Psalm 1

How blessed is the one who does not follow the advice of the wicked,

or stand in the pathway with sinners,

or sit in the assembly of scoffers.

2 Instead he finds pleasure in obeying the Lord’s commands;

he meditates on his commands day and night.

3 He is like a tree planted by flowing streams;

it yields its fruit at the proper time,

and its leaves never fall off.

He succeeds in everything he attempts.

4 Not so with the wicked!

Instead they are like wind-driven chaff.

5 For this reason the wicked cannot withstand judgment,

nor can sinners join the assembly of the godly.

6 Certainly the Lord guards the way of the godly,

but the way of the wicked ends in destruction.

NET

I’ve decided to restart my scripture-reading practice by going to the Psalms. When I read the words “wicked” and “righteous”, it makes me think of how some people tend to try to lump others they have very strong moral disagreements into another bucket. The obvious example might be extreme right-wing religious fundamentalists who call homosexuals or pro-choice activists “wicked”. But it’s not just religious extremists who engage in “othering”–regardless of your point of view, many people seem to get a sense of satisfaction from grouping people who have entirely different opinions or values as “evil”, which in turn allows them to consider themselves “righteous”.

I don’t think it’s helpful to bucket people into “wicked” and “righteous” and I don’t know if that’s necessarily how Psalm 1 needs to be read or interpreted for our current time. The way I choose to read this psalm is by considering there is a way that you can live your life that results in The Good Life–behaviors, habits, practices that generally result in positive outcomes. Inversely, there are unhealthy behaviors, habits, and practices that tend to product negative outcomes and cause pain, suffering, and destruction of relationships.

Sometimes the beneficial vs harmful behaviors, habits, and practices can be interpreted through a moral lens, but not always. For better or for worse, this has become harder in a post-Christian era because we’ve become very sensitive to not appearing morally judgmental. Some behaviors that used to be considered morally bad are just neutral or even good. Society and culture changes, so in many circumstances, I think it’s a good thing for us to not judge others based on certain behaviors, but in some cases, maybe in God’s eyes, they are still offensive to him.

In the current time, I think it’s largely unhelpful for churches and Christians to prioritize identifying and defining morality in order to declare people or their behaviors “wicked” or “righteous”. Instead, I like the framing of calling people to a life where their “delight is in the law of the Lord” and on his law “they meditate day and night”; and as an outcome of humbling ourselves individually and communally to a relationship with God, we will “yield their fruit in its season” and prosper “in all that they do”. And when we choose not to do that, unfortunately, it’s likely that we submit ourselves to competing narratives of what it means to be happy or successful.

The mission of the church is to call humanity into a specific vision of The Good Life, one that is revealed through the Bible and through a life in communion with the living God.