Ordinary Time. The God of the holy habitation is still setting the lonely inside.

Psalm 68 opens a door inward. From his holy habitation, the God who is father to the fatherless and defender of widows does the strangest, most particular thing: he sets the lonely inside a family. Picture a solitary soul led by the hand into a real house, through a door that shuts inward, toward a chair already laid at the table.

The verse refuses to let us hear that as easy comfort, because it immediately names the rebellious who dwell in a sun-scorched land. The scorched land is nearer than I like: it is the territory my resentment settles for. My loneliness has often been my own doing dressed up as my own sorrow. I have nursed resentment at not being chosen, then shielded myself by refusing the ordinary chairs God left open. I wanted a family I had handpicked and a welcome I had earned; anything offered felt like pity. So I gripped my pride like a locked door, and stood in the heat rather than be placed. Lord, I confess it plainly: I have preferred the sun-scorched sovereignty of my own door to the household you were already arranging.

Consider what it took to break that lock. Christ took the sun-scorched land so the Father could set us at his household table. On the cross the Son who had called God his Father was forsaken, tasting the fatherless place for us. And then the resurrection made the next line of the psalm come true: God brings out the prisoners with singing. The tomb was solitary confinement, and Christ walked out of it. The same power that opened his prison is opening the door of your house.