Rescue the Distressed – Psalm 81:1-10

A text – Psalm 81:1-10

81:1 Sing aloud to God our strength; shout for joy to the God of Jacob.
81:2 Raise a song, sound the tambourine, the sweet lyre with the harp.
81:3 Blow the trumpet at the new moon, at the full moon, on our festal day.
81:4 For it is a statute for Israel, an ordinance of the God of Jacob.
81:5 He made it a decree in Joseph, when he went out over the land of Egypt. I hear a voice I had not known:
81:6 “I relieved your shoulder of the burden; your hands were freed from the basket.
81:7 In distress you called, and I rescued you; I answered you in the secret place of thunder; I tested you at the waters of Meribah. Selah
81:8 Hear, O my people, while I admonish you; O Israel, if you would but listen to me!
81:9 There shall be no strange god among you; you shall not bow down to a foreign god.
81:10 I am the LORD your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide and I will fill it.

A reflection:

This psalm passage shows first a person calling his friends to beautiful musical worship, such worship that was in the statutes and ordinances of the Hebrew people, and then second God’s response to their worship: “I have done so many things for you, yet you do not listen to me! But I am your God, and I will provide for you.”

Interesting, isn’t it? People are worshiping beautifully, as instructed in their statutes. And God is saying they have not listened. What are these people missing? Why is God not pleased?

Maybe there is a clue in God’s recitation of the help God gave: “I relieved your shoulder of the burden, your hands were freed from the basket. In distress you called, and I rescued you.” What God has done for these people perhaps God now wants them to do for others: relieve their burdens, free them from their labor, rescue them from their distress. That is the kind of Lord God they have – one who frees and rescues.

What might this mean for us? That God will be more pleased with our worship if we have also relieved someone’s burden or rescued them from distress? Whom might we rescue? We might think of people in other areas of the world or even our own land during these times of radical weather disasters. Send money to the Red Cross. That will be a good thing to do. But I’ll bet there is someone even closer. A neighbor whose distress is loneliness, a cousin whose distress is worry about her children, a person we see downtown next to a wrinkled bag of possessions. We don’t have to go far to find distress. Might we reach out in love to just one of these? Would that be a tiny but important way of listening to God?

A prayer:

Lord God, Thank you for loving us. Help us to see and recognize the distress around us, distress that we might alleviate even for a moment with true human contact fueled by love. Help us to listen for hurt and respond with hope. Then accept our praise and worship for showing us how to live and love like Jesus. Amen.