Clergy/Leaders’ Mail-list No. 2-109 Sunday 02 Jun 2002

Reading: Psalm 113 – THE HUNGRY FILLED

(From ‘Encounter with God’ Bible Reading Notes)

‘Praise, O servants of the Lord; praise the name of the Lord'(v 1). Sing to the Lord, and rejoice!

In this psalm, the Lord deserves praise day and night for two seemingly contradictory reasons. The first is his inexpressible transcendence. God declares that ‘as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways'(Isa 55:9) but according to the psalmist, God’s ways are higher still. Enthroned in glory, God has to bend double just to see the heavens that stretch above the earth, so far are they below him (vs 5-6)!

Paradoxically, the opposite is also true, and is equally a cause for praise: God not only ‘looks down’ on us, he also has compassion on our weakness, finitude, and need. That God himself should stoop to intervene on behalf of the powerless (v 7) immeasurably dignifies their existence, transforming humiliation into honour (v 8). But no less precious is the further promise of home and family: a place to belong and children who provide living proof of God’s blessing (v 9).

Like Jesus with the crucified thieves, the psalmist never pauses to consider whether the destitute are worthy: whether for example, they are victims of circumstance, or merely suffer the consequences of their own stupidity. By failing to make this distinction, the psalm implies that all the broken – deserving and undeserving alike – are the objects of God’s loving concern.

One of Aesop’s fables insists that ‘the gods help those who help themselves’. By contrast, Israel’s hope is that God saves those who cannot save themselves. Indeed, Psalm 113 strongly recalls the song of Mary, who rejoices that God lifts up the humble and fills the hungry with good things.(Luke 1:52,53) For the child she bears is the ultimate proof that God provides for all who turn to him in need.

Today, rather than striving, rest in God’s desire to reach down and lift up those who are brought low.

– Rev Dr Michael Knowles

Copyright Scripture Union, 2002

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