by Marcia Mount Shoop
Psalm 1
“Wickedness for the psalmist is not about identity, it’s not about our created nature, it’s not about sexuality, it’s not about social location.
Wickedness is about arrogance, it is about seeing yourself as a free agent, it is about thinking you are entitled to live as a law unto yourself, it is about individualism–the rugged kind that does not see harm as a problem, but as a necessary evil of getting ahead in life.
Wickedness is staking your life on the calculus of consumption and hoarding and climbing the ladder no matter how many people get hurt in the process. Wickedness is believing that you know better than everyone else, that you are your own god, that you don’t need anybody and you especially don’t need God.
Wickedness stakes its claim on American ideals like self-sufficiency, like autonomy, like seeing the need for help and support as a sign of weakness or deficiency.”
Watch the full GCPC service on 2/16/25 here
(Scripture and sermon begin at 59:05)