Psalm 120 – Save me Lord from liars and deceivers. David speaks of the people around him as people who hate peace. Just imagine what it would be like to be a ruler in these days with attacks coming from all sides and having to deal with them. If you loved God and wanted to live in peace, how torturous would that be.

Psalm 121 – Famous words: “I look to the mountains where will my help come from? My help will come from the Lord who made heaven and earth” (121:1-2). The Lord is our protection and our refuge.

Psalm 122 – Jerusalem – a city restored and harmonious, a city where all the Jewish tribes come to give thanks and where the king sits to judge his people. The writer prays for the prosperity of all who live there.

Psalm 123 – We look up to the heavens to encounter the Lord. We beg for his mercy so that we may be comforted when we have been treated ill by others.

Psalm 124 – After a furious attack by enemies, the people look to the Lord with thanksgiving. He has preserved them, like a bird who finds an opening in its cage to fly to freedom.

Psalm 125 – “As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds his people, now and forever” (125:1-2). We must take comfort in the fact that even when the wicked do rule, their time will not last forever.

Psalm 126 – When we (the Jews) were permitted to return to Jerusalem, “we laughed. . .we sang for joy and the people around them noticed how happy they were for the great salvation the Lord had given them. “Those who wept as they went out carrying the seed will come back singing for joy as they bring in the harvest” (126:6).

Psalm 127 – “If the Lord does not build the house, the work of the builders is useless, if the Lord does not protect the city, it does no good for the sentries to stand guard” (127:1).

And having children is a great joy; they are “like arrows in a soldier’s hand. Happy is the man who has many such arrows. He will never be defeated when he meets his enemies in the place of judgment” (127:5). I am not sure I understand the last phrase, but I get how we can see our children as a way of defeating death.

I can relate to a good deal that is in these prayers. People often criticize the psalms for containing several things they have trouble with: 1) the assumption that God will bless all those who are faithful with prosperity; and 2) the appeal to God for help in vanquishing enemies in time of war. While I GET what people find difficult, these prayers and expectations are deeply in me as well. I know - and the psalms also testify to this fact too - that there is a lot of suffering and deprivation that all people have to deal with, the faithful no less than the wicked. But the resiliency of faith in me amazes me. When I think back over my life there have been many times when I have had a lot to overcome, and sometimes I do doubt that faith will benefit me, but I cannot live without faith and even in my darkest hours, it always gives me hope that I will be able to pull something good out of the hard things. "Carrying the seed" means we carry the source of spiritual resurrection within.

Matt 18 – The disciples come and ask Jesus who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven - they are SO COMPETITIVE as to status in Jesus' eyes. I see in this something the different Christian denominations might listen to. Jesus shows them a child and says unless they change and become like this child they will not even enter the kingdom of heaven. They must be humble. They must welcome people like that child in Jesus’ name. He teaches them too that they may not set up stumbling blocks to innocent believers. “Woe to the world because of stumbling blocks” (18:7) Don’t be the occasion of such stumbling blocks.

If your right hand offends [Today’s English Version says “makes you lose your faith”], cut if off. It “is better for you to enter life maimed or lame than the have two hands or two feet and to be thrown into the eternal fire” (18:8).

Do not despise the simple, “for I tell you, in heaven their angels continually see the face of my Father in heaven.” (18:11) If a shepherd has a hundred sheep and one goes astray, does he not leave the 99 and go after the one? The finding of one lost causes him more pleasure than the having of 99 who never have gone astray.

If a member of the church (some translations use “brother”) sins against you, go and point out the fault when you are alone. Friends saw in these words an admonition against spreading rumors - talking about someone you have problems with behind their back. You can't rely on your own judgment alone especially in matters of faith. If you go to him and he listens you have regained that one (like the lost sheep), but if he won’t listen take one or two others with you. If he still refuses to listen “to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector” (18:17). And then we hear these words AGAIN: “Truly, I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (18:18). If two or three of you agree and ask the father, it will be given you. “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them” (18:20). 

Interesting – here again as in Jesus’ words to Peter in 16:17-19, people [church members? leaders?] are given an interesting power – the power to make moral decisions on earth that will be accepted by God in heaven. Now we know from that story that Jesus’ discernment of what his disciples should do and how they should convey his message can be sharply different. It takes Peter about five minutes to show that his vision of how things should be is sharply different from Jesus'. But here again, Jesus seems to stick to his original message, that we do have a power to decide, but maybe it should not be a power given to just one. In the second articulation of the power, in 18:18-19, Jesus seems to revise it a little and speaks of “two or three” deciding.

As a Catholic I wonder if this might be seen as bearing on the issue of papal infallibility – maybe it is a power that should be not solely held by the pope. I know this question and this thinking is not anything a Quaker might see as meaningful, but even within a Quaker context, it could be that it bears on the decision-making process. No decision should be made without some degree of consensus.

And the other thing my mind goes to when I consider these words is that maybe we are given here some latitude in deciding things like permitting "gay unions." If we faithful decide with some unanimity that this should be approved of in heaven, maybe we can move away from what believers in the past have said.