When Envy Enters the Sanctuary: The Witness Our Neighbors Can See

The parking lot after the last song is already a mission field. Someone got named. Someone's numbers look easy from the sidewalk. Someone's complaint has already left the building. The person who smiled and said God is good is doing math on the way to the car. The neighbor walking a dog past the lot can hear the tone.

Psalm 73 was written by a worship leader who almost lost his footing on those closed books. Asaph could recite the right sentence about God's goodness. Then he looked at the arrogant and the math in his head started lying. The psalm treats envy as a way of seeing that walks out the door. Once that seeing enters the sanctuary, it changes what the street can tell about God.

Preach this psalm as a scolding against jealousy and you will miss the people who already feel ashamed of noticing an unfair week. Preach it as a promise that the envied will stumble by Friday and you will lie to a church that has to live with those people on Tuesday, and with the neighbors watching both of you. Preach it as wisdom poetry: envy distorts the books, and only God's presence tells the truth. Neighbors do not need a rearranged scoreboard. They need a people who have come close.

Text

Hear Psalm 73:1-28, from the World English Bible: "Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. But as for me, my feet were almost gone. My steps had nearly slipped. For I was envious of the arrogant, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For there are no struggles in their death, but their strength is firm. They are free from burdens of men, neither are they plagued like other men. Therefore pride is like a chain around their neck. Violence covers them like a garment. Their eyes bulge with fat. Their minds pass the limits of conceit. They scoff and speak with malice. In arrogance, they threaten oppression. They have set their mouth in the heavens. Their tongue walks through the earth. Therefore their people return to them, and they drink up waters of abundance.