Thursday • 5/19/2022Thursday of the 5th Week of Easter

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 70; Psalm 71; Leviticus 19:26-37; 2 Thessalonians 1:1-12; Matthew 6:25-34

This morning’s Canticles are: before the Psalm reading, Pascha Nostrum (“Christ Our Passover,” BCP, p. 83); following the OT reading, Canticle 8 (“The Song of Moses,” Exodus 15, BCP, p. 85); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3–4, BCP, p. 94)

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Some brief musings on today’s Psalm 71, highlighted by wisdom from Matthew 6.

The compilers of the Psalter arranged the 150 songs into five “books,” probably to mirror in rough fashion the structure of the five books of Moses. The second book of the Psalter has Psalm 71 as its next to last psalm. Most of David’s own psalms lie within the Psalter’s first two “books” (Psalms 1-41 and Psalms 42-72). For the most part, Psalms 1-71 are songs that recall King David’s trust in the midst of trials. The editors of the Psalter crowned David’s psalms with today’s lovely Psalm 71, although this one is not specifically attributed to David.

Composed by an old man who sees his life following a pattern like David’s, this anonymous psalm-writer has experienced similar deliverances (some of the imagery of this psalm mirrors Psalm 22). Like David, he plays the lyre. Like David, he determines to close out his life on a note of thankful praise. He wants to bequeath to the next generation a legacy of faithfulness and hope.

And now that I am old and gray-headed, O God, do not forsake me, till I make known your strength to this generation and your power to all who are to come. — Psalm 71:18. It’s wonderful that the Bible has room for a psalm like Psalm 71. It’s kind of an “old person’s” psalm. Its composer has had a long walk with the Lord, but now feels his strength ebbing: “Forsake me not when my strength fails” (verse 9b). It’s important to know this psalm is here, even for a young person, even if, for now, it’s going to get filed away for later. The day will come when the fear of being “cast off in my old age” becomes real (verse 9a).

And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? … So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today. — Matthew 6:27, 34. “Be not therefore anxious for the morrow: for the morrow will be anxious for itself” is how an older version renders the middle part of this saying of Jesus. There is an artfulness here that I relish. I can almost see the perceptive semi-smile on Jesus’s face as he says it, especially the punchline: “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” Jesus is telling us to take ourselves less seriously, and instead to take more seriously the Lord’s ability to handle our troubles infinitely better than we could ever handle them ourselves. I’m grateful for the soft reminder. Meanwhile, he says, we can pay attention to the things that matter to him: “Seek first the kingdom,” (then to paraphrase) “and by the way, when you do that, all the other stuff you’ve been worrying about, it’ll get taken care of too.”

There’s a sense in which the Psalms are a blueprint for how to handle the things that create fear within us. David, and this Psalmist, continue to imagine themselves—safe and protected—within a strong and formidable castle, against which outside enemies cannot prevail. Their unwavering trust in God—for protection, for justice, for consolation, and for joy—is the wondrous result of a long relationship of seeking the one who is the kingdom. Jesus says to us, “Bring it to me. Bring it all to me. I’ve got this.”

Be blessed this day.

Reggie Kidd+

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