Abiding with God: A Meditation on Psalm 15

LORD, who shall abide in thy tabernacle?

who shall dwell in thy holy hill?

He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness,

And speaketh the truth in his heart.

He that backbiteth not with his tongue,

nor doeth evil to his neighbour,

nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour.

In whose eyes a vile person is contemned;

but he honoureth them that fear the LORD.

He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not.

He that putteth not out his money to usury,

nor taketh reward against the innocent.

He that doeth these things shall never be moved.

Psalm 15 is a good compliment to the perhaps better known readings for this Sunday from Matthew 5 (the Beatitudes which Jesus uses to begin His Sermon on the Mount) and the classic Old Testament summary of the what God expects from His people in Micah 6 (to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly before Him.)  Like these other texts, Psalm 15 addresses the holy life God calls all people to walk if they wish to abide with Him, and rings like a harmonious chord with the other human voices God used to compose His Scriptures from Moses to the Apostles.

Of course, this harmony of Scripture sounds discordant in an age of narcissistic self-absorption where most people think that if there is a god out there, he/she/it/they are totally cool with most everyone.  Where churches or faith groups devolve “worship” into personal self-justifying affirmation love fests, sitting in the dark and trying to encounter God like pagan dancers under the moon at a solstice, or occultists holding séances and communing through Ouija boards, focusing on one’s self produces a horribly distorted image of God by casting Him in one’s own image.  Worse yet, self-absorbed navel gazing is a happy hunting ground of the demonic, where lying spirits as old as time twist and delude people into ever greater depravity and slavery.  As an answer to every generation’s temptation to look for truth and meaning inside themselves, God breaks through the confusion and darkness to speak His Word which gives meaning and dignity to human life.

Shattering the relativism of our age, the Prophet David asks, “Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle?”  The response is poetically phrased in a series of observations on the holy life God demands of people if they are to dwell with Him, echoing the voice of God when it thundered from Mt. Sinai:  walk uprightly, work righteousness, and speak truth.  Walking uprightly according to God’s Law (cf. the Ten Commandments of Exodus 20) means, as Jesus so appropriately summarized it, loving God with all of one’s being (heart, soul, strength, and mind) and loving one’s neighbor as one’s self.  Lest that love of God and neighbor be neutered by self-serving sluggards into some kind of purely metaphysical or philosophical exercise of the mind, working righteousness means to put that love into action in real, physical ways.  The love of God shapes the whole of one’s existence into living faith, which cannot but reflect the inexhaustible love God has for every human being who will ever live, toward every neighbor we will ever encounter.  Working righteousness is the active living out of the love of God and neighbor which is the natural fruit of walking uprightly before the Law of God.  To round out this glorious summary is to speak truth not only to the world around us, but within our own hearts—that eternal and unchanging truth of God’s Word to mankind.  Just as no one can really separate the idea of walking uprightly before the Law of God from working righteousness of that Law of love to God and neighbor, neither can these be separated from speaking the truth of God’s Eternal Word.

The Psalmist then explicates these united principles in a few practical examples, such as not doing evil to one’s neighbor through gossip or usury, honoring those who honor God rather than those who repudiate Him, taking one’s oaths seriously even when they cause one loss or harm, and not betraying the innocent for gain.  These are not meant to be exhaustive (as if they would replace the whole testimony of God’s Word,) but explanatory, so that the one who sings this ancient hymn won’t forget that loving God and neighbor means real action in real life… and this real action in real life, brings with it real communion with the God who is Himself the basis of reality itself.

The problem, of course, is that the inverse is also true:  failure to walk uprightly, work righteousness, and speak truth will break a person’s communion with God.  This harsh reality is made all the more painful when we examine ourselves before God’s perfect Law of love, and find ourselves wanting.  No one fully loves God with every fiber of their being, every second of every day; no one fully loves their neighbor like they love themselves, every second of every day; no one fully speaks truth both within their heart and to the world at large, every second of every day.  God is always holy, righteous, upright, and truthful—always being and acting in perfect love within His perfect Unity in Trinity, and also toward His whole creation.  Even when He must judge evil and wickedness so as to preserve truth and love, He does so with perfect righteousness and goodness.  Such perfection in our God reveals in us our woeful condition after our fall into sin, and our worthiness to receive only death and hell—eternal separation and perdition—from the Author of Life and Love.  God’s character, His communion, and His Law do not change, regardless of our fallen inability to approach them.

Thanks be to God, it is also His love which moved Him to send His Son so that our communion with Him might be restored.  Through Jesus Christ alone, The Father’s Eternal Word made flesh and born of the blessed Virgin, was the sinful lack of man’s love for God and neighbor paid for in His life, death, and resurrection.  Jesus as the love of God incarnate, suffered all the depravity of mankind to be put upon Himself, so that by His stripes we might be healed.  This blessed Gospel of the Vicarious Atonement where mankind is restored to fellowship with our Creator for the sake of His suffering and death, Jesus commissioned His Apostles and their successors to preach throughout the world by the power of His Holy Spirit working through His Word.  What the Prophets of the Old Testament looked forward to in hope, the Apostles testified to as living witnesses, that all the world to the end of time might live by faith and repentance before Christ’s Word of Law and Gospel, receiving His gracious gift of forgiveness and reconciliation with God.  What we were unable to do according to the Law because of our fallen and broken nature, Christ accomplished in our stead, and continues to give freely to all who will turn from their darkness and trust in Him.

Such faith and repentance does not overthrow the Law of Love, but fulfills it.  No longer must the people of the world despair of their inability to achieve the perfection of our holy God so as to abide with Him, because He has healed our brokenness by coming to abide with us.  Such boundless grace and love does not call people to despair and terror before the holiness of the Law, but to see in it a new calling to rise up by faith which strives toward that summit of perfect love.  Though in this world we will continue to struggle against the sinful broken nature coursing like poison through our veins, we have sealed to us the promise of Christ’s reconciliation for the sake of His Cross, by His Word working in the washing of Holy Baptism, feeding us in His Holy Supper, and forgiving us in His Holy Absolution.  Even as we stumble and fall in our faith’s pursuit of God’s infinite heights of love, His Holy Spirit enlivens us to do what we could not do of ourselves, continually drawing us away from the darkness and back to His light, always ready to refresh His people in the grace and mercy of Christ.

Who shall abide with God?  By their own power, philosophy, and works:  no one.  But by the love of God in Jesus Christ, all who will receive Him in repentance and faith, will abide with Him by His grace unto life everlasting.  Let the empty words of a delusional and dying world be put away, that you may hear the Eternal Word which calls you to restored communion and life with the lover, creator, and redeemer of your soul.  Hear Him today, repent, believe, and live.  Amen.