The Book of
Psalms, in its unexpurgated version, is seriously important to the life of
contemplative prayer. We don’t exist on
nothing, we exist on the Word of God, lovingly, openly approached, interpreted
with intelligence and with imagination. If
we made better use of the Psalms, they would come to live in detail in our
memory and awareness, their rhythms and cadences, their ferocity and their odd
bits, their honesty, their beauty and their strength. The Psalms have been the ancient hymnbook of
Judaism through all its pain. Jesus
quoted the Psalms even in the deepest suffering at Calvary. And the best teachers I know tell us that the
Psalms matter deeply to a gown-up life in Christ.
One such
teacher, Walter Brueggemann, is a consummate Hebrew scholar. He says there are really three types of
Psalms. There are what he calls Psalms
of Orientation, in which the faith and confidence we rely on are stated and
celebrated. Then there are Psalms of
Disorientation, in which life is different -- we hear even brutally of
suffering and loss, including loss of faith.
Those Psalms speak for a lot of people.
And thirdly we have the Psalms of New Orientation -- faith is not only
restored but is different, changed and renewed, deepened and widened. It is the genius of Jewish faith that it can
hold all three aspects of our life in powerful tension, but together.
The Christian
Church has not always done so well.
Typically we have avoided the Psalms of Negativity, Disorientation, the
complaints, the cries for vengeance… all of which are there to be sung because
they are what we encounter in our hearts when darkness takes over. Brueggemann writes: Much
Christian piety and spirituality is romantic and unreal in its positiveness… We
have censored and selected around the voice of darkness and disorientation,
seeking to go from strength to strength, from victory to victory… It is a lie
in terms of our experience.
One dear
lady, long ago, in some ways the most faithful and dutiful of all our
parishioners, nevertheless attended something called Women Ablaze, during the
week, because there she got solidly reassured, equipped and fortified for more
of my sermons. Perhaps, now I think
about it, that may partly parallel the genius of the Book of Psalms. Brueggemann points out how the Psalms are
profoundly subversive of our culture.
They refuse to deny the darkness and the situations in which we are
helpless – but they insist that even in the abyss there is One to address, who promises to be there with us. Brueggemann quotes the Jewish writer of the
Holocaust, Elie Wiesel, who wrote of the Psalms, Poets (the Psalms of course are poetry)… poets exist so that the dead may vote.
Think about it. The Psalms
matter because they give the suffering a voice, often about unfairness and
injustice, they give us a prayer, when we have no words of our own any
more.
Lord, make haste and answer;
for my spirit fails within me.
Do not hide your face
lest I become like those in the grave.
Make me know the way I should walk;
to you I lift up my soul… [Ps
143]
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