Psalms 52:1-9: a reflection

1Why do you boast of mischief, mighty man? God’s loving kindness endures continually. 2Your tongue plots destruction, like a sharp razor, working deceitfully. 3You love evil more than good, lying rather than speaking the truth. Selah. 4You love all devouring words, you deceitful tongue. 5God will likewise destroy you forever. He will take you up, and pluck you out of your tent, and root you out of the land of the living. Selah. 6The righteous also will see it, and fear, and laugh at him, saying, 7“Behold, this is the man who didn’t make God his strength, but trusted in the abundance of his riches, and strengthened himself in his wickedness.” 8But as for me, I am like a green olive tree in God’s house. I trust in God’s loving kindness forever and ever. 9I will give you thanks forever, because you have done it. I will hope in your name, for it is good, in the presence of your saints.

The psalm opens by confronting someone who boasts of the harm he can do, whose tongue is like a sharp razor, plotting destruction and loving lies more than truth. It is a portrait of a person who has made evil his strength, trusting in his wealth and his own cunning. For a while such a person seems secure, even formidable, but the psalm sees further: God will bring him down, uprooting him from the land of the living.

Against this, the psalmist sets a very different image for himself: I am like a green olive tree in the house of God. The boaster is like something that will be torn out; the trusting believer is like a tree planted in God's own courts, rooted, living, fruitful, enduring. And the reason is named plainly: I trust in God's steadfast love forever and ever. One life is built on wealth and wickedness; the other is rooted in the unfailing love of God.

The two pictures ask you a simple question: what are you rooted in? A life built on cleverness, wealth, or the harm you can do to others may look secure, but it has no lasting root. A life rooted in God's steadfast love is like an evergreen tree in his house, drawing life from a source that never fails. Choose to sink your roots into God's love rather than into your own resources, and you will stand green and fruitful when the boaster's security has withered away.

Lord, keep me from building my life on wealth or cunning or the harm I could do, which have no lasting root. Make me like a green olive tree planted in your house, rooted in your steadfast love forever. Let me draw my life from you, the source that never fails, so that I stand green and fruitful long after every false security has withered. Amen.