"How long, O Lord?" How long? Ever ask that question?
Most of us have. They say, "Into each life a little rain must
fall," but the truth is that there are times when the rain
becomes such a downpour that we are about to drown in the deluge.
"How long, O Lord." Familiar words from the beginning of
the 13th Psalm, one of those marvelous bits of biblical insight
we have come to call the "Psalms of Lament."(1) For what it's
worth, almost half of the Psalms fall into this category.
For that matter, laments are found, not only in the Book of
Psalms, but are part and parcel of the biblical witness -
humanity cries out, God responds. As you know, there is even one
Old Testament book called Lamentations. The ancient writers
regularly expressed their deepest feelings - words of praise at
times; at others, there were heartfelt questions: "Why, God,
Why?"
If you look at them carefully, you will see a pattern:
- They begin by naming God in INTIMATE ADDRESS "My God, My
God, why have you forsaken me...") - The situation is not
being shared with a stranger; you do not vent to someone you
do not know.
- There is a COMPLAINT. It tells God with some specificity
what the matter is. It might even engage in hyberbole much
as a child would in attempting to get a parent's sympathetic
attention ("Oh God, this is the WORST...").
- Next comes the PETITION. What do you want God to do? And
often, it is phrased with an imperative, a demand. "Turn,
Heed, Deliver, Save." God's power is not in doubt, only
perhaps God's attention to this particular problem.
- A word of MOTIVATION. Why should God bother? There might
be appeals to virtue, precedent, honor or even divine vanity
("Oh God, fix this, so everyone will see how neat you
are!").
- In some laments, there is IMPRECATION (which is just a $3.00
word indicating hate or a desire for revenge) - "God, GET
those SOB's!"(2)
- Finally, when the hurt or anger is fully vented, something
unexpected happens. The speaker is, at the end, ASSURED OF
BEING HEARD and "dealt with bountifully."
- That then is followed by a word of PRAISE.(3)
With that in mind, listen again to Psalm 13. "How long, O
Lord, how long?" The tortured question of the cancer sufferer
after the most recent bouts of chemotherapy that seemed to work,
but suddenly the blood counts are saying that the cancer is back.
"Will you forget me forever?" asks the father who has done and
done and done for his drug-addicted son after bailing him out of
jail for the umpteenth time. "How long will you hide your face
from me?" cries the mother of the severely retarded child who has
done everything she could to provide compassionate care but now
hears that her husband wants a divorce - he is tired of being
neglected.
Verse 2: "How long must I wrestle with my thoughts," asks
the young man who was victimized by a pedophile 20 years ago and
even now is unable to trust anyone to love him. "And every day
have sorrow in my heart?" asks the mother in Harlem who has lost
two sons in the never-ending drug wars. "How long will my enemy
triumph over me?" asks the young Palestinian who is the third
generation to be forced to live in a refugee camp despite this
being the land of his ancestors for a hundred generations.
Verse 3: "Look on me and answer, O Lord my God!" says the
union negotiator who is looking for a fair bargain but only sees
a management that does not care for anything but its own inflated
paycheck. "Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,"
says the management negotiator who only sees a union so intent on
its own agenda that it is willing to risk the collapse of the
company in its intransigence. "Lord, this is KILLING me!"
Verse 4: "My enemy will say, 'I have overcome him,' and my
foes will rejoice when I fall." The anguished cry of the Israeli
mother mourning her children lost in the blast of a Tel Aviv
suicide bomber. The sounds of lament come from everywhere.
Now we come to verses 5 and 6 and suddenly, a change. We
hear, "But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in
your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, for he has been good to
me."
Here is that shift we spoke of earlier. Read it this way:
"My enemy will say, 'I have overcome him' and my foes will
rejoice when I fall." SIGH! "But I trust in your unfailing
love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing to the
Lord, for he has been good to me." In between verses 4 and 5,
something changes. It is the arrival of hope that is born of
memory. Yes, things are AWFUL, but I can remember a time when
they were NOT awful, when God's care for me was much more
evident, and I am convinced that such a day will come again.
It seems to me that the church, when it is at it's best,
lives it's life between verses 4 and 5. We hear that deep SIGH
when words cannot come. We hear the laments from both within and
without as people feel free and safe to speak to their anguish.
All by itself, that listening ear helps the healing process
because, as psychotherapy has taught us, there is catharsis in
voicing the pain. Between verses 4 and 5 tears are shed, because
when the church is at its best, we rejoice with those who
rejoice, but we also weep with those who weep.(4) Between verses 4
and 5 we remember the despair of Good Friday that was answered by
the delight of Easter. Between verses 4 and 5, we hear again
Tony Campolo's wonderful phrase, "It's Friday, but Sunday's
comin'." Between verses 4 and 5 is where the church finds its
most meaningful life.
Sad to say, we stiff-upper-lip Presbyterians are awfully
good at promoting denial though - we would rather skip verses 1,
2, 3, and 4. "How are you?" "Fine." The expected response even
when our heart's cry is "How long, O Lord," and life is going to
hell in a handbasket. Not good.
The other night I heard a colleague talk of former
parishioners, a husband and wife, both college professors, very
active in the church, who suddenly stopped coming. Some time
passed and one day, while shopping at the mall, she ran into this
couple. "I have missed seeing you at church," she said. They
explained that their teenage son had gotten into some terrible
trouble with drugs and alcohol and he was taking a great deal of
their time and energy. But then they added that lately, instead
of the Presbyterian church, they had been worshiping with a
Pentecostal congregation because they felt they could be honest
there and cry there and no one would mind. In fact, the others
would cry with them. THAT was a church that knew how to be a
church. They lived between verses 4 and 5.
And now we come to the Lord's Supper. The poet, who is one
whose life HAS tumbled in, and wonders whether or not it is safe
to give voice to the pain here, asks:
Is there no place at the table
for damaged hearts and scarred souls?
Do you not invite everyone who believes?
I believe.
Oh God, I believe.(5)
The poet happens to be Ann Weems, a Presbyterian, the wife
of a Presbyterian minister even. Her son Todd had been brutally
murdered just after his 21st birthday. How does a mother deal
with such a devastating blow? Friends tried to help and offer
consolation. One was a seminary professor who called to her
attention all the biblical material - the laments - that seemed
to be saying so much of exactly what she was feeling. Noting her
prodigious talent, he encouraged her to put her feelings to
paper. The result is a remarkable compilation that not only
helped her healing process, it has helped thousands of others as
well. The book is called simply Psalms of Lament. My copy says,
"To David, Through Tears - With Hope. Ann Weems." Her poetic
preface, composed after her work was done, describes "life
between verses 4 and 5":
In the godforsaken, obscene quicksand of life,
there is a deafening alleluia
rising from the souls
of those who weep,
and of those who weep with those who weep.
If you watch, you will see
the hand of God
putting the stars back in their skies
one by one.(6)
A promise of healing and wholeness. "Through Tears - With
Hope." That is the church. That is Life between verses 4 and 5.
Amen.
1. Psalms 3, 4, 6, 7, 12, 13, 17, 22, 25, 26, 28, 35, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42-43, 44, 51, 54, 55, 56,
57, 59,60, 61, 63, 64, 69, 70, 71, 74, 77, 79, 80, 83, 85, 86, 88, 90, 94, 102, 109, 123, 126, 130,
134, 137, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144.
2. c.f. Psalm 109 or 137
3. From a workshop given by Old Testament scholar, Dr. Walter Brueggemann at
Montreat, NC during a conference entitled "Recovering the Language of Lament," 5/30/02
4. Romans 12:15
5. Ann Weems, Psalms of Lament, (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1995), p. 97
6. Ann Weems, p. xvii
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