Psalm 16

1 Protect me, O God, for I take refuge in you; I have said to the Lord, "You are my Lord, my good above all other.”

2 All my delight is upon the godly that are in the land, upon those who are noble among the people.

3 But those who run after other gods shall have their troubles multiplied.

4 Their libations of blood I will not offer, nor take the names of their gods upon my lips.

5 O Lord, you are my portion and my cup; it is you who uphold my lot.

6 My boundaries enclose a pleasant land; indeed, I have a goodly heritage.

7 I will bless the Lord who gives me counsel; my heart teaches me, night after night.

8 I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand I shall not fall.

9 My heart, therefore, is glad, and my spirit rejoices; my body also shall rest in hope.

10 For you will not abandon me to the grave, nor let your holy one see the Pit.

11 You will show me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy, and in your right hand are pleasures for evermore.

This year, Monday Matters will focus on wisdom conveyed in the treasures of the book of Psalms. We'll look at the psalms read in church before Monday Matters comes to your screen.

The way of life

Thomas said to Jesus: Lord, we do not know where you are going? How can we know the way? -John 14.5

In the psalm heard in church yesterday, a psalm chosen for the Easter season, the author of the psalm expresses this confidence. Speaking of the Holy One, the psalmist says: "You will show me the pathway of life." The implication is that some pathways are life-giving. Others not so much. So how do we find and then travel the pathway of life?

Left to our own devices, we might not find a life-giving pathway. If you need any corroborating evidence that it’s hard to find the way of life, just check out the news. See how collectively we pursue pathways that lead to death. In our individual lives, there are all kinds of ways that we look for life in all the wrong places. Take a gut check on your own life. Are you discovering and traveling the pathway of life?

On our own, we might not find the pathway of life. But we have not been left alone in this process. The Easter season, the resurrection stories are all about finding the way of life emerging from an experience of death. We read this psalm in the Easter season in part because of its claim that God will not abandon us to the grave. Throughout the psalms, we read about dependence on God to show us the way. Some examples:

• “He restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake.” (Psalm 23:3)
• “Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation” (Psalm 25:4)
• “Show me your way, O Lord; lead me on a level path.” (Psalm 27:15)
• “Send out your light and truth, that they may lead me and bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling.” (Psalm 43:3)

For those of us committed to the way of Jesus, we hear him say to his followers: "I came that you might have life and that you might have it abundantly." (John 10:10) He responds to Thomas by saying: "I am the way, the truth, and the life." (John 14:6) We find the way of life in Jesus, in knowing him, in following him, in imitating him.

At the same time, we hear him say that the way is narrow, a road less traveled, to channel Robert Frost and M. Scott Peck. Jesus tells his followers that they must experience death in order to find life. They must give life away if they are to discover it. He says: “Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain, but if it dies it bears much fruit.” (John 12:24) This pathway of life calls for counter-intuitive, counter-cultural ways of being: love of enemies, unlimited forgiveness, a commitment to serving others rather than focus on being served. It is the way of love for sure, but it may not be an easy road, as the disciples found as most of them ended up martyrs for their resurrection faith.

Where does that leave us? For starters, we begin by giving thanks for this Easter season with its promise of resurrection, the promise Jesus gave his disciples at the end of the Gospel of Matthew: “Lo, I am with you to the end of the ages.” As we try to find our way in the world, we do not go it alone. Grace has brought us safe thus far and grace will lead us home. A favorite passage, the gospel in a nutshell, focuses on that grace, and lets us know that grace shows us the way of life: "For we are what God has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life." (Ephesians 2:10)

Second, we are called to keep our eyes open for how God might be showing us the pathway of life. Our default position will be to say that we can figure this out ourselves, thank you very much. But in Paul Tillich’s vision of faith (a.k.a., absolute dependence), we recognize our need of guidance, some spiritual GPS to help us recognize the way of life. We may need to pull a u-turn (a.k.a., repent) when we travel down ways that won’t give life. For me, that’s where spiritual practices like prayer and scripture reflection and service and silent contemplation come in, attentiveness amidst the distractions that bombard us.

Then with eyes open, with heart receptive to God’s guidance, we move in that pathway, figuring out what that looks like in real life. Again from the psalms, we are called to “taste and see that the Lord is good.” (Psalm 34:8) How might you celebrate this Easter season, tapping into the power of the resurrected Christ who came to give us life and to give it abundantly, who came to show us the way?

-Jay Sidebotham