Meditation on Psalm 85
A highly intensive carbon economy leaves a legacy of destruction, disease and desecration. The spoils of avarice lay around the world – polluted seas, infertile soils, lost forests, melted glaciers, broken ecosystems, greenhouse gases. This is not what God intends for his planet or his peoples…
1-3 Our Lord, you have blessed your land
and made all go well
for Jacob’s descendants.
You have forgiven the sin
and taken away the guilt
of your people.
Your fierce anger is no longer
aimed at us.
The Land is the Lord’s. God favours the Earth and blesses it even when people do their worst. We pollute and desecrate yet God forgives…
4-7 Our Lord and our God, you save us!
Please bring us back home
and don’t be angry.
Will you always be angry
with us and our families?
Won’t you give us fresh life
and let your people be glad
because of you?
Show us your love and save us!
God heals brokenness and restores the community and the Land. Across the generations the love of God brings about wholeness once again. Salvation comes about through returning to who we are called to be on the Earth.
8-9 I will listen to you, Lord God,
because you promise peace to those
who are faithful and no longer foolish.
You are ready to rescue
everyone who worships you,
so that you will live with us
in all your glory.
But this requires from us a deep change of heart – a rejection of greed and voracity. We are promised a wholeness and a holiness as God’s glory fills the Earth. Peace is the reward of faithful loyalty.
10-13 Love and loyalty will come together;
goodness and peace will unite.
Loyalty will sprout from the ground;
justice will look down
Our Lord, you will bless us;
our land will produce wonderful crops.
Justice will march in front,
making a path for you to follow.
Justice and fairness lead to peaceful relationships. Peace and righteousness follow one another in circles, each one prompting the other. Faith is rooted in living well on the Land, directed by the values of Heaven. God’s will is done in the Earth. God’s reign permeates human community. The results are full harvests to be shared equally and justly. All are well fed and the land is restored to its completeness.
Glory be to the loving Creator, and to the just Son, and to the sacred Spirit, as it was from the start of time, is the same today, and always will be in a sustainable world without an end. Amen.
Martyn Goss, March 2015