Psalm 1
Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat of mockers.
But his delight in is the law of the LORD, and on His law he meditates day and night
He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.
Not so the wicked. They are like chaff that the wind blows away.
Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous but the way of the wicked will perish.
Turn on the radio
and what do you hear? Songs of romance, songs of end of romance, jealousy,
hatred, revenge, unrequited love, deceit, protest, sex, drugs, and arrogance.
Once in a while, you might have something patriotic. How often do you hear
songs about wisdom? Street smarts, perhaps, or cynicism, but wisdom? About
doing what is right, personally? Imagine for a moment Psalm 1 hitting the top
of the charts - replacing Selena Gomez's "Same Old Love," Thomas Rhett's "Die a Happy Man,"
and Kanye West's "Facts". It's a song. It is meant to be sung and
it's meant to be sung for a simple reason.
You might say that it's meant to be an earworm (Earworm Link) . It's meant
to be that song to which you remember the lyrics 10, 20, 50 years later even
though you can't remember why you walked into the room.
We don't listen
to or read Scripture like we listen to or watch music or videos. Can you
imagine videos of the performances of Scripture (with or without music) as
oratory or drama, being something that goes viral on Facebook or Youtube?
Imagine hushing people because your Bible program is on TV, or scheduling your
week around a mid-week TV special of people reading or singing Scripture. Imagine people on Facebook saying, "I
haven't gotten to the latest installment of Psalms yet - so spoilers will be
unfriended!" Part of the difficulty is that the Psalms are ancient, Jewish
songs. They don't necessarily translate into something that seems like a song
in English. But just imagine.
With all that
said, I'm tempted to say, "Tune in tomorrow...!" but that wouldn't be
fair. So let's break out this hit from the Bronze Age and listen to a wisdom
song for a change of pace. It begins
with the word blessed. This term brings together both happiness and
gratitude. David wrote a song about keys to a great life. That should be music to our ears. This is a
song we should want to sing. Happiness is not found by living life according to
the advice of the wicked. When Thomas Jefferson wrote about our
inanlienable right to the pursuit of happiness, he was drawing on ancient
philosophies (both Jewish and Greek) that connected happiness with virtue. Before you start listening to someone's
advice, take a look at the results in that person's life and at the lives of
those who live along the same lines. This is something I think we need to
consider with regard to our future leaders.
We'll be listening to their advice and demands for years, so in picking
one, we should pick someone who is not living a lifestyle we don't want as our
own.
Happiness not
only involves seeking and taking the advice of good people and having high
standards about what we mean by good. It also involves choices about the stands
we take, the causes we champion. In some ways, this is the same challenge. To
be happy, before taking a stand with some group, we need to examine that group.
Are their lives right? Is the stand being taken in alignment with what is known
to be good? There are some people who are taking a stand based on the idea of
people feeling included, not matter what they do or how they live. Scripture
makes it clear that sin does not lead to true happiness. To stand against
sinners - lovingly - is to seek their true happiness. To join with them leads
both them and you away from happiness.
Thirdly, it
involves choices about with whom we spend our time. How is it that we think we
can spend time with people who are doing
things we know are wrong and who mock goodness and good people, and think we
won't be drawn in that direction? Can you sit in a room full of people with a
nasty case of influenza and think you're not going to catch it - at least as a
carrier? Think of that virus as evil. Can you spend your day with people who do
what you know to be wrong, laugh and eat with them and expect to be good?
TV sitcoms are
excellent examples of this, especially the types of sitcoms that have been on
for the past 20 years. Generally speaking, they involve a group of friends or
coworkers. There are the "in" group, and the "out" group,
and the show revolves around showing the "in" group mocking,
ridiculing, insulting and showing up the "out" group - showing the
latter to be stupid, hypocritical or in some way inferior. Then look at
society. If someone does or says something "society" doesn't like,
what happens? Mockery, ridicule - it is our right and responsibility to shame
them, to effectively bully them into going along with the rest of society....
How has that worked for anyone so far? Is the world a happier place?
Happiness,
blessedness - there are decisions we can make that will lead toward it, and
decisions we can make that lead away from it. To whom you listen, with whom you
take stands, and with whom you sit or spend time. Happiness is to be more about
the company you keep than it does the things that you have.
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