Living in the Spirit

September 5, 2023

Scripture Reading:
Psalm 149
Praise the Lord!
Sing to the Lord a new song,
   his praise in the assembly of the faithful.
Let Israel be glad in its Maker;
   let the children of Zion rejoice in their King.
Let them praise his name with dancing,
   making melody to him with tambourine and lyre.
For the Lord takes pleasure in his people;
   he adorns the humble with victory.
Let the faithful exult in glory;
   let them sing for joy on their couches.
Let the high praises of God be in their throats
   and two-edged swords in their hands,
to execute vengeance on the nations
   and punishment on the peoples,
to bind their kings with fetters
   and their nobles with chains of iron,
to execute on them the judgment decree.
   This is glory for all his faithful ones.
Praise the Lord!

I am left-handed, and although I have not experienced it, I have heard the stories of how my great-grandmother thought being left-handed was the mark of the devil. She had two daughters who were born left-handed. As soon as she noticed that tendency, she started tying their little left arms to their side every day until they learned to use the right hand instead of their left. My ancestor’s belief came from the story of the separation of the sheep and the goats. (See Matthew 25) The goats were labeled as the bad guys, and they were put on the left, and the sheep were good in other words obeyed Jesus’ teaching, and they were sent to the right. The truth is that goats and sheep are both valued animals. My dad’s doctor prescribed that he drink only goat’s milk. Wool comes from sheep. I understand Jesus’s point in telling the story in Matthew 25, but we humans sometimes get so caught up in the facts that we forget the meaning of what we read. Jesus also illustrated the same imagery of separating the wheat from the chaff; I do not think that story set apart any children being of the devil. (Matthew 3:12)

I do enjoy the Psalms, but many of them get caught up, like the one above, in separating, those whom we identify as not following God from the righteous that I fear sometimes leads to self-righteousness. That is not and has never been our calling. We are to live a life that invites people to know the God we love, who loves all God’s children and awaits them all with open arms tying no one’s arms to their sides.

Prayer: Lord, when we study your work, help us not get so tied up in its story that we miss its lesson.  Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.