Hear my prayer, LORD, listen to my cry for help; do not be deaf to my weeping. I dwell with you as a foreigner, a stranger, as all my ancestors were. – Psalm 39:12

Today’s Scripture Reading (April 22, 2016): Psalm 39

In the Second Act of Gilbert and Sullivan’s comedy “H.M.S. Pinafore,” the Captain and Buttercup have a conversation about the way things are. Buttercup is prophesying that things are about to change, and the Captain seems to be mystified by her words. At one point in the song “Thing are Seldom What They Seem,” both characters exclaim –

Tho' a mystic tone I/you borrow,
I shall/He will learn the truth with sorrow;
Here today and gone tomorrow.

We are tempted to treat things as they are like this is the way that it will always be. But life has a way of proving that not to be true. Even in my own life, it is amazing how often the permanent things and permanent people have proved to be transitional. And I continually mourn the loss of what I thought was permanent.

David asks God to hear his cry, but then he makes this statement – I will dwell with you as a foreigner. David recognizes the essential character of the followers of God. We understand that the there is nothing permanent about this world. We are quite literally here today and gone tomorrow. We are strangers in a land that is not our own.

When Jesus said that his “kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36) he was stating something that has always been true. The problem was that Israel had forgotten their essential nature as the children of God. In their current expectation of a coming Messiah who will re-establish the priority of Israel and rebuild the temple, they still have forgotten. They, and we, are strangers, foreigners in this world. Nothing that is built of stone or that can be defended by armies is permanent – it is all temporary.

David understood as Jesus understood. We are not of this world. Our kingdom lies somewhere else. We dwell with God in this place as travelers, and nothing more.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Psalm 40