Lament Psalms – Psalm 69:1-16
Today’s Psalm is a lament Psalm. This one happens to be an individual lament. There are also
community lament Psalms – Psalms for those times when a whole community is deep in
sorrow. The evening of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, churches were filled with the shocked
and mournful American people.
No doubt, there were lots of lament Psalms read.
Lament Psalms are the songs and prayers of people in pain…people who are wondering where
God is and why God is so silent.
Like praise, they are songs that bubble up from deep within our souls and cry out to God. But
they come from our deepest pain instead of our deepest joy.
And often, instead of coming from a sense of being totally awestruck by the presence of God,
they arise out of the sense of God’s absence – the fear that God has abandoned us.
The lament Psalms speak to all those times we’ve wondered, if God is so great, why doesn’t
God fix this? When is God going to take away this pain? Why did God let this happen?
Lament Psalms come from a place of gritty honesty. The Psalms of lament give us permission
to be honest about how we feel in the midst of suffering.
Psalms of lament tell us it’s OK to acknowledge our pain – to not feel rushed to cheer up.
The other day I saw a post on Facebook that listed scripture verses to “cheer you up” when
you’re down. They were great passages, but they were all either praise Psalms, or passages
meant to reassure. Lament psalms refuse to give in to “cheeriness” too soon.
Even now, sometimes in the midst of great pain, we often choose to listen to sad songs.
Happy songs don’t cheer up as much as they grate against raw wounds.
When I was 15 and my first boyfriend dumped me, the song I listened to over and over was
not a cheer you up song – it was a wailing mournful rock ballad called Love Hurts by Nazareth.
I think there’s a reason there’s all those sad country western songs which speak to the pain of
broken relationships, big disappointments and regret. I’ve often called country-western music
the modern day Psalms.
Now, if you are someone who is more likely to be helped by happy songs and Psalms of praise,
then you should choose to go that direction when you’re feeling down.
But sometimes we just need to acknowledge the pain. That’s how lament Psalms work – they
resonate with those dark, mournful feelings that refuse to be cheered up too soon.
Another thing lament Psalms are honest about is God. Lament Psalms do not use clichés
about how God deals with suffering, as Christians are too often prone to do.
There are a whole series of articles on various religious blogs that list the top 10 clichés
Christians should stop using. Often, the most god-awful clichés people use are ones used in
the midst of suffering. Now, if you find comfort in any of these clichés, claim them. If the
person who is suffering finds some comfort in them, good and well. The problem is that we
are sometimes tempted to use them as pat answers to get someone else to “feel better.”
Usually, mostly we want to feel better…to feel like we’ve helped in some way.
But the Lament Psalms don’t let us tie things up quite so neatly.
Lament Psalms do not say, God is in control or that God is the answer to your problems. They
do not say everything happens for a reason and they do not say that suffering is somehow a
part of God’s plan.
They do not say, when God closes the door he opens a window.
And they never say that God won’t give you more than you can handle.
Instead, Lament Psalms grab God by the lapels and say “God this is way more than I can
handle. It makes no sense! My bones are like dust. The water is up to my neck and I’m
drowning. My throat is hoarse from crying. Where are you? Why are you so silent? Can you
even hear me?”
The Lament Psalms are not afraid of offending God. They are not afraid of demanding God’s
presence and God’s action.
And then, what lament Psalms do say is that God is faithful. That God does hear our cries.
We want a God who fixes things – who is a problem solver. What does it mean to say God is
faithful, but not a fixer?
Dr. J. Todd Billings is a seminary professor at Western Theological Seminary in Holland,
Michigan. He also has terminal cancer. His life currently is devoted to wrestling with
questions just like that.
He says this: In our self-help culture, I sense we are blinded to the nature of God's will
because of the way in which we've come to expect the Christian life to be filled with the glow
of a "better life." This is not the message of Christ crucified.
What it means to say God is faithful, even when no solution comes, is that God does not
abandon us.
The cry of the Psalmist – where are you God? Why are you silent? is answered by a God who
suffers with us.
And by a God from whom nothing can separate us, not even death.
When we want more…when we want to know why something has happened and why God
allows it…when we want a God who fixes…we are forced into God’s silence.
But there in that silence, comes the still small voice that says we’re not alone and that God is
faithful. And that turns out to be enough.
All the Psalms of lament come around to God’s faithfulness. In this Psalm, the author comes
around to saying, even in the midst of unanswered questions, Lord, your faithful love is good.
And later on the Psalmist says this: For the LORD hears the needy, and does not despise his own
that are in bonds. 34 Let heaven and earth praise him, the seas and everything that moves in
them.
God hears…the answer we get may not always be what we want. And Psalms of lament allow
us to shake our fist at God when we are angry about that.
But the promise of the lament Psalms is that God does hear…God is there…and God meets us
in our lament.