Scripture: Psalm 101:5 – “One who secretly slanders a neighbor I will destroy. A haughty look and an arrogant heart I will not tolerate.” (NRSV)
I am writing this from my hotel in Ocean City, Maryland, and to be honest, I am having a bit of a moral struggle. As you know, I try to be a good and pious person, but my tastes have always run towards the historic and the refined. When I was a kid, I listened to opera and orchestral music while others listened to rock and R & B. I read ancient epics. And I sought to learn more about religion and the meaning of life while others were out having a good time enjoying being young.
I always like to plan my vacations, moving from one carefully chosen activity to the next. I have never been one for just “going with the flow” or “hanging out,” which is not a particularly helpful attitude in a place where people just want to soak up some sun. However, I am trying to make the most of my time and just enjoying myself without overthinking.
But there is one aspect that keeps itching at my old sensibilities. We are staying right on the boardwalk, which is lined not only unhealthy food options, but also tacky t-shirt and souvenir stores. One might classify the t-shirts being advertised as “trashy”, celebrating drug consumption, public drunkenness, lewd behavior, and even adultery. Wearing my public moralist hat, it is easy to condemn these attitudes as sinful and beneath the dignity with which we were created as children of God. Psalm 101 says, “I will not see before my eyes anything that is base. I hate the work of those who fall away; it shall not cling to me.” So, it is very easy for me to judge the tchotchke purveyors and beachside hucksters as beneath my sensibilities.
However, no one likes a killjoy and when I examine myself, I need to remember that much of this is just harmless fun. Liking elitist forms of art does not make me a better person or lead to more happiness or love for others. After all, Psalm 101 also says, “One who secretly slanders a neighbor I will destroy. A haughty look and an arrogant heart I will not tolerate.” We are to focus on what is righteous in the eyes of God, but never by putting down others. It is very easy to do this, which is why religious people have since biblical times been written off as judgmental and unyielding, worried more about propriety than grace. So, I am going to silence that inner critic, laugh at the coarse but buoyant wit at play… and maybe use fewer fifty-cent words.
Recreation and relaxation are so central to God’s plan for us that we have been given a Sabbath which is to take up one seventh of our lives. This is a time when we open ourselves to God, not silently judge those who do not seem quite as holy as we are. Jesus said, “The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath.” So, as we take in the last few weeks of summer, remember to have fun and to be generous to yourself and others.
Prayer: God, help me to find your presence and your grace everywhere I look. Amen.
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