Psalm 123 (NRSV)
Read Psalm 123 on biblegateway.com
Verse 1To you I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens!
Verse 2As the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God, until he has mercy upon us.
Verse 3Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us, for we have had more than enough of contempt.
Verse 4Our soul has had more than its fill of the scorn of those who are at ease, of the contempt of the proud.
Devotion
Woo-ee!, This is a dangerous little psalm to be included in the Bible! "We have had more than enough of contempt…our soul has had more than its fill." It sounds like such a simple, profound, true statement to embrace—and yet. In my life, when I am praying words with a similar thought, it typically turns out that I am truly the one who is contempt-filled, scornful, at ease. That's the danger of this psalm: the immediate finger-pointing it seems to encourage.
On the other hand, there are certainly those who are truly oppressed, suffering, beaten down. I would invite all of us to take a good, hard look at ourselves, perhaps, as the psalm invites, through the eyes of our mistress and master the LORD our God: where in our lives are we truly those who cry out for mercy? And where are we the ones who scorn as we take our ease?
Prayer
Oy! God. I hate seeing myself as the one who is scornful, contemptible, proud. Deal me lovingly a truthful hand in this matter, and give me the heart to fix my ways. But give me clear eyes also to see the injustices that I experience, and give me mercy in those as well. Amen.