Our Psalm for Sunday is Psalm 35. Thus far in the month of June, we have looked at a Psalm of God’s Power, one that crosses emotional states. I have shared Psalm 23 at funeral services but also in the celebration of a miraculous healing. We have looked to triumph in the Lord with Psalm 145. We have shared the Psalm of despair in Psalm 42. All of these are Psalms of David, giving us windows into the emotional power of the psalms through the life of the man who wrote them.
In this Psalm, David is royally ticked off (pun intended).
Draw weapons on them Lord! It appears to
be a moment to ‘rage against the machine’, anger at something that is too
much for David to handle on his own.
Because, as the king, David had the martial resources to carry out his
own anger and vengeance quite handily.
As people who are called upon to ‘love our enemies’, to
ask the Lord ‘draw spear and javelin against my pursuers!’ may not seem
entirely appropriate. To speak verse 4 to
our Lord Jesus, “Jesus, let them be put to shame and dishonor who seek after my
life!” may not easily find its way into our praying repertoire. In the words of Jesus, as from Matthew 5:11-12,
with the Sermon on the Mount, to love our enemy is without condition. It is Paul who expands upon this in Romans
12.
“Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the
wrath of God; for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the
Lord.” No, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him, if he is thirsty, give him drink;
for by so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head.” Do not overcome
by evil, but overcome evil with good. Heaping burning coals, that is not the
language of Jesus, that is the language of the Book of Proverbs, the bible of
Jesus.
As a fan of cop shows, I have seen the episode on more than one occasion where there is the ‘crazy’ who kills ‘in God’s name’. In my recollection, they always seem to get the first part right, “Vengeance is mine, says the Lord”. That is what it says in Romans, quoting Proverbs. That is the presupposition that leads David to write this Psalm. Then they mess up completely, “And I am the Lord’s servant! or vengeance!" That does not reflect our faith, it reflects the show runners trying to score points off our faith.
Maybe the other best known aphorism, cliché, concerning anger from the Bible is Ephesians 4:26, “Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger.” Thus, the advice to married couples not to go to bed angry. Paul says that so we “give no opportunity to the devil”. Feel the feeling, do not sin. Don’t let your anger lead to vengeance, pray your anger to God to do it instead.
That offers us a few benefits. The act of praying for vengeance, of asking
the Lord’s intervention gives us the benefit of distance. From Psalm 35:
Vs. 4: “Lord! Let them be put to shame and dishonor…” but…but
what if it wasn’t them? What if I am
wrong? What if I did something I cannot undo in error? There is a reason we have the
legal concept of ‘reasonable doubt’ in this country. Or the wisdom of “beyond a shadow of a doubt”? Thus, give it to God.
“Lord! Let them be turned back and confounded…” Maybe
that is the ‘official’ prayer, but the subtext prayer, the gut level prayer is “Lord,
make me your instrument to turn them back with my fists!!” The nice way of saying it is that anger can
blind us to the consequences of our actions.
The more direct version is that anger can make us do stupid things. Thus, give it to God.
Vs. 6: “Lord! Let them be like chaff before the wind,
with the angel of the Lord driving them on!”
I do not know about you, but I get angry FAR more quickly when someone I
love has been targeted as opposed to myself.
What if I do something out of my anger that the person I love would
never have wanted me to do? Thus, give
it to God.
Vs. 7: “Lord! Let their way be dark and slippery, with
the angel of the Lord pursuing them!” Is
that really who I am? Who I want to
be? In the moment, maybe, but when I
catch my breath? As people who come to
the Lord in prayer to begin with, there is a certain expectation that the power
of love would guide our actions. In the
book “On Killing”, David Grossman speaks of the natural instinct we, as humans,
have NOT to harm members of our own species.
There are reasons we were created with those instincts. There is also sin that has corroded the
effectiveness of those instincts. Thus,
give it to God.
Finally, giving it to the Lord gives us the
opportunity to follow God’s lead.
Instead of vengeance or violence or some knee jerk reaction, is there an
ongoing, systemic response that can lead to change instead of ‘payback’,
prevention and resilience instead of ‘balancing the scales’, achieving justice
instead of some misguided notion of ‘imposing justice’? I believe there is. Be angry, but love anyway. Start with the Lord to get you there.
Peace,
Pastor Peter
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