While somehow I made it out of college without ever taking a course from the standard History Department, I took just about every church and Bible history class offered by the Religion Department. I could not get enough of those, and they have, to do this day, has a profound impact on my strategy for biblical interpretation. As we walked through last week, that includes looking at the historical setting of the narrative itself, then examining the context of the original hearers of the ancient writing, before finally looking for the connections between these histories and our story and experience today. But this morning’s scripture, the 5th of 7 in our series of Disputing with God, is one that challenges my usual way of approaching biblical texts for sermon preparation. For today’s psalm we don’t have a whole lot of that historical, contextual information.
The superscript for this psalm identifies its original source as the Korahites, a sort of choir guild among the priest’s assistants referenced in the second Book of Chronicles. In that reference the Korahites are particularly noted as loud singers. I think that characteristic fits this psalm we heard. While there may be a temptation to read it calmly, quietly, almost apologetically, particularly in a dignified setting such as Sunday morning worship, this display of lament feels more appropriate to me coming from a voice that is crying out, shouting, demanding an answer, a response of some kind from God.
“O Lord, God of my salvation,
at night, when I cry out before you,
let my prayer come before you;
incline your ear to my cry.”
This singer does not hold anything back – not in this song, and not from what we read, in any of their prayers offered at night, in the morning, through the day – all day, every day, for years and years and years. This psalmist cries out begging God to listen, to listen carefully, to give her and her cries attention, because she does not hold back any complaint, does not avoid the darkest, most painful and raw feelings, does not shy away from assigning responsibility for her plight to God. This is not a meek and mild prayer, but a loud bearing of the soul in hurt and anger born of affliction and loneliness that goes back years and years in the singer’s life.
For my soul is full of troubles,
and my life draws near to Sheol.
I am counted among those who go down to the Pit;
I am like those who have no help,
like those forsaken among the dead,
like the slain that lie in the grave,
like those whom you remember no more,
for they are cut off from your hand.
You have put me in the depths of the Pit,
in the regions dark and deep.
Your wrath lies heavy upon me,
and you overwhelm me with all your waves. Selah
Selah – a word that appears 71 times among the psalms, but a word for which we have no translation. It functions, we think, as a musical notation, an instruction to pause, maybe sing a refrain, maybe take a breath. Maybe we need that breath right now in the midst of hearing this pain, this description of the singer’s troubled soul.
Selah
Literally or metaphorically, he feels close to death. He feels the days of his life are numbered and even if he is to continue living and breathing here and now, he experiences himself walking toward that place of the dead, lying in the grave even with his eyes open. And he does not just find himself curiously there; he senses, he knows that it is God who has put him there. It’s not just that God has allowed this to happen, the singer insists; it’s that God and God’s wrath have covered him and put him in the pit, tossing him in waves of overwhelm.
Breathe, the music reminds us, let the air and the Spirit of God move in us and through us, when we are tempted to hold it in. Selah.
You have caused my companions to shun me;
you have made me a thing of horror to them.
I am shut in so that I cannot escape;
my eye grows dim through sorrow.
Every day I call on you, O Lord;
I spread out my hands to you.
Do you work wonders for the dead?
Do the shades rise up to praise you? Selah
Again, another sign of the psalmist’s persistence – every day I call on you. Not just sometimes. Not just when I can muster the energy. Not as a last result. But in the middle of everything – disgust from neighbors and friends, deep sadness, profound questioning – every single day they call on God, expecting, hoping, demanding a response. Even, they wonder, if you can’t pull a miracle for me when I am alive, will you at least work one when I am dead? Is that where I will find your mercy, and then will rise up to praise you?
While this psalm of lament has no statement of praise or trust in God’s faithfulness anywhere in it like most laments do, it is this doggedness of demand, this vulnerability of desperation, this searching for the presence and action of God that the singer is sure is possible, that exhibits their trust, their belief, their unabashed hope that the way things are isn’t the way things have to be, and God can do better, do more, to change the horrors of this current moment. Despite the shunning of their companions, despite the loneliness that defines their reality, they know, they trust that wonders can still be worked.
Is your steadfast love declared in the grave
or your faithfulness in Abaddon?
Are your wonders known in the darkness
or your saving help in the land of forgetfulness?
But I, O Lord, cry out to you;
in the morning my prayer comes before you.
O Lord, why do you cast me off?
Why do you hide your face from me?
Wretched and close to death from my youth up,
I suffer your terrors; I am desperate.
Your wrath has swept over me;
your dread assaults destroy me.
They surround me like a flood all day long;
from all sides they close in on me.
You have caused friend and neighbor to shun me;
my companions are in darkness.
There is no Selah in the text here, but let’s take one anyway. Selah.
We don’t know by what the psalmist was afflicted – physical ailment? Ostracization by the community? Shame? An injury? Mental illness? Any or all of the above or something else completely. We know they are separated from all friends, family, and community. We know he suffers and is desperate. We know she feels cut off from God’s mercy. But we also know that the singer has not abandoned the possibility that God could hear and God could stand up to this critique, this one-sided dispute, and God could change course to answer these prayers.
And because of all this, we know that even in our darkest hours, our pits of desperation, our loneliness and fear, that this is the biblical witness of prayer, that lament with no strings attached, no performative declarations of faithfulness or bargaining to be better people is an honest and welcome way to engage with God, that crying out with our deepest worries, our nagging fears, and our urgent insistence that God show up and be God is acceptable and even encouraged.
But friends, in spite of this attempt, I think this psalm is better experienced than explained. I think lament is better practiced than pondered.
So in our worship this morning we’re going to take time to offer prayers of lament together. Drawing on the psalm as a sung prayer we will weave together prayer spoken aloud, prayers spoken in quiet or silence, and prayers sung. The pattern of our prayer will be this:
I will open us with a spoken bidding prayer. The last line of each section of prayer will include the formula you see in your bulletin, “For those who know (a particular pain or lament), we pray:” and then the congregation responds with the sung refrain from hymn 795. You might want your hymnal open to that song before we begin. After each sung refrain, there will be a short time for the quiet prayers of your heart before I speak portion of the bidding prayer.
Confident that God who loves us, God who calls us, God who holds us in covenant, is God who will hear our lament, let us pray, bringing our pain and worry and even our anger to God.
The bidding prayer used in worship was adapted from this prayer published on the ReformedWorship.org website.