Sermon for Pentecost X Year B 2015 Crying Out to God The Psalms of Lament If you could only have three books of the bible with you on a desert island, which would you choose? This was a favorite thought experiment one of my former pastors who used it to provoke interesting discussions about scripture. So, anyone willing to give me their answer? No? Okay, you can tell me later during coffee hour. Personally I find it a difficult choice the bible, after all, has so much rich literature to choose from. But I do know absolutely that I could not do without the Psalms all 150 of them and especially the psalms of lament. Let s face it, if you re going to be living on a desert island, its safe to say you ll have days when a great psalm of lament will be necessary! Actually, I m far from being alone in my admiration (and need) of the psalms. Martin Luther praised the Psalter, calling it the little bible because it contained in the briefest and most beautiful form all that is to be found in the whole bible, a book of good examples from among the whole of Christendom and from among the saints, in order that those who could not read the whole Bible through would have almost the whole of it in summary form. Wow just think of that! The Psalms are a microcosm of the entire biblical message. Apparently the writers of the gospels and Paul also recognized the importance of the Psalms because in the New Testament, there are no less than 90 references to or quotes from the Psalms far more than any other quotes or references to other Hebrew scriptures. But above all, Luther prized the psalms because as he wrote in his introduction to the psalms: The Book of Psalms has other excellencies: it preserves, not the trivial and ordinary things said by the saints, but their deepest and noblest utterances, those which they used when speaking in full earnest and all urgency to God. It not only tells what they say about their work and conduct, but also lays bare their hearts and the deepest treasures hidden in their souls: and this is done in such a way which allows us to contemplate the causes and the sources of their words and works. It is therefore easy to understand why the Book of Psalms is the favorite book of all the saints. For every [person] on every occasion can find in it Psalms which fit his needs, which he feels to be as appropriate as if they had been set there just for his sake. 1
In no other book can he find words to equal them, nor better words Place the Book of Psalms in front of you; you will see your own self in it, for here is the true know thyself, by which you can know yourself as well as the God who created all things. By now you know why the Psalter is a favorite companion of mine. They are bread for my journey, and not just to desert islands! In my journey of faith, the psalms have taught me how to pray honestly and fully. As Bonhoeffer wrote of the psalms They do not deny suffering nor try to deceive us about it with pious words. And this is important because there is no one who escapes suffering of one kind or another in this life. Perhaps that is why there are so many psalms of lament Of the 150 psalms, more than half are psalms of lamentation. And this is the great gift of the psalms Because they are great teachers in how to come before God in the proper way, bearing the frequent suffering which this world brings upon us, and also the suffering we ourselves bring upon the world. The psalms are prayers prayers for individuals but most importantly prayers for worshipping communities. And God uses prayer to work his will in our bodies and souls. Prayers are the way we collaborate in his work with us. The Psalms are prayers that accompany all the parts of our lives our rebelling and our trusting, our hurting and our praising. The Psalter trains us in prayer that is comprehensive and honest. And that is something I really appreciate and love about the psalms there is no dishonesty and no embarrassment about the ugliness and fearfulness of some of our emotions. Because the psalms of lament are confessions. Most of the time we try to hide our failings, our darker feelings, our hatred and anger and our desire for revenge, not just from others but even from ourselves and perhaps we think that God won t see them either if we don t pray about them. Thanks be to God, the psalms will have none of this! They teach us not to reach for quick and easy answers. They train us (and sustain us) in our struggling and grappling with evil both within and without. 2
Now, you may have noticed as I have, that it is suffering both ours and the suffering of others that brings us to our knees in prayer. In these human experiences, we realize our great need for God. Hurt is not good, but it wakes us to our need for help. Praying is the first step into the presence of God where we learn that God has ways of dealing with what we bring to him. And I have always found (and I m sure you have too) that God s ways are different and always better than what you and I have in mind. Until we are in prayer about all this messiness, hurt and pain, we are not teachable. Now we may think that we need to be our best before God. Prayer, we think, means presenting ourselves before God so that God will be pleased with us. We want to put on our Sunday best so to speak in our prayers and so we often find it easy to be honest before God with our hallelujahs but find it difficult to be honest in our hurts. Yet when we pray the psalms we learn that the way of prayer is not to cover our less-than-lovely emotions but to expose them so that God can transform them or, yes, even use them. In this way the psalms of lament help us move from being victims to being survivors. Dietrich Bonhoeffer learned to pray the psalms and through them God sustained him in his years of imprisonment. In a wonderful little book on the Psalms, Bonhoeffer wrote that praying the psalms of lament bring us into complete fellowship with God because the answer to our prayers is Jesus Christ. He wrote: Not only is Jesus Christ the goal of our prayer; he himself also accompanies us in our prayer. He, who has suffered every want and has brought it before God, has prayed for our sake in God s name... For our sake he cried on the cross: My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me? Now we know that there is no longer any suffering on earth in which Christ will not be with us, suffering with us and praying with us Christ the only helper. (p. 49, Little Prayer Book of the Bible) The Psalms of lament free us to make a bold expression of grief before God and in the presence of others and they allow us to rely on God and the community to carry forth hope on our behalf when we ourselves have no hope in us. In our world there are endless events that cause us to grieve. Loss of a job, a broken marriage, the end of a lifelong friendship, the death of someone we love, or an act of injustice and violence against us or others at the hands of another can generate the need to express our frustration, anger, and despair. 3
Psalms of lament are a form of prayer that cries out to God to deliver us from evil. The interesting thing about the psalms of lament is that in all but two, they have a kind of happy ending because the laments nearly always give way to profound statements of faith and trust in God s steadfast love. Psalm 88 and Psalm 137 are the two psalms that do not have those happy endings. Psalm 137 is especially notorious because it ends with a rather violent cry of revenge. But the 88th Psalm ends with haunting words of deep despair. There s no resolution, no attempt to comfort. The Psalmist just puts all the pain out there and allows it to stand, unvarnished. Martin Marty in his book A Cry of Absence, writes about the beautiful routine that he and his first wife had when she was terminally ill: I d get up with her at midnight when she took her medication and we would read the Psalms. I would read the even Psalms and she would read the odd Psalms. [Then, one evening,] I skipped 88 and she caught me. She said, Who do you think you are to skip that? If you don t pray the rough ones, the other ones don t mean anything. If you don t pray the rough ones, the other ones don t mean anything. Marty had tried to skip 88 because he thought it would be agonizing for his wife, who knew she was dying, to hear the Psalmist s cold description of God not being present with anyone in the grave (found in verses 10-12 look them up!) However, she called him out on it, and ultimately taught him that there is beauty (and faith!) in the stark realism and despair of this difficult piece of scripture. Why do I say that there is faith in such prayers? Well... Luther would say that whatever and whomever you turn to in your time of deepest need that is your God. Who is the psalmist directing all their agony and despair to but to God? Over the years, Psalm 88 has unexpectedly become one of my favorite Psalms. It s the one I turn to when I feel despair about situations I cannot change, the one I fall back on when it feels like God is impossibly far away. There is comfort in not only speaking my most heinous fears out loud but also in not hastening to cover them up with quick platitudes about how we know God will come to our rescue and deliver us from illness, pain, and death. So we can pray Psalm 88 and Psalm 137. God can handle it. God has big shoulders. We can voice our pain. If you don t pray the rough ones, the other ones don t mean anything. 4
In our gospel lesson for today, a group of seekers are wandering around looking for Jesus. It s interesting because these same seekers were among the five thousand who ate their fill of the bread (and the fish) and, it would seem, they are completely unaware that they had experienced a sign a miracle at that meal. They come seeking more. Jesus knows what they are truly hungry and thirsty for, though they cannot name it for themselves. In their conversation with Jesus they are like their ancestors wandering in the wilderness, not fully taking in the miracle of their rescue from slavery, wondering whether God will give them a sign about where they are to go, what they are to do, wondering whether God will indeed be their God and sustain them in their times of need. In coming to Jesus with their questions, in the broadest interpretation, they are praying because they are speaking with Immanuel God with us. Jesus tells them that he, himself, is what they are hungry and thirsty for; He is the miracle, the sign, the work of God they need. And like all hungry children everywhere they ask Give us this bread always. Children cry when they hurt and when they are in need. Now I know that children also kvetch and complain but that, too, is a desire to know that someone cares about them and is paying attention. I carry with me a terrible memory of seeing a parent hit their child as a form of punishment and then telling the child not to cry. Can you imagine not allowing a child to cry to when they have been hurt? God does not forbid our tears nor our crying out. So, beloved children of God, cry out to God, cry out loud to our God! 5