Count Our Riches

7 For the ransom of our life is so great, *
that we should never have enough to pay it,

8 In order to live for ever and ever, *
and never see the grave.

9 For we see that the wise die also;
like the dull and stupid they perish *
and leave their wealth to those who come after them. - Psalm 49:7-9

Psalm 49: 1-11, and the surrounding readings for the day, gives us an ancient, and yet contemporary form of wisdom to shed light on a difficult subject. Many of the Psalms were written, and sung, during the time of Exile in Babylon, and they reflect the long desire to be back home in Israel and worshipping in the Temple in Jerusalem.  This Psalm 49 apparently was written after the return from Babylonian captivity, when the returnees discovered that many of those who grew up in Israel during the 70 years of Exile, had become rich and greedy, with no sense of the deprivations of their captive Jewish families, friends, or anyone, returning from Babylon. In 70 years it is possible that no one who was forced into slavery by Babylonian captors survived to return. All but a very few had been born in Babylon, and Israel and the Temple were only real to them in song and dreams.

So, Psalm 49 is the complaint of disappointed survivors, of returnees who had suffered too much. It is a song of sour grapes!  …. Or it is the spiritual wisdom  that comes out of hard work and suffering, from people who had lived on the edge, whose only hope was in God’s mercy. They knew from experience that a life well lived, a life with true happiness, with meaning, with an example worth giving to the next generation, did not depend on money and clever schemes of greed. God had brought them through 70 years of deprivation. They had learned to sing the songs of Zion on a foreign shore. Their thanksgiving to God, their faith in God’s mercy, far out weighed the accumulation of wealth ….   And in the end, we can’t take it with us. (Verse 6)  “We can never ransom ourselves, or deliver to God the price of our life.” At the end, as in every moment of our lives, God is with us , faithful, merciful, forgiving, life restoring. Why not count our riches in the songs of such a faithful, loving God?     

by the Rt. Rev. Don Hart