The Futility of Boastful Wickedness
Psalm 41, 52 • Psalm 44
Job 32:1-10,19 - 33:1,19-28 • Acts 13:44-52 • John 10:19-30
At the beginning of Psalm 52 the writer prefaces what will follow with the title, “The Futility of Boastful Wickedness.” They go on to say, “Behold, the man who would not make God his refuge, but trusted in the abundance of his riches and was strong in his evil desire.” The Psalmist asks:
Why do you boast in evil, O mighty man? The lovingkindness of God endures all day long. Your tongue devises destruction, like a sharp razor, O worker of deceit. You love evil more than good, falsehood more than speaking what is right.
I feel like I could end this right there. Cased closed, lesson laid down. 2020 on parade. It would be easy for me to breeze through the reading for today and think to myself of how apt the scriptures are for today in describing other people. I mean, I’m on Jesus’s side. In John chapter 10 after relating the parable of the Good Shepherd to the crowd, the Pharisees ask Jesus to, “…tell us plainly if you are the promised Messiah…” He tells them He already told them, and they didn’t believe (John 10:24–25). As an outsider, putting myself directly on Jesus’s side, I could easily think to myself, wait––what? Plainly? Let’s see, miracles? Healings? Prophesy fulfilled? The blind seeing, the deaf hearing, and the lame walking? Where do you get off…plainly…? But then I thought to myself, what’s the scripture saying to me? Am I ever a Pharisee? What am I not seeing?
We have a tendency as humans to get a little carried away. We love a good thing. Many times, we love a good thing so much it becomes a bad thing. Food, technology, convenience, horsepower, text messaging—walking away from explosions. Well at least in movies. I’m looking at you Michael Bay. For some reason it’s in our nature to boast. We take celebration from joy, to pride, then to error. We become so caught up in our own smarts, prowess, strength, skills, or cleverness that we drift form the source of all that is good in our lives. Luckily, “the lovingkindness of God endures all the day long.”
Today it can be easy in our crazy pandemic world to spend all our time pointing out all that is wrong without doing much. That’s because there’s a whole lot wrong. No doubt about it. Our leaders encourage the worst in human behavior. They stoke fear, hubris, vanity, and play people against each other with falsehoods. But we can’t succumb to shock. God is on the move. We have to assume there is more to John 10 than just pointing out that the Pharisees didn’t get it. Why didn’t they get it? Why is it so often that we don’t get it? Part of the miracle of the Gospel is that God invites mankind to go with Him. To spread the good news. God invites us! Into His community. Into growth. Into change. Into Himself. This process naturally involves self-reflection. Anything else, is well, futile.
Written by Jonathan Wright
Jonathan is a native of Atlanta, GA and a new member to St. Paul’s. An Episcopalian of around 3 years, Jonathan moved to the parish from the Cathedral Church of Saint Mark in Salt Lake City, UT.