Why do the wicked prosper? Psalm 49 tells us that wealth cannot save anyone from death, but for the good, there is hope of blessedness after death. God speaks in Psalm 50 and tells the assembly He does not need their liturgical sacrifices but wants of them the true sacrifice of prayer. Psalm 51 is the fourth and most famous Penitential Psalm, the Miserere, the prayer of repentance, perhaps of David after his sin with Bathsheba. This psalm lends itself to the doctrine of original sin to be later formulated by the Catholic Church. Rev. Michael Piazza, in Liberating Word writes of Psalm 51, “I know that we liberals have tried to escape the way fundamentalists have used the concept of sin to control behavior they don’t like. I also know that we liberals still sin. We are still thoughtless, unkind, self-absorbed and arrogant. Maybe if we regularly prayed this prayer of Israel’s most successful king, we might be more aware of our own need for God’s help in assuring that we have a right spirit of joy and generosity.” Surely God will avenge the just with divine punishment for the enemy is the cry of Psalm 52. The psalmist rails against widespread corruption in Psalm 53, a state of affairs all too common to any time period of history of humankind. In Psalm 54, the psalmist prays not only for deliverance in great peril but for the overthrow of the wicked. Is it a slip of the pen that this lamenting psalm addresses God to save, to judge, to hear, in that order? Or is this an unconscious leap in humankind’s thinking to realize that God saves first and foremost? Or that God’s logic defies human logic which would be to hear, to judge, to save? Perhaps Truth always resolves itself into paradox.
Why do the wicked prosper? Psalm 49 tells us that wealth cannot save anyone from death, but for the good, there is hope of blessedness after death. God speaks in Psalm 50 and tells the assembly He does not need their liturgical sacrifices but wants of them the true sacrifice of prayer. Psalm 51 is the fourth and most famous Penitential Psalm, the Miserere, the prayer of repentance, perhaps of David after his sin with Bathsheba. This psalm lends itself to the doctrine of original sin to be later formulated by the Catholic Church. Rev. Michael Piazza, in Liberating Word writes of Psalm 51, “I know that we liberals have tried to escape the way fundamentalists have used the concept of sin to control behavior they don’t like. I also know that we liberals still sin. We are still thoughtless, unkind, self-absorbed and arrogant. Maybe if we regularly prayed this prayer of Israel’s most successful king, we might be more aware of our own need for God’s help in assuring that we have a right spirit of joy and generosity.” Surely God will avenge the just with divine punishment for the enemy is the cry of Psalm 52. The psalmist rails against widespread corruption in Psalm 53, a state of affairs all too common to any time period of history of humankind. In Psalm 54, the psalmist prays not only for deliverance in great peril but for the overthrow of the wicked. Is it a slip of the pen that this lamenting psalm addresses God to save, to judge, to hear, in that order? Or is this an unconscious leap in humankind’s thinking to realize that God saves first and foremost? Or that God’s logic defies human logic which would be to hear, to judge, to save? Perhaps Truth always resolves itself into paradox.
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