Our Psalm today, Psalm 25, is a long petition asking God for guidance on what he requires of us to lead a good life and a life pleasing to Him. This line, in my estimation, is the very heart of Psalm 25!
Make known to me your ways, Lord; teach me your paths.
Psalm 25:4
Unlike the "Ten Commandments" in the Old Testament, which stress the things that one who loves God should not do, the path one should not walk, "The Beatitudes" of Jesus from the New Testament are a list of things that a person who loves God does do, the path he should walk. It is important to remember here that Jesus is not saying “do these things and God will love you,” but rather “if you love God, these are the things you will do - this is the path you will take! ” We do not do these things to earn God’s love, rather if we love God, we will do these things - this is the path we will walk! So, what then does a serious lover of God look like? What are the paths God has taught him or her to walk? What values does he or she need to learn from God so as to live a life pleasing to Him? How many of them describe us as "growing in holiness?"
Make known to me your ways, Lord; teach me your paths,
Psalm 25:4
(1) He or she is first of all “poor in spirit.” What Jesus is talking about here is not merely economic poverty. Even the dirt poor can be greedy in their hearts. What it means, really, is the deep-down knowledge that when it comes right down to it, we own nothing and everything can be taken away from us in an instant. Do you really understand that hard truth? Every material possession, every blessing we have ever had, is a gift from God that was given to us, not to hoard, but to share. The more we have been given, the greater the responsibility we have to share.” “Poverty of spirit” is a basic knowledge that we are all poor, when it comes right down to it. No matter how rich we are, we are a heartbeat away from total poverty. We can’t take anything with us, when this is all over as Jesus famously said in the Parable of the Rich Fool. "The rich man said to himself "You have so many good things stored up for many years: rest, eat , drink, be merry! But God said to him, "You fool! This very night your life could be taken from you. Then who will get all that you have saved up for yourself?’ As they say, “There are no pockets in shrouds!” I am reminded of a story about two old ladies at a funeral home looking at their friend, who had just died, in her casket. One said to the other, "How much do you think she had to leave?" The other answered solemnly, "All of it!"
Make known to me your ways, Lord; teach me your paths.
Psalm 25:4
(2) A serious lover of God is able to
mourn. One who loves God seriously knows that we are interconnected human
beings and therefore never loses his or her ability to feel the suffering of
others. A cold-hearted, self-centered, disinterested person is not a friend of
God. A friend of God shares the compassion of Christ who was moved deeply by
the horrible suffering of simple human beings and is never far from “the gift
of tears,” as the saints called it.
Make known to me your ways, Lord; teach me your paths.
Psalm 25:4
(3) A serious lover of God is meek. A
“meek” person is not a person who lets people walk over him or her. A “meek”
person lives with the knowledge that he is never “a god,” but nonetheless
always a “child of God.” In other words, he neither inflates his own worth on
one hand, nor does he allow others to deflate his value on the other
hand. Being meek means to know who we are in God’s eyes- nothing
more, but nothing less!
Make known to me your ways, Lord; teach me your paths.
Psalm 25:4
(4) A serious lover of God hungers and
thirsts for righteousness. A serious lover of God does not dabble in religion,
placing religion somewhere outside the realm of his daily living and daily
choices. Rather, he or she is a serious spiritual seeker, always
trying to align his everyday life with Christian principles. He or
she strives always to close the gap between being a Christian in name and being
a Christian in fact, while being totally free of religious fanaticism and doing
spiritual violence to others in the name of orthodoxy.
Make known to me your ways, Lord; teach me your paths.
Psalm 25:4
(5) A serious lover of God is
merciful. Being merciful means letting God be the judge of other people. It
means giving people the benefit of the doubt, giving them a break, wishing them
well on their path, knowing that with God, it isn’t over till it’s over, and
with God there is always another chance. Yes, it also means living the maxim,
“There but for the grace of God, go I!” Thomas Merton said, "The whole
idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all
livings things, which are part of one another, and all involved in one
another."
Make known to me your ways, Lord; teach me your paths.
Psalm 25:4
(6) A serious lover of God is clean of
heart. A serious lover of God doesn’t just do good things, he or she does them
for the right reason and with the purest of motives. I tried to
remind the seminarians at Saint Meinrad that it is a good thing to want to be a
priest, but one must go into it for good reasons – to serve people, not for
what priesthood can do for them. It is a good thing to give to the poor, but
one can give to the poor, not because they love the poor, but
because they will get their name in the paper or will have a building named
after them. A serious lover of God always does good things, but he also does
them for the right reason.
Make known to me your ways, Lord; teach me your paths.
Psalm 25:4
(7) A serious lover of God is a
peacemaker. War is getting more and more irrelevant. We need to become as good
at peacemaking as we have been at building sophisticated weapons. There will
always be misunderstanding between people. One who truly loves God has the
ability and the credibility to prevent disagreements from becoming a reason for
violence. We need not think globally only. Families, marriages, neighborhoods,
siblings and churches desperately need these peacemakers. When enough of us
really love God, we will have enough peacemakers to move us closer to universal
peace. If you love God, you love his people! If you love his people,
you will do what you can to bring them together.
Make known to me your ways, Lord; teach me your paths.
Psalm 25:4
(8) A serious lover of God will be
persecuted, insulted and lied about. The brighter the light the fiercer the
attack! Evil does not like goodness. Evil cannot tolerate the presence of
goodness and so it attacks. One who seriously loves God is more than willing to accept persecution, insults and lies, knowing that personal integrity is more
important than comfort, approval or winning at any cost.
So, the bottom line is this – you will
know that you are on the path to holiness if these "beatitudes"
describe you!
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