May 12, 2024, Blessed and Fruitful and … Known, Psalm 1 – Mtr. Kathryn Boswell

saintphilipsnorwood ♦ May 12, 2024 ♦ Leave a comment

To listen to the sermon, click the link above. The text is below.

Sometimes I have nights – and I know you have them, too – where I lie there, exhausted but wide awake, my mind racing like a hamster on a little treadmill, running through lists of undone tasks, regretting bad choices and hurtful words, worrying about this child and that child. I lie in the dark, and I watch the red numbers on the radio alarm turn from 12 to 1 to 2 to 3:00 and I fret about stuff and I plan stuff and I feel sad about stuff. And for me, the only thing that helps me on those nights is to meditate on Scripture. Specifically, many, many years ago I memorized Psalm 1, and that has become my go-to meditation on those sleepless nights. I lie there and begin to recite: “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked…” And, of course, my troubling thoughts interrupt and intrude themselves over and over again, but I keep coming back to the psalm; I keep starting back at the beginning, until my mind stops racing and I rest in its goodness and comfort.

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked

nor stands in the way of sinners

nor sits in the seat of scoffers.

But his delight is in the law of the Lord

and on his law he meditates, day and night.

He is like a tree, planted by streams of water

that yields its fruit in its season

and its leaves do not wither.

In all that he does he prospers.

The wicked are not so,

but are like chaff which the wind drives away.

Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment

not sinners in the congregation of the righteous.

For the Lord knows the way of the righteous

but the way of the wicked will perish.

We are blessed, we are happy, when we don’t look to the world as our life coach. When the psalmist speaks of walking, he’s talking about how we live our life. What is the standard by which we make decisions? Paul wrote in Romans: “All the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” The course of our lives should be guided by the law of love, not the law of expediency, or the law of profitability, or the law of self-gratification, or the law of retribution. We can understand how to live out our lives by its effect on our brothers and sisters. We seek to do good to others, and not harm. We seek to be a blessing to our neighbor, and not a curse.

We are blessed when we don’t linger in the way of sinners; when we don’t hang around on the street corners of lust or greed or gossip or anger or self-righteousness. We can be so easily tempted to flirt with things that we know are wrong. We’re not really indulging ourselves in sin, we’re just having a conversation with friends; we’re just watching a movie; we’re just entertaining a few well-deserved thoughts about someone we don’t like very much. We don’t mean to stay; we don’t mean to do or say anything wrong. We are blessed when we avoid those things that draw us in.

And we are blessed when we don’t sit in the seat of scoffers – or as our translation here say, the scornful. Maybe this is the hardest to resist, because the world loves a good scoffer. The world is very approving of quick wit and biting commentary. It’s the mark of cleverness and coolness. Who wouldn’t want to talk like one of those late-night talk show hosts who are able to cut people to shreds with a few strokes of their razor-sharp tongues.

Blessed is the man, says the psalmist, who avoids the enticements and influences and opinions and judgments of the world that surround us on all sides every single day. Blessed is the man who nourishes himself on God’s words and ways, following them like a beacon by day and dwelling on them like a song in the night.

And that leads to the central image of the psalm. The blessed one is like a tree planted beside streams of water. The psalms are poetry, so we get to use our imaginations in reading them. I imagine the tree as an ancient, gnarled old apple tree, with a trunk so big you could barely stretch your arms around it, with low branches for climbing and strong limbs for hanging a swing. The Hebrew word for “streams of water” refers to canals that are dug for the purpose of irrigation, so that they bring a constant supply of water to the roots of the tree. They never dry up. The blessed man, the one who turns his back on the ways of the world, is like that tree, green and lush, its roots deep in the earth, with a never-ending source of life-giving water. The seasons come and go, the years roll by, but that tree never fails to bear a heavy crop of bright, sweet, juicy fruit in its time, year after year after year. In the heat of summer, its leaves are deep green, and shiny: never yellowed and sickly; never withered and dry. Even in the dog days of July and August, when the sun beats down upon that tree in full force, it is cool and fresh in the green shade of its welcoming branches.

That is the blessed person, says the psalmist, that’s what the one is like who measures his steps by the love of God, who turns a deaf ear and a blind eye to the cheap and poisonous enticements of the world, who has no desire to impress the world with his quick wit and biting tongue: the one who walks in love, who speaks with humility, who responds with kindness. The seasons will pass, the sun and wind and ice will beat upon that tree, as they do upon all creatures in the world, but the tree will stand firm, green and fruitful, rooted always in the source of of life.

Then the psalmist provides another image in contrast to that vigorous old tree. The alternative way of life, plan B, you might say, is like chaff that blows away on the merest breath of wind. It’s an image from harvest time. When grain was harvested, in the days before machinery, the stalks of grain were piled on a flat place called a threshing floor to be beaten, or threshed. When the stalks were beaten, the ripe grain, which is heavy, fell to the floor, where it could be gathered and stored. The empty stalks were bundled up for feeding to cattle or oxen. All that was left were the dry papery hulls that had fallen off the grains, and they were so light and fluffy that they were blown away by the wind, insubstantial and useless.

So, that is the image of the one who walks in the counsel of the wicked and lingers in the way of sinners and takes a seat at the table of the clever and witty. The first puff of wind that comes: the first trouble or challenge or hardship that strikes them, as it inevitably will, and there is nothing left.

This is a wisdom psalm. Like other wisdom literature, like the book of proverbs, and the Epistle of James, wisdom literature is all about knowing the good from the bad; it’s about setting stark contrasts between foolishness and wisdom, wickedness and righteousness, the way of the world and the way of God. And it is about choosing: good over evil, wisdom over foolishness, life over death. The psalmist couldn’t have drawn a more vivid contrast than he does in Psalm 1, between a beautiful old, established, vigorous tree and lifeless fluff.

But there is one final little twist to notice in this short but wonderful psalm. The very last verse says, “For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked is doomed.” We might have expected him to say, “The Lord approves the way of the righteous.” Or he might have said, “The Lord rewards the way of the righteous.” But instead, he tells us, as we follow in the way of wisdom, not just that we are good people, but that we people who are known by God. And that, I think, is everything. It’s good, but not enough, for us to know the right from the wrong. The strength of a tree doesn’t come from the depth of its roots – it comes from the abundant source of life that flows to them.

We can make the right choices and avoid the wrong ones; and of course we should. We can, and we should, turn our minds to the things of God day and night. But our true and never-ending source of life is that he has turned his mind to us. Our life and strength come from the truth that we are fully known by the one who knit us together in secret, who called us by name when we were still in our mother’s womb; who knows our words even before we speak, who watches over our going out and our coming in, always and without fail. In the end, the love of God is the life-giving stream that keeps us green and flourishing and fruitful even in the hardest times. And that is what makes this such a comforting psalm to know by heart, and to meditate on, on those dark, troubled sleepless nights.