be droning on and on because around midnight one of the listeners is so
board (or tired) he falls asleep and falls to his death three stories below
where he had been sitting. Everyone rushes to him but he is already
dead...well, like the Princess Bride he must only be ‘mostly dead’ since Paul
says ‘oh, no, he isn’t dead here he is fine again,’ and up he gets and takes
bread with them.
Today’s
readings: Psalm 53, Genesis 47:27-48:22, 2 Chronicles 26, Acts 19:23-20:16
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