Red Letter Revolution

Don’t watch it if you are overly sensitive about slightly risque humor.

Brueggemann seeks in this writing to use a post-critical approach to the Psalms that incorporates both the popular devotional use of the psalms and the intellectual critical understanding of the Psalms. He gives three reasons for this approach. 1. There is already a well established interpretation of the Psalms in service of the Gospel that focuses on the nice psalms and often looks at them through a romanticized tint. 2. The Psalms are taken as a resource of faith, especially during the Reformation. This tradition is continued in the present-day Protestant church. It is characterized by the notion that “The Psalms articulate the whole Gospel of God in a nutshell.” 3. We are also critical people. The scholarly emphasis cannot and should not be ignored. For example, Gunkel’s Form-Critical approach has led to a greater understanding of the limited recurring patterns of the psalms, and Westermann’s interesting conclusion that lament is the most basic form of the psalm from which all others derive. Using these ideas, Brueggemann constructs a structure of the psalms in three parts: Psalms of Orientation, Psalms of Disorientation, and Psalms of New Orientation. He argues that these categories correspond with both the critical understanding of the Psalms and the human experience of joy, suffering, and renewal. Brueggemann may claim that he is incorporating the devotional aspect with this method, but in truth he simply segregates all the devotionally used psalms to one category in a way that is slightly condescending to their popular usage. Nonetheless, he views the psalms as focusing on two kinds of movement from one state to the other. The first move is from orientation to disorientation. That is a move from security to harm, from safety to trouble. The second move is from disorientation to new orientation. That is from the place of despair to the new hope. The whole of the Psalms is in Brueggemann’s view a description of the points along these movements and the movement itself.

Obviously this is a much simplified rendering of the argument, but I think for the most part that Brueggemann is on to something good here with the idea of these movements. It is always difficult to construct a framework that can contain the Psalms, but I think that Brueggemann’s approach might actually come close. If this goes as planned, we’ll look at the three categories of psalms in part 2, 3, and 4, and then my final thoughts in part 5.

All in all pretty mediocre, but there are a few good images in there.

We dwelt in your mercy, Lord
We dwelt in ignorance of it
Our feet never trod shadows, Lord
And our stomachs were mute
The rain could not find us, Lord
And the wind blew in vain
Yet our praise was anemic, Lord
And we loved most to be happy

You taught us how blessed we were by removing your blessing.
You showed us our ignorance by hiding our happiness.
You taught us how to pray by ending our every boast.
You showed us your love by revealing our lack.

So we cried
Where is his love
So we cried
Where is his mercy
Is this the God the prophets spoke of?
Is this the God who saved Israel?
Why does he not answer the challenge to his name?
Why does he make us wait for his answer?

Then the Lord moved upon us
Sending us his Comforter
Then the Lord moved upon us
Sending us the memory

He has suffered
Praise be to the God who has suffered

Imagine that you are sitting in church one Sunday and you hear someone praying in a small quiet voice. You strain your ears to hear the fervent and rapid words riding on a raspy exhalation. The words you hear shock you.

“God, you are a cold being. You don’t give a crap about me or my family. You have no concern for my suffering. You delight in the salt on my face. You are petty and you are without mercy. You have made it so that when people hear my name it fills them with scorn. You are a brute. You are cruel. And yet your love endures forever.”

You are shocked at what you hear. You wonder if the man is insane or merely an apostate. Surely such speech is blasphemy! How can someone declare the cruelty and love of God at the same time?!?!? Welcome to the world of the Psalms and Lamentations. Every idea in this imaginary prayer is contained in the Psalms and Lamentations and often with harsher language. How is it then that the Bible came to contain such language? Isn’t God offended by such “prayer”?

This semester I am in John Goldingay’s class on the Writings of the Hebrew Scriptures, which is incidentally my favorite class. Lately we have been discussing the Lament Psalms and Lamentations. We were encouraged for an assignment to write a Psalm of Lament. I didn’t take the assignment seriously, and just submitted the poem found elsewhere on the blog titled “A Poem/Prayer of Repentance.”

However, last night I attended a student-led worship service and in the midst of thought and reflection on the Psalms I tried on my lamenters tongue. At first I was timid, life is generally awesome out here. I started with frustrations about myself and the development of my life. It was not long before I discovered in myself an old wound I thought had long since healed. It seems instead that I just pretended it didn’t exist for so long that I almost forgot about. Yet, it has been there for some time. It lurks beneath the surface. It is an annoying scab which coos at the cool words of atheist intellectuals who mockingly decry God as a mean kid on an anthill and whispers in my ear ‘hypocrite’ when I speak of the goodness and love of God. Greater than my shock at discovering just how much that nearly decade-old wound hurt, was how incredible an experience it was to admit that wound to God.

Like a child feebly beating upon the chest of his father in rage, I let fly. I gave God both barrels and threw the gun at him too. I drained my heart of all venom and when it was over there was nothing left but the love for God which I had all along. I do not pretend that I am done with this wound, but now I have a weapon against. When your God can take a punch, then Doubt cannot have any hold over you. Furthermore, it isn’t as if God doesn’t know that in the deepest parts of myself I am angry at him over this wound. If anything Lament is nothing more than being honest to God. Should we fear that a steadfast God will become unreliable in light of that honesty. No, Doubt cannot bear to look in the face of such honesty, and so, last night I found myself drawn closer to God by calling him every name in the book.