Psalm 81: 1-16 (links validated 5/19/24a)

In a sermon commentary on Psalm 81 some years ago, my CEP colleague Stan Mast said that God in Psalm 81 resembles the parent of a teenager who cannot seem to get his eyes unglued from video games or the screen of his phone. “Can’t you just put that thing down for a minute and talk to me, son!?” Or God is like a lonely wife and mother who can no longer seem to get her family’s attention. It reminded me of Delia Grinstead from the Anne Tyler novel Ladder of Years. Delia was a faithful wife and mother but over time she found herself feeling like a tiny gnat whirring around the edges of her perennially distracted physician husband and her too-busy-to-bother-with-Mom children. She stands on the edges of her family and pleads for them to look at her, talk to her, engage with her. But to no avail. Finally the day comes when the family is at the beach and Delia takes off walking down the beach and does not return. It takes a bit for the family to even realize she’s gone missing. Once the police start asking for a description of Delia and things like what she had been wearing the last time they saw her, they unsurprisingly cannot give up much information. They had stopped seeing Delia a long time before. God must feel like that a lot.