Neighbors Living in Sin

Meaning in Psalm 73

by Alfred D. Byrd

PURENESS of heart is pleasing to God,
But wins no praise from the lips of the world.
When I turn my eyes from the throne on high
To look at neighbors living in sin,
I lose my way and feel self-pity.
Nurturing anger, the fruit of envy—
Measuring others, I shorten myself—
I lose sight of my goal in things of the now.

Today, the ones who ignore my God
Are doing just fine. They earn a bundle,
Gobble good food, and guzzle good wine
In houses to awe the kings of the past.
The houses are empty; the wealthy have flown
On wings of the wind to a land of gold.
On carpets of crimson, they mingle and smile
To be seen by those who would sell their souls
To stand in their place, at least for a night.
A crime has been done? A lawyer will fix it.
Nothing need trouble one's flow of delights.
The one who lies escapes a whipping;
Murderers ponder no date with a noose.

For the high and mighty, the world is enough.
They speak of my God with doubt or with scorn.
"A king on a throne? Please, darling, be real!
Any god that may be is too far away
To bother its mind with thoughts of us.
A god of judgment? How lame can you get?
Don't lose perspective! Nothing awful
Happens to persons as pretty as us."

It's easy for us who recall our God
To let the worldly trouble our faith.
The lure of riches — the fear of laughter—
Causes the faithful to go astray.
Filled up with the earth, we lack room for heaven.
Only by turning to things of our God—
To the words of seers who looked at the light;
To the place for many to meet as one —
Can we see what lies beyond the present.

Flouters of God are standing on heights
From which a fall will end in heartbreak.
Beauty, though sword, is seldom a shield.
The rains may come, or the earth may shake;
The house on a cliff will slide to the sea.
A treatment to keep one's looks from aging
Makes one a target for gossip by friends.
A drug to turn one's pleasure intense
(Or to dull one's mind to a life misspent)
May stop a heart and stagger the world.
The one who tracks the flow of riches
Gathers how fragile their glory has been.
Today, a star may shine on a stage;
Tomorrow, detectives are prodding a corpse.

The life that's lived for the world alone
Is bright for a while, but goes down to darkness.
Only a life that's lived for the One
Extends beyond the curtain of death.
The one who accepts the guidance of God
Will walk on a path that leads to the light,
The glory of One, Who sits on the Throne
Where we'll see our lives conjoined to the life
That starts, endures, and ends in our King.

If this poem spoke to you, you may enjoy my Biblical epic poems

A Song of the One, the age-old account of Creatlon, Fall, Redemption, and Glory retold in verse for a new millennium, and

The Stars Bow Down: An Epic of Joseph, the timeless tale of a favorite son whose brothers sold him into slavery, but whom God raised from a prison to save the known world from famine.