Somos del buen Dios

Pueblo suyo somos y ovejas de su prado. – Salmo 100:3b (BLA)

We are your people and the sheep of your pasture. – Psalm 100:3b (NRSV)

On the front row of our church’s sanctuary sits a small whiteboard with the words to the hymn, Pues si vivimos (In All Our Living). The hymn echoes the assurance of today’s psalm that we are God’s people, held in God’s love and care. “Pues si vivimos,” sings the first line, “para Dios vivimos y si morimos, para Dios morimos.” (“In all our living, we belong to God, and in our dying, we are still with God.”)

The white board is from our final service before we suspended in-person worship last March. Our children’s choir planned to sing the hymn as our call to worship throughout Lent. They (and we) only made it to the third Sunday. The sentences are a bit smudged, and the handwriting wasn’t neat to begin with. Whenever the children’s choir sings again, whoever is leading them will undoubtedly wipe the board clean and start anew. I should probably do it myself. The whiteboard hymn serves no purpose. Even if we were gathering for worship, no one should be singing.

But I can’t erase those words. They remind me of seven-year-olds singing about belonging to God, in their living and in their dying. That’s quite a statement at any age, and it’s taken on new meaning as this year has unfolded. I hope somehow this hymn has helped sustain our children and their families since last they sang together. I hope they still remember its last line: “Somos del buen Dios.” “We belong to God” or literally, “We are of a good God,” which sounds a lot like Psalm 100’s pueblo suyo somos.

Prayer
Even if we can’t join together in song, help us remember pues si vivimos, somos del buen Dios. We belong to you. Amen.

About the Author
Talitha Arnold is Senior Minister of the United Church of Santa Fe (UCC), Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is the author of Mark Parts 1 and 2 of the Listen Up! Bible Study series and Worship for Vital Congregations.