Daily Lesson for January 9, 2019

Today’s Daily Lesson is Psalm 123:

1 To you I lift up my eyes, 

to you enthroned in the heavens.

2 As the eyes of servants look to the hand of their masters, 

and the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress,

3 So our eyes look to the Lord our God, 

until he show us his mercy.

4 Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy, 

for we have had more than enough of contempt,

5 Too much of the scorn of the indolent rich, 

and of the derision of the proud.

This morning’s Psalm is a prayer from all the poor and haggard of the earth to the LORD of compassion and mercy.

They speak with the voice of working poor. They use metaphor they know quite well. They are servants; they look to the hand of their master. 

Yet what they hope for is not the contempt of the masters of this world they have known so well. They have felt the scorn and the contempt of those whose houses they build, lawns they mow, hotels they clean, yet who on the other hand treat them as dirty criminals. Where is the decent merciful LORD?  Where are the decent people?  They look.

“To you I lift up my eyes, 

to you enthroned in the heavens.”

They look to their LORD God in heaven.  This is the one who knows all, who sees all.  This is the one upon the throne, the LORD and judge of all. This is the one whom the poor can mistreated speak to directly using the Usted:

“To you I lift up my eyes, 

to you enthroned in the heavens.”

They look up and speak; and the LORD looks down and hears.

Surely, the LORD hears . . .