Hallmark

As we continue to experience the Word of the Lord together, Let us Pray. Gracious giver of all, your love for us knows no bounds, for you love us with your whole being. Grant unto us the ability to love you with our whole being, so that we might enjoy the blessings of being your children. Speak Lord, your servants are listening. If these words are not Your Word, may they be forgotten and come to naught. But if they be Thy Word, may they adhere to our hearts, forever transforming us from glory into glory, into the creatures you would have us be, Thou who art our Rock and Redeemer, Amen.

Psalm 112 is a companion to Psalm 111. In fact, it may be the sequel. You know, Psalm 111 made so much hay at the box office, that they came out with the sequel over Memorial Day weekend, prime movie going season. So, actually, I think it may be best if we read them both. So, in an effort to best understand Psalm 112, here is Psalm 111. Listen for God’s Word for you today. Psalm 111. The Grass withers, the Flower falls, but the Word of the Lord endures forever…Thanks be to God.

The connection between the two Psalms are several. You may note the similarity in style, showing they were most likely written by the same person, and probably in the same time period, as writers often write using the same style all at once. But more importantly the subject of Psalm 111 is the counterpoint to the subject of Psalm 112. Psalm 111, as just read, celebrates the character and work of God. Psalm 112, as about to be read, celebrates the character and work of the righteous person, of the Godly human. So, Psalm 111 takes an approach of, “Here are the great things about God. 1, God’s righteousness endures forever. 2, God is wonderful deeds, gracious and merciful.” And so on. Psalm 112 does the same thing this way, “Here are the great things about being a righteous child of God and acting in an upright manner. 1, Their righteousness endures forever. 2, They are gracious, merciful and righteous.” And so on. So, listen for the echoes in Psalm 112 from Psalm 111. Especially noting that 111 ends with, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, all those who practice it have a good understanding…” and 112 begins with “Happy are those who fear the Lord.”

So hear now The Word of the Lord as it comes to us in Psalm 112. Listen. Psalm 112. The Word of the Lord…Thanks be to God.

Did you hear the echoes of the beatitudes at the beginning of this Psalm? Happy are those…who delight in God’s commandments. And again in verse 5, not exactly the same language, but the sentiment is there. “It is well with those, who deal generously.” The beatitude’s typical purpose is to both commend and also encourage a kind of conduct. It is the Jewish mother’s way of saying, “You sure would be happier if you found a nice girl and settled down.” Course they aren’t known for saying it like that, not with those words. It’s more like this. “People sure are happy when they are married.” “You sure are fulfilled when you delight in God’s commandments.” It’s meant to affirm the conduct, and to encourage it as well.

So, Psalm 111 is about the righteousness of God, and Psalm 112 follows it up with a sense of how we can experience the righteousness of God. To further break down Psalm 112, notice the flow of it this way. Verse 1 includes the first beatitude, happy are those who fear the Lord and delight in God’s commandments. Then there are the blessings associated with that course of action. Those who do fear the Lord will have descendants mighty in the land. They will live a life that is gracious, merciful, and righteous. And that statement in verse 4 is both a beatitude type of encouragement, and also an acknowledgement that being gracious and merciful is fulfilling. Being gracious and merciful is the desired result, and also the reward. But you don’t need me to tell you that. The Grinch has shown you. How happy was he when he wasn’t gracious and merciful? How happy was he when he was the opposite of generous? How about when he was gracious and merciful? How about when he was generous? [discuss the Grinch's ear-to-ear smile vs. the evil smile he had when his heart was two sizes too small]

Verse 5 gives the other beatitude, the one that has some sense of being able to carry it out in action. After all, verse 1 says to fear the Lord. And we shall, but there isn’t any action required with that, other than to find delight in God’s commandments. But in verse 5 we do find something concrete we can do. “It is well with those who deal generously…who conduct their affairs with justice.” The one thing in this Psalm, this Psalm that juxtaposes our opportunity to be righteous with God’s righteousness, the one tangible thing we may do, is be generous. That is because the hallmark of righteousness is generosity. The sign of someone who is righteous, according to Psalm 112, is that they are generous.

But you don’t need me to tell you that, you have your friends to tell you that. Have you ever had friends who didn’t tip well? We have, a couple of folks whom we knew up North. And every so often, at the spur of the moment, we’d decide to go out for dinner together. The phone would ring, and they’d say, “We’re just about to get in the car, you wanna come.” Or, the idea would strike us, and we’d drive in front of their building and honk. And we’d be off to dinner. Nothing spectacular, we are talking about starving students and spouses here. A few times in, I noticed the husband. He seemed to be counting on his hands. So I asked. “Oh, that’s my tip system. Every waitron starts with 12%. As the meal goes on, that percent either goes up with good service, or goes down with bad. If our drinks take a long time, we’re down to 11. But if refills come quickly, we’re back up to 13. It’s a failproof system.” Every time we went out together after that, the couple would verbalize these things, since they didn’t have to keep it a secret from us, I guess. And they would even try to joke about it. “Oh, down to 11. You didn’t get lemon in your water.” “Oh, there’s a percent or two off, your soda’s been empty for two minutes now.” We noticed there were far more percents taken off than there were percents put on. So that, when it came time to tip, they would almost exclusively tip in the 8% range, and we would compensate by tipping around 20-25% (the former waitron in me just wouldn’t let that stand). Instead of being bitter about it, we found that we enjoyed dinner more. For every “There’s another point off,” it meant another chance for us to be generous. In fact, when we started to eat out less often with them, it wasn’t because of us, it was because, “I don’t think so tonight. We’re not in the mood.” We once even got told, “All the places to eat around here just have such bad service, it isn’t fun or worth the money.” So, two things I noted from this. 1) Who do you think the waitrons that served us, and that read both of our credit card slips when we filled out the tip portion, who do you think that they thought was more righteous? Granted, they wouldn’t have used the term “righteous,” though “righteous” is slang, or it was when I was in college. Okay, it wasn’t, but that didn’t stop me from saying it. Anyway, who do you think the waitrons thought was a more stand up couple, the ones that left 8%, or the ones that left 20? And 2), I noticed that we enjoyed eating out much more than our friends. It is well with those who deal generously. We weren’t ticking off the discredits, we weren’t constantly keeping score, we weren’t missing the good time right in front of us by trading that in for saving 30 cents. It is well with those who deal generously.

But I can give you a more positive example of the same thing. Our good friend Andy, who was here just last week playing the trumpet for his fish fry food, is one of the more generous people I know. When we eat out together, we never split the check. He buys this time, and we buy next time. And in so doing, we both get the opportunity to be generous. In the end, it costs us the same. He pays for lunch at Sweet Tomatoes, one of his favorites around here, and we pick up the pizza. And those of you who spent time with him this past weekend know, that generosity is in his character as well. And if you didn’t get to spend time with him, take my word for it, he is one of the most generous people, and one of the most content and happy people, that you would ever want to know. It is well with those who deal generously.

I could talk to you until I am blue in the fact about how it is better to be generous, about how it is better for your soul if you are generous, about how much happier you are, about how it is well with you; but you’ve heard me say all that before. And if you haven’t, you will. But here, I think it is good to focus on the fact that we find in Psalm 112 the hallmark of someone who is righteous. When you put it next to 111, showing the righteousness of God, it just adds a little more power, a little more emphasis, a little more umph. The Hallmark of righteousness is generosity. God is generous with us, and it shows God’s righteousness. When we are generous, with all sorts of things. When we are generous with our time, our knowledge, and yes, with our money, they we participate in the call of God, and show God’s righteousness. May it always be so. Amen.