Series: Praying the Psalms, #8 Text: Psalm 137 Valley Community Baptist Church Aug. 21, 22; 2010 Avon, CT Pastor Jay Abramson Praying Our Hate Does America have an anger problem? 27-year-old Justin Boudin pleaded guilty to fifth-degree assault charges for violently losing his temper. He was on his way to anger management class (I m not kidding!) when he started to harass a 59-year-old woman who Justin said was disrespecting him. When the woman took out her cell phone to call police, Boudin punched her in the face. When a 63-year-old man tried to stop him, Boudin hit him with a blue folder that contained his anger management homework. Police tracked down Justin by using the papers in the blue folder. 1 We come today to a different kind of psalm and a different kind of prayer. Eugene Peterson introduces it in this way: We want to be at our best before God. Prayer, we think, means presenting ourselves before God so that he will be pleased with us. We put on our Sunday best in our prayers. But when we pray the prayers of God s people, the Psalms, we find that will not do. We must pray who we actually are, not who we think we should be. Here is a prayer that brings out not the best but the worst in us: vile, venomous, vicious hate. Can God handle our hate? 2 I believe that He can. I also believe that God would rather have us honestly pray our negative emotions than to come to Him and pretend that we don t have any negative emotions. So, how do we do that? Are there limits to honesty? Is this kind of praying supposed to take us somewhere? Those are the questions we must ask and answer this evening/morning. First I. What Gives Birth to Hate? Perhaps an even prior question is this, Is hatred wrong? Well, what is hate? The Hebrew and Greek words for hate agree with the English definition which is, to dislike intensely or passionately; to feel extreme aversion for or hostility toward. So, is it wrong to ever feel this way? The biblical answer to that question is categorically, No. First of all, when it comes to our emotions, we don t always have control over them. We are directed by God to assert control over how we act in response to those feelings, but oftentimes, emotions come over us and we don t always know exactly why. I believe that is why Ps. 4:4 instructs us: In your anger, do not sin And Eph. 4:26b, 27 says: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold. God even feels hatred. Listen to these quotes about God and from God:...you hate all who do wrong. Ps. 5:5 You love righteousness and hate wickedness Ps. 45:7 Do not do this detestable thing that I hate! Jer. 44:4 I hate divorce, says the LORD God Mal. 2:16 do not plot evil against your neighbor, and do not love to swear falsely. I hate all this, declares the LORD. Zech. 8:17 1
For I, the LORD, love justice; I hate robbery and iniquity. Is. 61:8 So, disliking something intensely or feeling extreme hostility toward something or even someone, is not necessarily wrong. But what gives birth to this emotion? What causes it? Well, this is where we need to be a bit more careful. With God, every emotion He feels and expresses has a holy cause because God is completely and eternally holy. God s diagnosis of each situation is perfect so it isn t possible for God to have an UNHOLY emotion. Not so with us. We could have a righteous hatred or an unrighteous hatred depending on how accurately we diagnose any particular situation. David got it right when he said: I hate those who cling to worthless idols. Ps. 31:6 But David got it very wrong when he despised the Word of God by disobeying God s law in the situation with Bathsheba and Uriah her husband. Remember, that is what God said was his primary sin: Why did you despise the Word of the LORD (II Sam. 12:9) So, hating something or someone is not always wrong, but as humans we need to realize that it MIGHT be wrong. Then how do we know when it is right and when it is wrong? We know by whether or not our strong emotion is justified by Scripture. Do you hate divorce? Good, so does God. Do you hate robbery and people who swear falsely? Good, so does God. Disliking evil intensely and feeling a strong aversion toward wickedness is literally righteous indignation. So, what about the strong, negative emotion expressed in Ps. 137? Is it right or wrong? Well, let s consider the circumstances. The writer is speaking about a very specific historical situation, one we all should know about because we just studied it in the book of Ezekiel. The people were taken captive to Babylon and they re not happy about it. How can we sing the songs of the LORD while in a foreign land? O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us. (Ps. 137:4, 8) Have you ever been where you didn t want to be? Then maybe you have some idea how they felt. So, were the Israelites justified in their hatred of the Babylonians? Well, why WERE they in Babylon? Did Babylon just come down and overrun Jerusalem? No, that s not what happened at all. Think back to Ezekiel. What did God say to the people of Jerusalem through the prophet Ezekiel? I will judge you according to your conduct and repay you for all your detestable practices. (Ezek. 7:8) We can understand how the exiles might have felt anger and even hatred but they had no right to ask God to judge the Babylonians as they did in verse 9 because the circumstances that gave rise to their feelings were brought about by God s good and perfect will. Their hatred was completely unjustified. So, then II. Must We Cleanse Our Emotions Before We Pray? This is a very important question. If the writer of this psalm was wrong in asking God to bless anyone who dashed the Babylonian infants against the rocks, then isn t that the same as saying we can t be totally honest with God because that s probably what 2
the psalm writer was honestly feeling? No, it s not the same as saying that it s wrong to be honest with God. There s a big difference between describing to God what I m feeling and asking God to act in harmony with my feelings. It s one thing for you to pray, Oh God, I m so mad at that person I could just slap them across the face. It s another thing to pray, God, slap them across the face. The first prayer is an honest description of how you feel. The second prayer is asking God to act toward the other person according to how you feel. What if your feeling is wrong? And even if your feeling is justified, who are you to tell God how to bring justice about? Two psalms of David, Psalm 57 and 142, show how to pray our feelings in the right way. David didn t always do it right, but in these two psalms, he did. The circumstance of both psalms is that King Saul is trying to kill him and David is hiding in a cave. In these prayers, David describes his feelings as accurately as he can: Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me, For in you my soul takes refuge I am in the midst of lions; I lie among ravenous beasts- men whose teeth are spears and arrows, Whose tongues are sharp swords. (Ps. 57:1, 4) These are David s honest feelings. He s just telling God what it feels like in his situation. Author Larry Crabb calls this, praying your red dot. What he s referring to is when you walk into a mall and the first thing you see is a map. Somewhere on that map is a red dot and it says beneath it, You are here. Larry says that should be our first action in prayer, to discover our red dot with God. Where are we as we come to Him? What does life feel like? What kind of a person is coming to God right now a contented person or an angry person, an excited person or a bored person, a confident person or a frightened person? That s what David was doing in Ps. 57. Where s your red dot right now? Why is this important? Here s why, because petitionary prayer is supposed to come AFTER relational prayer. Larry makes such a powerful point here. He writes: When my grandkids sit on Santa s lap in the mall, they have yet to ask Santa how he s doing, if maybe he s getting a little tired They hop on his lap, recite their list of desired gifts, and hop off. We Christians call it prayer. Petitionary prayers that are offered with no real thought of getting to know God eventually become the rantings of a spoiled brat. Legitimate desires become expectations that slide into the entitlements of perceived necessity. Or, as one friend puts it more simply, dreams become demands We ask God to heal a sick child, improve our marriage, make us more loving spouses So many of our requests are good and legitimate. Some are truly othercentered. But we re still asking for things without really knowing who it is we re talking to, so we can t really hear His voice Even when He grants a few requests, we feel no deep desire to know Him, no more than a child wants to know Santa Claus. Just stay on good terms with Him so the goodies keep coming The chief purpose of prayer is not to get things from God The chief purpose of prayer is to get to know God It s not all about us. And it s not only about God. Because of who He is, prayer is all about God and us. It s about our relationship. That s how God wants it. 3 3
Why is this prayer of Psalm 137, complete with its unrighteous request of God to kill the enemies babies, even in Scripture? I think it is here because God would rather have honesty from us than hypocrisy. When in doubt, tell God how you honestly feel. If you cross the line between honesty and vengeance (or any other sinful thought) believe me, He will not be shy about correcting you. What He doesn t want is for us to try to launder our emotions before we come to Him. He wants us to show Him the stains so that He can show us what to do with them. Finally III. Where Should This Prayer Take Us? In your lifetime, who have you hated? That s not a loaded question. Remember what the definition of hatred is, to dislike intensely or to feel extreme aversion for or hostility toward someone or something. Let s not play the Christian game of saying, Well, yes, I disliked someone once but I didn t HATE them. No, if they did something to you and you felt intense dislike for more than a week, then you hated them. As we ve pointed out from Scripture, hating is not necessarily a sin. God hates certain things and He certainly hates Satan, so you may be in good company. But now, our question is, if we will honestly pray our hatred, where should this take us? We can t really find the answer to that question in Psalm 137. We have to keep reading into the next couple of psalms. In Psalm 138, David (who knew and expressed negative emotions to God often in prayer) prays: Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve my life; You stretch out your hand against the anger of my foes, With your right hand you save me. (Ps. 138:7) David has experienced the fact that God will strike the anger of his foes. He strikes the anger, the hatred itself. If God will strike and destroy the anger of your foes, isn t He also capable of striking the anger, the hatred in you? Miroslav Volf is a Croatian Christian and theologian. The part of Europe that he grew up in, known as the Balkans, has seen war and ethnic strife for over 100 years. Prof. Volf makes this keen observation: To triumph fully, evil needs two victories, not one. The first victory happens when an evil deed is perpetrated; the second victory, when evil is returned. After the first victory, evil would die if the second victory did not infuse it with new life. 4 Praying our hatred should take us to the place where we will see that two wrongs will never make a right but one very carefully placed right, such as forgiveness, may very well stop even the most powerful wrong dead in its tracks. Secondly, this prayer should take us to Jesus. If you are one who says, I really can t think of anytime where I ve actually hated anyone or anything. Then, my friend, you may know Jesus but you know Him from a distance because you haven t come to see in yourself what He has seen. Larry Crabb is both a Christian Counselor and Spiritual Director. He tells of meeting with a woman named Suzanne who told him about her unengaging father and her critical mother as if she were describing a dull movie. No emotion. Flat as a pancake. Larry said, I can t imagine you wouldn t be angry. She replied, Oh no, I ve dealt with all that. 4
Larry said, That s certainly possible but I would think if you had, you d be telling me your story with real disappointment and with the warmth of having forgiven them. I suspect you re still really mad at them. Suzanne said, I don t think so, but I ll reflect on what you said. The next time they met, Suzanne reported, For the first time in my life, I stomped around my bedroom yelling and screaming. I can t believe how much anger I had toward my father. My husband was there, listening to the whole thing. And he held me when I let him; he didn t try to stop me from yelling. He was just there. And this morning I m more aware of God s love for me than I ve ever been. I let Him see me at my worst, and I knew He still loved me. It s wonderful. 5 In Psalm 139, David gives us a very clear result if we will pray our hate or any other negative emotion. Praying them doesn t launder them, it exposes them so that God can show us how to deal with them. David prays: Search me, O God, and know my heart; Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting. (Ps. 139:23, 24) God wants an authentic relationship with the real you. Authentic relationships cannot form if only one person is fully transparent. God has been incredibly transparent with you. I know it feels risky because some of you have been so burned by opening up to other people. But God is not people. What did we learn last week? He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. From everlasting to everlasting the LORD s love is with those who fear him (Ps. 103:10, 14, 17) Pray the real you, just as you are. God will take your relationship to a whole new level. Let s pray 1 Associated Press, Man Hits Woman On Way to Anger Control Class, www.msnbc.com 2 Eugene Peterson, Psalms: Prayers of the Heart (Downers Grove: InterVarsityPress, 1987), p. 34 3 Larry Crabb, The PAPA Prayer (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2006), p. 41, 42 4 Miroslav Volf, The End of Memory (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), p. 9 5 Larry Crabb, The PAPA Prayer (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2006), p. 97, 98 5