Daily Lesson for November 7, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 72 and serves as a prayer on the morning after a hard-fought election:

1 Give the King your justice, O God, *

and your righteousness to the King's Son;

2 That he may rule your people righteously *

and the poor with justice.

3 That the mountains may bring prosperity to the people, *

and the little hills bring righteousness.

4 He shall defend the needy among the people; *

he shall rescue the poor and crush the oppressor.

5 He shall live as long as the sun and moon endure, *

from one generation to another.

6 He shall come down like rain upon the mown field, *

like showers that water the earth.

7 In his time shall the righteous flourish; *

there shall be abundance of peace till the moon shall be no more.

8 He shall rule from sea to sea, *

and from the River to the ends of the earth.

Here the priest offers his prayers on behalf of the King. It is a sincere prayer to God, asking for blessings of peace, tranquility, tenure, and prosperity. It is also a reminder to the King of his responsibility to protect and watch over the poor and vulnerable against the cunning of the oppressive.

Verse 3 strikes me as particularly poignant:

 That the mountains may bring prosperity to the people, 

and the little hills bring righteousness.

It is not enough for the nation to be prosperous; it must also be righteous. It is not enough to be great; it must also be good. 

We offer prayers for all who have been elected to govern our states and Nation. We ask God for blessing upon the land and people under their governance. We pray especially for peace, and for the poor and vulnerable, and for the work that is necessary for the making of a better world for all people everywhere.  And in all these things, we ask God for the grace to bring bounty to our fields and a harvest of righteousness within our Soul.

And for anthem to close we take the hopeful and uplifting words of America the Beautiful:

O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain 

For purple mountain majesties, above the fruited plain 

America, America, God shed His grace on thee 

And crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea