Psalms for Turbulent Times - Psalm 41: Consider the poor

Psalm 41 [1]



¹   Happy are those who consider the poor;^[a]
    the Lord delivers them in the day of trouble.
²  The Lord protects them and keeps them alive;
    they are called happy in the land.
    You do not give them up to the will of their enemies.
³  The Lord sustains them on their sickbed;
    in their illness you heal all their infirmities.<sup>[b]

4</sup>   As for me, I said, ‘O Lord, be gracious to me;
    heal me, for I have sinned against you.’
⁵   My enemies wonder in malice when I will die, and my name perish.
⁶   And when they come to see me, they utter empty words,
    while their hearts gather mischief; when they go out, they tell it abroad.
⁷   All who hate me whisper together about me;
    they imagine the worst for me.
⁸   They think that a deadly thing has fastened on me,
    that I will not rise again from where I lie.
⁹   Even my bosom friend in whom I trusted,
     who ate of my bread, has lifted the heel against me.
¹⁰ But you, O Lord, be gracious to me,
    and raise me up, that I may repay them.
¹¹ By this I know that you are pleased with me;
     because my enemy has not triumphed over me.
¹² But you have upheld me because of my integrity,
     and set me in your presence for ever.

¹³ Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,
     from everlasting to everlasting. Amen and Amen.



This is the last psalm in the first book of the psalter which runs from 1-41.

It ends with a big ‘sign off’ verse declaring blessing on the Lord God ‘from everlasting to everlasting’. It begins as Psalm 1 does, with a beatitude: ‘Happy is…’ And between these verses there is another exploration of what it is to be utterly dependent upon God and (prophetically) to consider God’s poor man of the cross, Christ.

Buried deep in the psalm is a verse (vs9) which was used by Jesus in John’s Gospel (13.18) to interpret Judas’ act of betrayal. Here is a psalm whose reach takes us into the heart of Jesus’ teaching and his animation of the beatitudes in his death and life. It takes us to a most humble of scene. Where a man revered for his wisdom and teaching and love, takes off his outer garments, kneels and washes feet. 

Is this not a scene multiplied hundreds of thousands of times across this country in this time of Covid19 - where humble carers and nurses wash the feet and hands and bodies of many very sick and vulnerable people. 'Happy are those who consider the poor, the Lord delivers them in  the time of trouble.'

In chapter 13 of John’s Gospel we have the beginning of his unique account of the last night Jesus spent with his disciples. In that Upper Room, Jesus washes the disciples’ feet like a poor servant (how many of our carers are on poverty wages?). And he encourages them to become like him: ‘If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.’ This is poverty: it is humility and service, it is kneeling and washing another’s dirty feet, it is serving others not expecting to be served (which is what rich and powerful people most often expect).

Is it possible that in this most poignant of night’s Jesus was meditating on Psalm 41? ‘Happy are those who consider the poor, the Lord delivers them in their trouble,’ he might have remembered. Jesus not only serve the poor, he became poor (Philippians 2.7-8: ‘he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.  And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death –even death on a cross!'). The promise of Psalm 41 is that all who consider Jesus, the poor servant, will be delivered ‘in their trouble’.

After washing the disciples’ feet, John’s Gospel tells us that Jesus tells the disciples that one of them will betray him. He says this act of betrayal is a fulfilment of the scripture (we know this to be a fulfilment of Psalm 41.9). John’s Gospel quotes the passage as: ‘The one who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.’  But we also know from this verse in the psalm that it is more poignant than that – ‘even my bosom friend whom I trusted’, it says. Is it no wonder that Jesus is described (John 13.21) as being ‘troubled in spirit’ at this realisation. His life, that dark night, is being lived through the lens of yet another painful verse of scripture. And the agent of his betrayal, the gospel writers suggest, is someone who was ‘greedy’ (he is accused of theft form the ‘common purse’ of which was treasurer as well as receiving money for the act of betrayal). The psalmist, throughout the first ‘book’ of the psalter, is convinced of one thing – that the poor or afflicted or oppressed or despised or sick are at the centre of God’s attention; while the wicked, the self-sufficient, the rich and the oppressive will be shifted to the edge of God’s attention. 

Jesus is, in clear sight of the psalms and prophets, God’s archetypal poor person – whom we are called to ‘consider’ and in whom we do and will find profound happiness.

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[1] Footnotes: a) Psalm 41:1 Or weak b) Psalm 41:3 Heb you change all his bed
New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised (NRSVA) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition, copyright © 1989, 1995 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.