He remembered us in our low estate His love endures forever. – Psalm 136:23

Today’s Scripture Reading (August 9, 2013): Psalm 136

I have been watching the old 1990 political thriller “House of Cards.” It is the story of the politically rich and powerful in Britain – and their quest to become even more rich and powerful. The story hovers around the political ambitions of Francis Urquhart, the antihero of the story. For Urquhart, all that matters is power. Urquhart comes to see himself as the king of the nation – which becomes clear when he has to deal with the king who is sitting on the throne. Those who lack the power of Urquhart are only meant to be stepped on – and no one has more power than Francis Urquhart. Lying, political intrigue and murder are only some of the things that Urquhart is guilty of – and none of it he seems willing to stop. His single ambition becomes not the concerns and needs of the nation, but his own pursuit of political power.

 

The story itself is fiction, but the plot line behind the story is very real. Even the church has not been exempt from people that have chased office only to increase their own political power. And history tells the frequent struggles between the kings of the empires and the popes of the church as they tried to prove which one of them was really the more powerful. And it was normally the common person that paid the price for the battle over power.

 

It was this battle for power that provides the backdrop for this Psalm – and the powerful difference that separated God from the local power mongers of this world. As the history of Judah closed, there were very few nations who had less power than Judah. If it was a ladder that needed to be climbed, the chosen people of God occupied the bottom rung. They no longer had anyone that they could call king; and their highest political leader in the nation answered to some other power. No one had the power to decide the future of the nation. Down was not an option only because the nation could not get any lower. And yet, even there, God heard their cries – and he remembered his people.

 

This may have been one of the things that we have trouble mastering as a people. We echo the ambitions of Francis Urquhart, we want to climb ever higher. Even the architecture of our churches sometimes come to resemble the Tower of Babel as they stretch ever higher trying to reach toward the very dwelling place of God. And yet the truth that we know of God is that he hears us in our lowest moments – he understands us when we are standing on the bottom rung of the ladder, barely standing off of the ground. Even Jesus said that “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5.) With those words, maybe the bottom rung of the power ladder is not such a bad place to be after all.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Psalm 146

Note:  The VantagePoint Community Church (Edmonton) message Arky, Arky" from the series "An Epic Summer" is now available on the VantagePoint Website.  You can find it here.