The book of Psalms wasn’t ancient
Israel’s prayer book for nothing. Taken
together, its songs seem to address any possible topic, any possible petition, from a bunch whose
relationship with the divine was famously fraught with ups and downs and
sideways and inside-outs, usually all at the same time. As a collection the Psalms represent all of
that, and more. From the exuberant joy
of Psalm 150, which seems like a child fixated on one thing—praising God—to the
quiet assurance of Psalm 23, with its still waters and cup overflowing, to the abject
misery of Psalm 88, called by Walter Brueggemann “the most dismal of
laments.” It's all there, all the pain and
heartache, all the tumult and exaltation of the human condition, laid bare in a
scant 150 Hebrew poems.
They are also a record of how Israel—an
archetypal people of God—dealt with their god, whose name was Yahweh, which
they were forbidden to say aloud, and from whom they were always straying, and
to whom they were always returning. Israel was always being lured away by the ways of the world, and it always coming
crawling back, when the inescapable consequences of its behavior caught up with
it . . . inescapably. And it's all there
in the Psalms.
Notice I used the term “Israel” as an
entity, a personification; because many of the Psalms are communal in
nature, written about (and often by)
the personified nation, the personified community. Others were written about individuals or from
an individual’s point of view. I think
one of the key aspects of the psalms is that even ones clearly written from a
community’s point of view can easily be read as about an individual, and vice
verse. This has helped make them universally
applicable, both in the lives of nations and those of individual human beings,
who often keep the words of the Psalms buried deep in their hearts.
Our Psalm 22 is written from a very personal perspective; it begins with the famous line that Mark and Matthew
tell us Jesus prayed on the cross . . . More on that in a bit . . . It is intensely
personal, asking why, my God, why? And
it is remarkable because in the ancient world, calling someone or something
“mine” implies a long-time, personal relationship my God, my God, it is an
intimate address, an intimate greeting, and he is calling out in anguish,
asking why his God has forsaken him. He
asks it from a position of belief, not disbelief, a position of faith . . . He
has long experience with this God, whom he calls by the Hebrew name El, after the ancient Canaanite mountain
deity. And this paragon of Judaism, this
pious Hebrew Saint, still cannot feel
the presence of his god . . . Why have you forsaken
me, why are you so far away from me?
I cry, O my God, I cry constantly, I am down on my knees, protracted
before you by day, and you do not answer, and by night, but still I find no rest.
He perfectly captures the loneliness of
the one who is beset by sickness, weighed down by pain . . . even the night is
not his friend, for he cannot acquire the sleep he craves. And then he remembers, he remembers the gracious
might of his god, but it is not his own experience he draws upon, but it is the
communal remembrance of Israel. El is enthroned on Israel’s praise, nestled
in the wisdom of the author’s ancestors . . . He doesn't have to have experience of God’s saving grace, he can call on the
recollections of his faith-community. In
God his ancestors trusted, they trusted
and God delivered. They cried to their
God—exactly as the author has done—and God came through. In El they trusted, and they were not disappointed.
But look how the author puts it: they trusted and were not put to
shame . . . And again the author
nails it: he captures how the disabled, the chronically ill, are shamed by their illness, as if any faith
they have is fruitless . . . He feels useless, less than human, like a worm, as a matter of fact, scorned by
others, despised by the people, the very people of Israel, upon whose communal remembrances
he depends . . . And this seems a paradox,
until you think about it a little . . . remembrances of God's might become entangled
in a theology of worthiness that goes like this: God rewards the righteous, the
believer, and punishes the wicked, and today it is seen little changed in the
big-haired, small-hearted purveyors of the prosperity gospel, where if you give
just a small amount, just a pittance, really, God will
reward you, ten-fold—at least!—in happiness, wealth and health,
and our author is caught up in an ancient mid-eastern prosperity doctrine, made
all he worse by their belief that God is the author, the source of everything good and
bad, and what other reason would God visit ill on some folks and good on
others? What other reason than that some
people deserve good and some have
been naughty little girls and boys?
After all, the Lord knows if
you’ve been bad or good, so be good or you'll end up like the author, who cries
and cries and tosses all night long. And
the people deride him, they caustically urge him to go ahead, cast your lot with the Lord, let him come to your rescue!
But the author appeals, undaunted, to
his God, to El of the mountains, and
he gives God some motivation, just in case he has forgotten: it was you, he
cries, who took me from the womb, who caused me to be born, safe and sound, and
ever since, you have been my god . . . And here is that long-standing faith,
the faith that allows him to call him his
God, and he is claiming something here, he is claiming his lineage, his
birthright as a member of the people of God.
And now he makes his first request, and
although he asks for more later in the poem, this one is breathtaking in its
simplicity: here he is, praying to the mighty God of the mountains, the
ancestral God of Moses and Abraham, who brought the Israelites up out of the land of the Pharaoh and across the Jordan River in their
distress, and what he asks for is this: that God be near him in his distress, that God accompany him on his journey of pain and heartache, even though it is clear that he cannot feel God. He asks God to be near him, because trouble is near and there is no one to help. And it is a note of hope, of claiming as his what God has to offer
When I was in Seminary, learned about pastoral care, we learned that it is called a ministry of presence, and that just that, just accompanying our sisters and brothers on their journey, in sickness and in health, in poverty and abundance, that this is a powerful thing indeed, and here we see the author of this psalm—traditionally associated with King David—requesting just that from his almighty God.
It should come as no surprise that Jesus prayed a psalm on the cross . . . He was a faithful Jew, and the Psalms are the prayer book of faithful Jews even today. And it’s no surprise that he should pray this psalm . . . Like its author, his bones were torn out of joint, spiked to an olive shaft . . . like the author, he was reviled and ridiculed, spit upon by his fellow Jews. And the thing of it is, as our model and head, his actions become normative for the rest of us. Through his praying of this in his most extreme hour, it becomes our prayer, every bit as much as the Lord’s Prayer we recite every week. Through his example, we are empowered to cry out in incredulous pain to our God, in anguished distress, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
This is no meek, button-downed Presbyterian prayer, it's not your grandmother’s prayer, it is raw and real, filled with disbelieving agony. Why, after years of faithful service, years of being your people just as you are our God, why have you abandoned us, why have you left us to the bulls of Bashan, that surround us, opening their ravening mouths to devour us? Why do we cry out to you night after sleepless night, our sweat staining the bedclothes, and you do not respond? Through Jesus, we are heirs according to the promise, empowered to pray boldly, and with chutzpah, laying our pain at the feet of Christ, at the foot of the cross, where he absorbed it with his own body, and where—beyond time and space—he absorbs it even today. Amen.
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