Abiding with God: Reward or Starting Place? – Psalm 15

A text – Psalm 15

¹ O Lord, who may abide in your tent? Who may dwell on your holy hill?

² Those who walk blamelessly and do what is right and speak the truth from their heart;
³ who do not slander with their tongue and do no evil to their friends nor heap shame upon their neighbors;
⁴ in whose eyes the wicked are despised but who honor those who fear the Lord; who stand by their oath even to their hurt;
⁵ who do not lend money at interest and do not take a bribe against the innocent. Those who do these things shall never be moved.

A reflection:

I read once in a psalm commentary that this psalm has been used to tell people how they must behave in their lives before they are welcome into the congregation. Walk blamelessly. Do no evil to friends. Stand by your word no matter if it hurts you.

But the commentary writer then went on to remark that there isn’t anyone who can be so perfect unless they have already been worshiping God and been so inspired by God as to try to live life this way. The commenter’s conclusion? If we want to know the answer to the opening question: “Lord, who may abide in your tent?” look for these behaviors to find people who already have been dwelling with the Lord (abiding in God’s tent, dwelling on the holy hill). Spending time with God day and night, the writer says, produces this sort of behavior in people. We don’t earn God’s presence; we are given God’s presence and then become less likely to slander people or do other evils to them, and become more likely to keep our promises and look out for the innocent.

All our texts this week underline God’s abundant blessings showered on those who look least like successes by the world’s standards. The Lord takes the side of the neglected and lowly persons. That is the bias of God. The more we cling to the inventions of human beings and the pride they take in being so smart, the more we lose sight of the abundant blessings of dwelling with God. Knowing that this is a lesson from this week’s scripture passages, what might we be on the lookout for this week? How might we even see God at work?

A prayer:

Lord God, Thank you for loving us. Thank you for blessing the lowly and using your presence to help us focus on behaving well with our brothers and sisters. Help us to take what we feel in your presence and bring it out into the world to share goodness with our friends and family. Amen.