When Envy Enters the Sanctuary: The Road Back After Failure

The parking lot still has last week's comparison in it. The greeting line was clean. The car was not. God is good sat in the opening song. Another person's ease sat in the quieter sentence between the church door and the first traffic light.

A spouse already received the public version of this week. The public version can quote the psalm and close the hymnal. It still treats leftover indoor envy as a finished lesson, as if noticing the unfairness once and feeling bad about it counted as the road back. If you preach Psalm 73 as a scolding against jealousy in the pew, you will miss the people who already feel ashamed of noticing an unfair year and have decided that shame is repentance. If you preach it as a promise that the envied life will stumble by Friday, you will lie to people who have to live with those numbers on Tuesday. Preach it as wisdom poetry: envy distorts the books, and only God's presence tells the truth. The road back is coming close with the failure still in your hands.

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.