Complaining Psalms

Psalm 22  A David psalm

¹God, God … my God!

Why did you dump me

miles from nowhere?

²Doubled up with pain, I call to God

all the day long. No answer. Nothing.

I keep at it all night, tossing and turning.

³And you! Are you indifferent, above it all,

leaning back on the cushions of Israel’s praise?

⁴We know you were there for our parents:

⁵they cried for your help and you gave it;

they trusted and lived a good life.

⁶And here I am, a nothing—an earthworm,

something to step on, to squash.

⁷Everyone pokes fun at me;

they make faces at me, they shake their heads:

⁸“Let’s see how God handles this one;

since God likes him so much, let him help him!”

⁹And to think you were midwife at my birth,

setting me at my mother’s breasts!

¹⁰When I left the womb you cradled me;

since the moment of birth you’ve been my God.

¹¹Then you moved far away

and trouble moved in next-door.

I need a neighbor.

This is the morning Psalm for today from the daily lectionary (Walter Peterson’s translation). It is actually longer than I have put here, but it goes on in the same tone. It is a real cheery one isn’t it? Nope!

Most folk don’t realize that the majority of the Psalms are complaints. We tend to use the more happy ones in church services. Walter Brueggemann categorizes psalms in three categories: psalm of orientation, psalms of disorientation, and psalms of reorientation. The orientation ones are naïve, childlike faith psalms that give praise to God for God’s goodness and gifts. The Psalms of disorientation are like when we grow up and see the world as just not so wonderful after all and we complain about things. Psalms of reorientation are more mature, looking at life from a longer and wiser perception and realizing God is there for us in bad times with love as well as in good times.

During all the political rigmarole that is going on the psalms of disorientation, the complaining psalms are easy to identify with. We look at the world which seems to becoming unhinged at home and abroad, talk about the post-American world; candidates use negative and just plain hatefulness to win elections, the decline of the good life for the common person and the greed of the wealthy, etc. leads us to writing psalms of lament and complaint ourselves.

Some of you know I’ve written three books on the Psalms based upon the common lectionary Sunday selections in which I tried to rewrite the feelings of those psalms in modern settings. Reading a daily newspaper can do the same in relation to the complaint psalms. But there always comes the psalms of reorientation and an ultimate optimism not based upon human ability but upon God’s love and compassion. Even in the psalms of complaint, the reality of God is always clearly apparent, it’s just we don’t understand what God is up to and why we seem to be left out in the cold.

During these depressing times when it seems the worst of human nature comes to the fore, we need to remember God is still with us, God suffers when we suffer, and is there to give us hope in the midst of what seems hopeless. Some call that wishful thinking, I call it reality. And that reality of God sustaining presence we need to hold on to as hard as we can. It helps keep us sane; that along with a good day on the golf course.

After my previous two offerings for today I felt it necessary to put in this piece. Read a psalm or two today; and call God in the morning, or evening or anytime at all.

Shalom