OT Reading: Psalm 4
NT Reading: Matthew 5:43-48
How do we seek redress of
injustice in society? Is there a better way to find justice in the world
than engaging in the political process that is characterized
by harassment, name calling and denigrating your opponent? Surely
that step leads to self-corruption. The evidence of self-corruption is
clear in Facebook posts by members of Christian social justice groups whose
comments incite violence against others (right here in Chattanooga). While
we should always be at theological war against injustice, can we remake a world
that is fundamentally opposed to justice? We should never forget that it is not
a war fought with guns and invective that paints our enemies as monsters.
Perhaps we can find a better way by praying the Psalms with the intensity of
faith, learning something about disruption and equilibrium in life, and about
being a good soldier in that theological war fought with the weapon of
compassion.
Most people
strive for a “normal” life that has equilibrium, no raw edges, no unpleasant
surprises – smooth sailing with no
heaving boat in rough water, just
let Jesus sleep.
Is that
what we really want, a dull and humdrum existence devoid of imagination? Some
work really hard to achieve “equilibrium” in worship with basketball courts and
Christian Life Centers and the business of a conventional, or even
unconventional congregation running smoothly with no Jesus on board.
They think
if you must get angry, don’t get too angry. If you must get excited, don’t get
too excited and upset the applecart. Do not ask questions because no one likes
a complainer. Our “equilibrium” worship demands pious obeisance to our polity
and dogma. Worshippers never get angry with God or anyone else (that believe
the same thing). There is no place in a congregation running so smoothly
it has transformed God almost into a comforting afterthought for a person
such as Job who prays in the midst of unjustified torment.
That
humdrum world is where one finds Karl Marx’s “opiate of the people,” where
folks have forgotten the radical Christianity Jesus calls us to live.
We fool
ourselves, and we know it, when we want that feeling of secure orientation and
control of life. Every one of us can point to painful events where our calm,
normal, easy-going life has been disrupted as foolishness.
It could be
an event such as the loss of a job, the betrayal or loss of a spouse to
divorce, the death of a parent or child, the failure to get that so longed-for
promotion, a medical diagnosis that requires specific medications with its side
effects, or worse. It could be the frustration and injustice of a political
process that seems to trample the disadvantaged and poor, or even a misguided
preacher who told you that you were going to hell for your activity.
These
events cause us to realize how precarious and unstable life is, and if we are
honest, to look faithfully to God asking, “Why have you allowed this?” and
wondering, “How long?” If we understand the Psalms, especially those of lament,
we can find some idea of the answer to those two questions.
Perhaps we
need to have a serious understanding of the Psalms to begin to understand our
quandary of a shrinking denomination? My comments are inspired by the writing
of a good book, "Praying the Psalms" by Walter Bruggemann.
I commend it to you.
We must
acknowledge the Psalms are a uniquely Jewish voice. They are a conversation,
and at times a dangerous conversation between the Holy One and us. It is a conversation
most Christians find difficult and alien, and therefore avoid as irreverent or
unseemly. We especially avoid the angry and vengeful Psalms such as Ps.
109 and 137. (If we use those Psalms at all, it is
usually as weapons. How many of you have heard a preacher toss the words
of Psalm 109 at you for stumbling over a denominational creed? )
Yes, the
Psalms are quite different from the conversation of a well-oiled, ordinary
culture and normality of an orderly worship. The Psalms are dangerous because
to direct a rebellious voice towards El Shaddai - God the Destroyer, or God
Almighty invites an answer we may not desire. Such a complaint invites the
ultimate disruption and dislocation of our own life.
Yet John
Calvin said the Psalms are the anatomy of the soul, a window into something
that lurks within us all. To ignore that window only contributes to deceiving
ourselves.
The Psalms
are a complaint, a lament about how sorry and unjust the world is, and how
badly it is treating us, God’s people. God owes us more than this! They are a
direct demand for a path to righteousness.
Can we
forget the lament of Jeremiah, (Jer. 12:4) "How
long will the land mourn, and the grass of every field wither? Words that the
Lord directed to the Pharaoh (Ex10:3),” How long will you refuse to
humble yourself before me? Let my people go, so that they may worship me.”
Or as the
table turns on us, can we ignore The Lord’s lament over his rebellious people,
(Num. 14:27) “How long shall this wicked congregation complain against me? I
have heard the complaints of the Israelites, which they complain against me.”
A point
missed by many of us is that the Psalms are not a solitary voice crying in the
wilderness, nor invective against some person or institution, but are a
communal voice of passion speaking directly to the Holy One, the Creator of the
world about the living and the dying in it. They are the hymns of God’s people
giving voice to their experience and hope. They are words spoken by those whose
faith in the Creator transforms or overrules the doubt our experience fuels.
The Psalms
really are really the voice of people of faith who understand even if
resentfully, that they do not live ordinary, humdrum lives, no matter how much
their thirst for equilibrium.
The Psalms
challenge Christian thinking. Many try to make them a claim or presage of Jesus
Christ. Isaac Watts, the famous hymn writer sought to
transform the Psalms to yield a Christian message, see for example the powerful
hymn whose setting to Walker's Southern Harmony with harmony by Dale
Grotenhuis is one of my favorites, My Shepherd Will Supply My Need (Ps. 23),
Our God, Our Help in Ages Past (Ps. 90), From All That Dwell Below the Skies
(Ps. 117).
The Psalms
resist such a transformation. We look for other ways to transform them. We want
to dismiss the Psalms whose content we dislike, such as 109 and
137. Rather,
we want to say that in this new world of Easter People, El Shaddai has eschewed
vengeance and embraced compassion, being transformed into a God of Love.
Are these
approaches to the Psalms true? Or, should we take the laments and angry
questions and pleadings directed to The Holy One as they are written?
Can a
Christian find confidence and guidance in the Psalms, even the ones that
complain about the (in)justice of the Lord? Are they relevant to us?
Yes, they
give good guidance to those who cry out for Christian justice in an unjust
world. Unfortunately, guidance such as Psalm
4:4 is not necessarily the guidance an activist desires to
hear.
These
Psalms speak not only to the folks in the pews wanting a little peace and
quiet. They speak to those who rage against the injustice and displacement in
the world.
I am embarrassed
to read my social activist friends firing comments such as “Ha ha…I'm in agreement, f*** the police,” or voicing a
tit-for-tat post that supports political websites that label a Tennessee
politician a murderer for his political views. Isn't that what some
anti-abortionists do to those advocates? I wonder how many minds are closed,
how much receptivity is lost by our opponents when Christians toss such
invectives at God's children?
This God of
Love may not be as different as we want. This compassionate Holy One has also
brought some expectations to us.
Psalms are
born of the People of Law. Even Jesus, a Jew who was the embodiment of love,
spoke in psalm-like anguish to the Holy One. Recall His dying words from the
cross, “My God why have you forsaken me!” (Matthew
27:40-50, Mark 15:29-37). This is a lament spoken
by the one who lived perfectly under the Law.
We know
Jesus said he did not come to abolish the law but to complete it
(Note the irony that we must live exceeding the greater righteousness of the
scribes and Pharisees). Jesus encircled the entire law in the the gospels who
quote Jesus as saying the greatest two commandments subsume the entire law.
We should
place these words next to the greatest two commandments. do you recall them?
Love the Lord with all your heart and soul and body; and the second is like it,
love your neighbor as you love your self. But who is my neighbor? Even your
enemy is your neighbor.
The next
time you get riled up in righteous anger at a politician or other government
representative (in a democracy we are all representatives of, and responsible
for the government) and feel the urge to toss an invective, remember anger is
permissible but sin is not. Let your anger stoke the fire until you
have hot coals of forgiveness to place on the head of the one who
angers you. Psalm 4:4-5 provides a loud voice of lament. It is lesson for us
all, certainly for me,
"When you are angry, do
not sin;
ponder it
on your beds, and be silent on your beds, and be silent. Selah
Offer right sacrifices,
and put
your trust in the LORD.
We should
place these words next to the greatest two commandments. do you recall them?
Love the Lord with all your heart and soul and body; and the second is like it,
love your neighbor as you love your self. But who is my neighbor? Even your
enemy is your neighbor.
We should place
these words next to the greatest two commandments. Do you recall them? Love the
Lord with all your heart and soul and body; and the second one is like it, love
your neighbor as you love your self. But who is my neighbor? Even your enemy is
your neighbor.
So get mad at the one promulgating an
injustice, but take your anger to The Holy One hoping you may find an effective
path to remedy the wrong of your neighbor without sinning yourself.
Selah.
Amen.
Amen.
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