No Matter Where You Make Your Bed
A meditation on Psalm 139 for All Saints Episcopal Church, Richland, WA
The Lectionary People did it again. They provided only some of the psalm. Their motivations are inscrutible, of course. All we can do is look at the results. The lectionary for January 14 calls for Psalm 139, verses 1-5 and 12-17. Lovely enough. But without the rest, it falls flat for me. Especially the middle bit. Verse eight in particular captures the whole psalm for me.
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
There is absolutely nowhere you can go, physically, spiritually, psychologically that God will not go to find you. This is a psalm about God’s promised presence even in the midst of death. And that presence is always good news. For everyone.
But there’s a little “problem” with our psalm. After this paean for the Divine One, there is this strident hatred.
19 O that you would kill the wicked, O God, and that the bloodthirsty would depart from me—
It continues…
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
But rest assured that when you have isolated yourself so completely from someone that you wish them dead, you have made your bed in Sheol.
Now, that’s some familiar language. We hear it in our own popular political language lately. But rest assured that when you have isolated yourself so completely from someone that you wish them dead, you have made your bed in Sheol. Good thing God knows how to find you there.
22 I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies.
Have you ever been in the frame of mind where you simply cannot imagine that God loves that other person? You know the one. They get on your every last nerve. How they chew their food or how they vote just pushes your buttons to no end. How they live their life is anathema to how you live yours. The threat may be very real. The danger may be tangible. But the Psalmist here has laid out in the first 18 verses of this psalm what is true about God with such clarity.
God will go to Sheol to be with your enemy as well. God is willing to go anywhere and everywhere to be with all God’s children. No exceptions. For it was God who formed their inward parts. God knit them together in their mother’s womb.
As a non-church goer, this is the first I’ve heard of the common material. As a lawyer, my first thought was “is this an anticompetitive measure to discourage pew hopping?” Silly, but that’s where my mind went.