Psalm 16:5-8 "Pleasant Places"

Psalm for Today = 16:5-8
"The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup;

    you hold my lot.

The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;

    indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.

I bless the Lord who gives me counsel;
    in the night also my heart instructs me.
I have set the Lord always before me;
    because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.

Comments:

Do we testify with the psalmist that the lines of our portion, our inheritance, are beautiful—that the boundaries of our lives have fallen in “pleasant places”? Or are we of the perennial “grass-is-always-greener” personality type? Are we quicker to trash-talk or to give thanks, to bad mouth or to bless? From whom do we receive counsel? What or who is it that we have set before us as an example? How is this worked out in our lives—are we stable and consistent, or shaky and easily rocked by circumstances?of Form

This passage alludes to the tribal inheritances allocated in Joshua, but then applies the idea of inheritance not to a place but to a person—the Lord himself. Recently, on my Cultural Engagement blog we have been talking about historic relocations of ethnic populations and the contemporary iteration of it—gentrification—that is remaking the city of Portland. Racial unity is something that almost all Christians will espouse on a personal level but rarely do we think about doing anything structurally, or communally, to help every tribe gain its inheritance.

 

Map Quiz! From old version
of Baker's Bible Atlas

When the people of Israel first were allowed to enter the Promised Land, two and a half tribes (Reuben, Gad, and half the people of Manasseh) of the twelve tribes were the early adopters of their day. They claimed their land first, on the East side of the Jordan River. By the way, it looks a lot like Montana. However, Moses made it clear that they were not to benefit from such peace and privilege without first going over the river into Canaan and leading the charge into battle on behalf of the other nine and a half tribes who were not yet able to receive their inheritances. It makes me wonder if we should be any different.

Individually, like the psalmist’s statement of grateful confidence, we should be thankful and rejoice in where the lines have fallen. Even when the lines of our inheritance fall on lands difficult to work with paths painful to walk we can and should rejoice. Though we often lack understanding, the Lord does not lack in love or wisdom and he counsels us as he walks the path with us.

Collectively, those with resources and privilege should contend for full possession of the promise by all of God’s people, no matter what tribe. The East-siders were never to separate from the West-siders. They were to fight alongside each other and worship together in the place the Lord established (coming together as essential and equal parts) at least three times a year. They were to defend each other to the very last.

Who has yet to receive a piece of the pie? Who has not been given a place at the table? For such as these those of us who have access to economic and educational resources should look for ways to leverage them not for our own benefit, but for the benefit of those who don’t have the same options available to them.

As I have been meditating and studying this psalm, it seems to me to contain the message Paul expresses in Philippians 4:12-14,

I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

Yet it was kind of you to share my trouble.          

Too often v. 13 is taken out of the context of "being content" whether we are rich or poor, hungry or satisfied. And even when I have heard teachers correct this common mistake I have never heard someone connect it to v.14 “Yet it was kind of you to share my trouble.” Perhaps, it is time for us to share in the trouble of those that would be our neighbors if we could help them enter into their inheritance.  As Paul wrote to the Galatians, a Gentile church being pressured to become cultural Jews first,

“Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.” (Gal. 6:2-3)

The question we have to ask is, “How can we best help?” I think that if we live more in light of our God-given inheritance that is not only uniting, but “imperishable, undefiled, and unfading” (Ephesians 1:7-14; 1 Peters 1:3-5) than in light of our anxious circumstances, then we will hear the Spirit’s voice directing us in creative ways to stand together for the rights of others. As an assassinated Spanish poet stated,

“I will always be on the side of those who have nothing

and who are not even allowed to enjoy the nothing they have in peace.”

—Federico García Lorca

Note: The one Israelite tribe that seemed to have failed most grievously in taking their land was the tribe of Dan. In fact, they left the land that God had given them, gave up, and moved north (Joshua 19:40-48; Judges 18). So much of the history of ethnic migration is typified in the selfishly faithless migration of Dan! Remember that they don't make it into the list of the tribes of Israel in Revelation 7 (àSee reason why).