Psalm 68:1-10, 32-35

Easter 7 – Year A

Psalm 68:1-10, 32-35

The psalm makes it difficult to connect the body of the psalm with its conclusion: Blessed be God!

Up to the conclusion everything is digital. It’s either on or off, it’s this or that, it’s 1 or 0. In this zero sum world, one benefit is balanced by one imprecation. The concluding line about blessing comes from the winning folks on one side of the equation.

Our Wiccan friends often conclude their psalms with a simple, “Blessed Be.”

If we are to talk about grace abounding, we need to find new ways to express ourselves that are not limited to a blessing of G*D without there also being a blessing of Self and Neighbor. As you proceed in this day, notice where your blessings come, how they are directed, and how they might be enlarged.

At General Conference today we ground out the last of the items with financial implications. Oh so many tangled webs we wove as money is so fundamentally tied up with worth and power in a capitalist system. The jockeying for position was its usual marvel to behold. From a distance, it’s almost funny. While in the middle of it, it is addictive to the extreme and emotions run high, voices crack, threats are made, the body is broken.

I’m not sure if there were any blessings today, other than the formal kinds. The word that came through most clearly to this listener was a young person calling others of their generation to begin working on a system that is more responsive in time than the accumulation of protections we have piled one on top of the next. Legislation for particular purposes eventually becomes a barrier to the very purposes it set out to address.