I’m going to get right to it here.  Psalm 1 is about the most fundamental decision of our life – how to live.  How are you going to live?  Serious question yes?  I’m not here to ask how you’re going to vote or who your picks are in today’s slate of NFL games. We can spend our time on those questions elsewhere if we so choose.  But how are you going to live?  To what are you devoted?  How are you going to move forward in hope?  Are you?  What gives you direction for living?

In conversation with some friends this summer, we were talking about the good effect that literature can have on a person.  My father (who died 20 years ago this year) and I shared a love for George Elliot (Mary Ann Evans).  I have one of my father’s copies of The Mill on the Floss, and as you may know, Reverend Thomas liked to inscribe his books.  This is what he wrote – “This story has the effect of making me want to be a better person.”  What is the good life?  What does it mean to be good and how can one live such a life?  Let us look

So far this summer we’ve looked at Psalms of lament, of paise, of thanksgiving, of trust, and of remembrance.  We’ve been talking about Psalms as prayers and how making them part of our prayer life shapes us.  This morning we’re looking at what’s known as a Wisdom Psalm.  Wisdom literature in the Old Testament concerned itself with what it means to live a good life.  It usually delineates this as a choice – between the wise and the foolish for example, or as the case of Psalm 1 the righteous and the wicked.  There are two ways that are being described here.  This does not permanently assign people to one category or the other.  Neither does it mean that one may not act in an immoral or moral way no matter which path one is on. When we consider the way that we are on, there is a choice that lies before us.  The choice lies before us every day.

It’s a choice that is fundamental to the Psalms, and this Psalm is considered rightly as an introduction to the whole collection of song/prayers.  Make the Way of God your path and make the Psalms a way in which you listen to God’s voice.  Psalm 1 is not a prayer itself so much as a beatitude – an instruction about what it means be in a good place or to be in a good situation.  To be on a good path.  “Happy are those….”  “Blessed are you…”  “Happy” doesn’t quite do the word justice.  In a good situation are those.”  “Oh the joy of those…” is one way this is translated.  It’s important to note that the Psalmist is not simply talking about happiness that is dependent on circumstance (as in those t-shirts or coffee mugs of my youth that said “Happiness is a warm puppy.” 

It’s always important that we define terms.   How would we answer the question “Does following Christ make you happy?”  This is how the Psalm starts – “Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked…”  What does it mean to be happy?  

There are a lot of messages out there that describe what it means to be happy.  Imagine the freedom.  Imagine winning so much money that you had to hire a dream coach to help you dream bit.  Wouldn’t that make you happy?  If you lived in this place or bought this product or looked a certain way you would be happy, or at least happier, right?  If you aspired to and reached a certain type of lifestyle, you would be really happy.

We’re talking about a fundamental question of how we live our lives.  The Psalmist points to something else.  A choice that is before us, as I said, every day.  We start off with a beatitude, which describes what blessed people don’t do first of all – “Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take a path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers;”  There’s an interesting thing going in here that we lose in our NRSV translation.  Our NRSV Bible generally goes for gender neutral terms.  The original reads “Happy is he…” while the rest of the terms here are plural – the wicked, sinners, scoffers. This speaks I think to the choice that we’re talking about.  It’s an individual choice.  We are being addressed individually here.  When we read this gateway Psalm, we are being invited to examine ourselves.  We’re invited to examine the choice that we are making every day.

What all this talk of two ways comes down to is essentially this – do we choose to live a life that acknowledges our need for and dependence on and regard for God or do we choose to live a life based on self-reliance and self-sufficiency and self-regard?  This is what it all comes down to.  I can’t make the choice for you, you can’t make it for me.  You can’t make the choice for your children or your parents or your friends.  The question for me and for you is – “Do we want to commit ourselves to a life in which we turn toward God and seek his face and praise and thank and lament and remember and have confidence in and all those things that we’re talking about these summer weeks as we are immersed in the Psalms?”

Well, do you?

If the answer is yes, this life will look like certain things, which we’ll talk about in a few moments.  First though the Psalmist talks about what it doesn’t look like.  Notice how the action described here gets more and more involved – Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers.

Aside – these lines are not to instruct us to sequester ourselves away from the world.  We’re not called to exclude ourselves from any association with people who hold a different world-view.  Wasn’t that what Jesus ministry was partly about?  Eating and drinking with sinners?  With those who did not see their need for God?  With those who said “Leave us alone!”  God did the exact opposite.  We’re not called to leave people alone.  There’s too much loneliness around as it is.   We’re called to watch that we’re not unduly influenced or affected by this view.

The Psalmist is describing a world view here which says “I have no need for God or God’s ways.” There’s a great line to describe such people in Job 21:14 – “They say to God, ‘Leave us alone! We do not desire to know your ways.  What is the Almighty that we should serve him?  And what profit do we get is we pray to him?’  Is not their prosperity indeed their own achievement?”  Well, isn’t it?  There’s a lot of that around us, isn’t there?  Self-interest.  Self-regard.  Self-absorption.  It’s the view that asks questions like “What’s in this for me?”  That dismisses dismisses care and concern for others with a curt, “Nothing to do with me.”  That looks at public policy primarily with the question “How does this affect me?”  It’s nothing new.  Alexis de Tocqueville was a French Foreign Minister.  He wrote this about a particular nation – “Each citizen is engaged in the contemplation of a particularly puny object, namely himself.”  He wrote that in 1835.  Plus ca change.  We need to be brought outside of ourselves for wholeness of life. 

So what is the key to wholeness and fullness of life?  Hear the call – “… but their delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law they meditate day and night.”  Now you’re maybe saying, “Oh that is so typical OT David, all this talk about law and the OT is always all about law and the NT is all about grace – almost as God changed somehow.”  How are we supposed to be delighting in laws, aren’t they just there to restrict us and spoil our fun?  The word that’s been translated “law” here it torah, which has many applications, including a description of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible.  The foundational meaning of torah is instruction or teaching.  Instruction.  Isn’t that good?  To be a follower of Christ is to be a disciple which means student.  To sit at Jesus’ feet and hear and do.  “Their delight is in the instruction of the Lord, and on his instruction they meditate day and night.”  This is partly an introduction to the Psalms and an invitation to meditate on them.  It’s also an affirmation that the means to meditate on God’s ways and receive instruction are found in the Psalms.  That’s why we’ve been so big on memorizing them traditionally, and it would probably be a good thing to get back to.  That word for meditate is also used for murmuring or moving one’s lips.  Murmuring things like “The Lord is my shepherd, I want for nothing.”

Here's the thing about the Psalms.  They give us a language for lament, praise, thanks, remembrance, trust.  We need such language. 

To lament and ask, “How long O Lord? Will you forget me forever?” Ps 13:1  In our grief and mourning to ask those questions we heard in Psalm 77 “Has his steadfast love ceased forever? Are his promises at an end for all time?” Ps 77:8.  To hear that still small voice say “No.”  To be prompted to praise with “I will extoll you, my God and King, and bless your name forever and ever.  Every day I will bless you, and praise your name forever and ever.  Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, his greatness is unsearchable.” Ps 145:1-3.  To remember that weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes in the morning and to give thanks with “You have turned my mourning into dancing; you have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, so that my soul may praise you and not be silent.  O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever.” Ps 30:11-12.  To remember and say, “I will call to mind the deeds of the Lord; I will remember your wonders of old.  I will meditate on all your work, and muse on your mighty deeds… Your way was through the sea, your path through the mighty waters…” Ps 77:11-12, 19a.  To trust and sing “The Lord’s my shepherd I’ll not want…”

We’re talking about life.  Wholeness.  Fullness of life.  What would it be like for me to live in those truths?  What would I be like?  What are you like, to know God as your light and salvation through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ?  Do you know what you’re like?

“They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither.  In all that they do, they prosper.”  What a wonderful image.  They are like trees planted by streams of water.  Rooted and grounded in and connected to the one who described himself as living water.  There is an 19^th century African American spiritual that goes “I shall not be moved, like a tree planted by the water, I shall not be moved.”  This is where I have been planted in Christ.  The source of light and life.  It’s a beautiful image.  Our neighbours had to move a Japanese maple from their front lawn.  They were keeping it an old recycling box.  No kind of life for a tree, but it kept on somehow.  I asked “May I take that tree?”  I planted it in our back garden – rooted and grounded and getting lots of water and it’s doing great!  Jeremiah uses the same image in Jer 17:7-8 “Blessed (happy) are those who trust in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD.  They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit.”

This is trust in God.  This is the result.  Fruit.  Life in Christ is like a tree planted by the water that shall not be moved, rooted and grounded beside the streams and not fearing when heat comes (because heat will come), and being able to face drought (and drought will come), with a confident faith in which we hold together praise and lament and thanks and trust, secure in the one who holds us in his hands.

This is our faith.  This is our trust.  In making these statements of what it means to live a life of wholeness, a blessed life, a happiness which speaks of fullness of life, we must keep in mind that these are statements of faith.  The Psalmist is not speaking of life experience when he says that those that delight in God’s instruction prosper in all they do.  We don’t succeed in everything we do, do we?  The Psalmist is affirming that the way of faith – the way of grace is the way that is lasting.  That the way of trust in God is the way that leads to life.  That fullness of life is to be found in communion with God.  That life without God, that separation from God is death.  The choice is yours.  It’s mine.  It’s everyone’s.   The way of grace is the way to life eternal, life from above, life abundant, lasting always.

And it’s always been about grace you know.  It’s never been a case of OT law and NT grace.  It’s always been about God acting, God revealing himself, God instructing.  Ps 37:31– “The law of their God is in their hearts; their steps do not slip.”  Ps 40:8 “I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.”  God had revealed himself to the people of Israel.  In deeds and in words.  God’s instruction or teaching was the delight of the Psalmist.  Years later there would be a whole new thing to delight in.  God would be revealed in the Word who became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.  So that we might be brought back to him who loves us and created us in and for love.

I believe these words to be true my friends.  I want to seek God’s face and wait on him and be like a tree planted by water with all my heart.  May this place beside the river of living water be the place where each and every one of us finds wholeness, fullness of life, joy, blessedness, our happiness.  May this be true for us all.

Amen