Psalms 69 and Country Music

            There are times in our lives when we feel as though we are drowning.  We are in the midst of a great storm just like the storms that have ravaged the southeast this week.  Our storms though are emotional and many times they are created by humanity.  Our anger rages inside of us.  We find ourselves angry with humanity and sometimes even angry with God.  We wonder where God is.  Hopefully it doesn’t take long for us to look back on the other storms of our lives and realize that God is right where God always is; with us.  What do we do with these emotions?  The Psalmist of Psalm 69 gives us a clue. 

            The Psalmist knows that it is important to take these emotions to God with honesty.  God can handle it.  Listen to the lines of the first four verses:

Save me, God, because the waters have reached my neck!  I have sunk into deep mud.  My feet can’t touch the bottom!  I have entered deep water; the flood has swept me up.  I am tired of crying.  My throat is hoarse.  My eyes are exhausted with waiting for my God. (CEB)

Wow!  Haven’t you felt like that before?  Did you dare to go to God and tell God the innermost groaning of your heart?  You can.  The Psalmist then goes through the next 8 verses telling God just what those he is angry at have done to him.  He then prays for God to save him from this condition of drowning that he feels.  He tells God how these “attacks” have made him feel. 

            What he does next might surprise you as much as him being honest about his feelings toward God.  He asks God to curse the enemies.  He is very specific in what he would like for those curses to be.  These are called Psalms of Imprecation.  They remind me of the country song Pray for You by Jaron and the Long Road to Love.  When I first heard this song I thought it to be quite sacrilegious.  However, when I read Psalms such as this, I realize there is a place for these kind of honest and raw prayers.  God knows our hearts, why not voluntarily share our heart with God and let God transform us and make us whole.

            After imploring God to bring curses on the enemy, the psalmist then recognizes his own condition of pain and affliction and cries out for God to save him and keep him safe.  The psalmist knows the dangers of what he is feeling toward those who have hurt him and he recognizes that God is the only source of healing and protection from that kind of rage.

            The psalmist then comes full circle to praise for God!  He gives the reader advice to “Let the afflicted see and be glad!  You who seek God-let your hearts beat strong again because the Lord listens to the needy and doesn’t despise his captives.”  (Vs. 32-33) 

            The psalmist turns at the end away from individual praise to praise with and for the community for ultimately we all belong to community and it is in community that we seek and find God at work and active! 

            My challenge for you today is to sit down with a piece of paper and following the outline of Psalm 69, write your own Psalm of Imprecation.  Be real with God.  God is real with you. 

God is Judge-I am not

            Psalm 58 is one of those Psalms that make me uncomfortable.  It is full of violent images invoked by the psalmist as punishment from God on the enemy of the psalmist or the community for which the psalmist writes.  When we read these psalms it is important to remember the teachings of Jesus about our enemies.  Jesus tells us to love our enemies.  Matthew 5:43-44 says ⁴³ “You have heard that it was said, You must love your neighbor and hate your enemy. ⁴⁴ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who harass you.” This is a very different picture than the picture laid out by the psalmist who cries out to God to break the teeth out of the enemies mouth and let the enemy “dissolve like water flowing away.”  It is a very different picture then the picture the psalmist paints of the righteous “soaking their feet in the enemies blood.”

            The psalmist here uses wartime imagery to get the main point across.   I believe it is human nature to desire to see those who cause us pain suffer.  I have said many times that one of the things I love about the Psalms is that they validate my humanity.  I don’t have to feel shame and guilt when in my hurt and brokenness I feel like seeing those who are hurting me suffer.  However, the bigger truth of this psalm and the other psalms like it is that God is the judge.  It is God who is in control of righting wrongs. 

            The overall picture painted here is that yes there is pain and suffering in the world.  We can not escape it.  Yes, it is natural and right to seek Justice.  James Mays writes in a commentary on this psalm that the “notion of vengeance (vs. 10) is a feature of the vision of God as ruler.  The term does not mean vindictive revenge; it refers to an action to do justice and restore order where the regular and responsible institutions of justice have failed.[1]

            In The Wesley Study Bible there are sections throughout the bible entitled “Holiness of Heart and Life.”  These are notes written in sidebars of the Bible by key pastors in the Methodist tradition that help us live out our Wesleyan faith.  Here is what the side bar on the page of this passage states regarding persecution:

By “assurance” John Wesley meant a state of mind and heart, not so much dreamy as durable.  A sense of absolute trust in God does not lift us above the fray but guides us through the fray with confidence that someone holds us by counting our sleepless nights and gathering our tears.  Thus the psalmist is able to weave our palpable fear of persecution with the irrepressible hope of deliverance.  The faithful are not immune to dread; we cannot always know we will be safe.  What we can know is that, come what may, we will be saved.[2]

Know from this Psalm that it is natural to want to see justice brought to that which has wronged you.  Know also from this Psalm that God is the one who is in control.  We are called to love our enemies.  We are called to forgive.  We can not do that on our own.  We can do it when we let God be the ruler over our lives and over our world.  Thanks be to God. 

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[1] Mays, James L., “Psalms” in Interpretation A Bible commentary for Teaching and Preaching, (Louisville, John Knox Press, 1994) pg. 212

[2] Green, Joel and Willimon, William, eds. Wesley Study Bible, CEB edition (Common English Bible, Nashville, 2012) pg. 728-sidebar

Healed or Broken?-Proverbs 17

Last week my Facebook news feed was filled with blog after blog and opinion after opinion regarding divisive issues that threaten to divide the Methodist Church making it no longer united.  This week my Facebook news feed is filled with status after status and blog after blog of people sharing their opinion of Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner.  No matter which side of the debate you fall on, persons from both sides have used language that divides, breeds hatred, and fans the flames of discontent.  It is easy to get sucked into such debates.  Your passions ignite and you believe you just have to weigh in with your opinion.  Then, someone disputes your opinion, you feel like you must come back with a defense and thus the snowball rolls and rolls and rolls and the only thing that has been accomplished in the end is your distaste for the people with whom you are debating.  Your heart rate goes up.  Your blood boils.  Your face gets hot.  Your mind becomes consumed.  It is not healthy. 

            Proverbs 17 has a few things to say about such things.  Vs. 14 states “the start of a quarrel is like letting out water, so drop the dispute before it breaks out.  Vs. 22 states “a joyful heart helps healing, but a broken spirit dries up the bones.”  Finally, verse 27 states “wise are those who restrain their talking; people with understanding are cool headed.” 

            Certainly we are called to be prophets of truth; we are called to speak justice into an unjust world.  As an old mountain saying says “there is more than one way to skin a cat.”  Spitting words of hatred and condemnation is not God’s way.  So, the next time you’re scrolling through your news feed and you feel your face getting hot, your heart rate increasing, and your blood boiling, don’t stop, keep scrolling.  Do not be sucked in.  Do not let your joy be stolen.  You will not change anyone’s mind by sharing your opinion and engaging in the debate.  Minds are changed in the midst of relationship and experience.  Minds are not changed through the quarrels of Facebook. There are times and spaces for these types of discussions.  There are ways to go about them where we seek and stand on common ground. The wisdom of the Proverb is to say that it is not in the quarreling, it is not in the breaking of the spirts, and it is not in the hotheaded. 

            When you see these things.  STOP and pray.  Pray for those who you perceive are your enemies.  Cry out to God just as David did in the 17^th Psalm.  Do not engage!