.

When I was ten, I stood on the bridge over the Mississippi River in St. Cloud, MN and tossed my bible.  I was done with God.  I was done with church.  I was an angry and frightened child.  My life at that time was shattered.  With the death of my Daddy,  I was shuttled off to the St. Cloud Orphanage.  I remember praying my heart out.  I just knew that God could figure out some way to get me out of the orphanage.  God did not come through.  So, I yelled at God.  Little did I know at the time that being angry with God and being able to say so would help me in my adult years to develop a healthy spirituality.

I did not know I was participating in a tradition of storytelling and storyliving.  Our ancestors in the faith, those poets who composed the song prayers we know as the psalms took everything to God in prayer.   This means that the Hebrews prayed their anger and grief as well as their praise and joy.  However, to the ears of many Christians, the lament songs are a strange mix of sorrow, violence and anger.  Because the Hebrews had no other way to think of God than in committed relationship, it was to God that all troubles were taken.  It was to God that individuals, or the community, screamed out of their pain when they hurt.  Erich Zenger, a German theologian, explains that when the Hebrews named the violence and struggled against fear, they were able to rob the "the enemies" of their destructive power and transform their experiences into constructive forces.  This could happen because, no matter what kind of vengeance the psalmist imagined, he or she understood that it was God who would vindicate.  It was God who led the Hebrews through the "valley of death" and revealed that life destroying violence was not the end.  Through their relationship with the God of life, it was revealed that a life free from violence was the ultimate goal.1 

The psalms which appear to be most troublesome are those which appear to curse.  These "curse" psalms are really passionate laments.  Says Zenger:

Without jumping into conversation too quickly, without shoving them aside
in know-it-all fashion, without expressing judgment out of a sense of Christian
superiority, we need to try to understand these texts in their historical context,
their linguistic shape and their theological passion.2

By way of example, the first verses of Psalm 137 are familiar to many Christians.  
By the rivers of Babylon we sat and we wept
when we remembered Zion.
There on the willows we hung our harps.3

Memories of construction paper harps hanging on Jesse trees in anticipation of Christmas were an early educational tool the sisters used in teaching about waiting during the Advent season.  But! How many of us read the rest of the psalm?  We might have been shocked at the time.  Psalm 137, according to the Lectionary, is never used in its entirety.  It has been deliberately altered for liturgical use during Advent in many Christian churches.  When only the first verses are used, the psalm is robbed of its strength.  It is reduced to a romantic and saccharine ditty because it is not an honest recalling of the whole story. 

Written in exile, this psalm reflects Babylon as the dominant power in the Mediterranean. The Temple had been destroyed (586 BCE);  Jerusalem and its environs devastated.  Famine, disease, and pillage decimated the people. 

Perhaps those in captivity, remembering Jerusalem, performed rites of lamentation along the waterways of Babylon where willows grew in abundance.4  Their harps were muted by homesickness and tortured memories of bloodshed.  How could anyone sing?  And yet, they prayed.  It is not hard to imagine the captors mocking the simple rites and rituals of their captives.  "Sing us some of your folk songs!"  Folk songs, indeed!  Ridicule, aimed at the glory of God's holy place was meant to sow seeds of doubt about God's promises to Israel.  The captors did not comprehend the agony of dislocation and were insensitive to those in bondage who yearned for, and found their identity in Jerusalem.

How lovely is your home,
O Lord of hosts!
I yearn, I long for the neighborhood of the Lord,
my whole being shouts for joy to the living God.
Ps 84:2-3
For the Lord himself has chosen Zion.
He has desired it for his chair
This is my resting place for all time,
here I will dwell, for I desire it.        Ps 132:13-14

The crass suggestion that Israel sing in a foreign land has been surpassed only by the cruelty of the Nazis during World War II.  The Jews were again dislocated.  Those with musical ability were forced to play their instruments at Terezin as a show for the Red Cross and others who visited this "ideal" camp.  There was no place for these Jews to hang their harps except on the barren cots of their rotting barracks!

For times of incredible pain and anger, Psalm 137 can speak the outrageous.  It is not polite speech.  To appropriate its power, all of it must be prayed.   The Christian church accepts the first six verses for worship, but almost universally rejects the last three (7-9).  For this reason it becomes most important to examine the final section which ends with the words of imprecation.

7 Remember, O Lord how the Edomites cried
on the day Jerusalem fell,
"Lay bare!  Lay bare!  Down to its foundations!

Jerusalem was stripped.  Flattened.  The place where the people met God was no more.  Certainly, the destruction of the Temple and ransacking by the Edomites could inflame the most meek.

8 O Daughter of Babylon, you devastator!
blessed is he who repays you
for what you have done to us!
9 Blessed is he who grabs your babies
and dashes them against the rocks!

An ironic use of beatitude heightens the raw image of "dashing babies against the rocks."  However, it is an image in keeping with current practices of war.  The Jews had lived lifetimes through such experiences at the hands of their enemies (2 Kgs 8:12; Hos 10:14; Nah 3:10) and it would not be out of character for them to have feelings about returning the favor.  What the psalm does not say is that the Jews expect to change roles with the Babylonians and become the perpetrators.  Vindication will come from God.

If that same imprecation is understood in a metaphorical sense, then the meaning suggests that the Jews are more interested in a long term end to violence.  "Dashing babies" then refers to ending the Babylonian dynasty which has produced terror.  Israel cries to God, begging that Babylon's savagery "be dashed against the rocks!"  Understanding this psalm as one which seeks an end to a reign of terror can easily be translated into contemporary experience.

The beauty of this psalm is found in the honesty with which the psalmist confronts God.  How often do ordinary people who have been violated think these same kind of thoughts?  How often do people plot ways to get even with their enemies?  That in itself is very human.  What is different in contemporary culture is that while these thoughts are being thought, there rarely is any impulse or encouragement to make these thoughts God-talk.  It is off to the psychiatrist.  Church is NOT the place to bring depressing thoughts.  This is attested to by the way many Christian churches ignore anything which is negative, by prayers filled with cliches, by the hymns which are sung, and by many clergy (Catholic and Protestant alike) co-opting for a social religion which promotes the opposite of biblical values and by the people who empower them.

In appropriating prayers which contain unfamiliar strong language, it is important to understand the mindset of the people creating them.  Consideration should be given to customs, values, and family systems  There are different codes of honor and shame in every culture.  In this case, one has to view these prayers through the lens of a Mediterranean people who focused on community worship rather than individualistic piety as a means of dialogue with God.  While there are many more personal psalms of lament in the Psalter, these prayers are songs of human suffering brought to the community.  These psalms of personal suffering are affirmed and prayed by the community. Both communal and personal laments express trust that God is faithful.  While individuals shout and cry to God, it does not end there.  It is fully intended that God will be involved in life's situations, whatever they may be.  These cries from the heart dare to question and even wrestle with God.  That wrestling deals with the questions of justice and order.  It calls into question the world, the community of faith, and individuals.  The language of inquiry is vital, honest and bold.  At times God's answer is judgment.  At other times God's answer is absence.  Sometimes God's anger and wrath precipitate a call for caustic conversation which leads to conversion.

While there are many examples of language which are vengeful, the Hebrews, familiar with the Law knew of the constraints on human vengeance:

You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin, or censure your neighbor or you will incur guilt yourself.  You shall not take revenge or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.  Lev 19:17

Vengeance is mine and payment.
for the time when their foot shall slip
because the day of their calamity is at hand,
their doom comes swiftly. Deut 32:35

When God is called upon in this manner, vengeance is averted from the one who prays.  The appeal is to a God of justice who decides what the punishment will be.  God does not delight in judgment, but punishes so that order may be restored.  The appeal and thrust of those praying depends on the presupposition that God can be moved, be personally touched by injustice.

From personal experience, it is only through the psalms of imprecation that healing could begin.  As I have lived with the death of a 30 year marriage and the feelings of abandonment, I have been able to name the anger.  In doing so, the power it had over me is gone.  Yes, I still feel the pain.  But lamenting psalms and psalms of imprecation have given me an opportunity for growth.  I was freed by the words of the psalmist.  When I was able to yell at God, when I was able to tell God that I was literally ready to kill, there was an incredible release.  Even though I plotted with great glee the demise of the object of my rage, I never intended to carry out those plans.  In my gut, I know that Psalm 137 with the"dashing of babies heads" is similar in meaning. 

If the church continues to leave these kinds of prayers out of community worship, how will ordinary persons come to understand that God does care about all of life?  There are times in the lives of all persons when lament and imprecation are just as appropriate as joy is at other times.  How much sooner would I have begun the healing process if I could have prayed a cursing psalm in community?  I had to stumble on these words by myself.  After all, who wanted to hear my story and all its ugliness?  But, if the right words were there...at any time in the liturgical cycle ... I could have been supported by others who also were praying this prayer: by the elderly who do not have enough to eat nor proper medical care because others have grabbed more than their share of the economic pot.  I could have prayed in solidarity with youngsters who stand in soup lines with their homeless parents because society (and church) will do nothing more than continue the myth that these unfortunate people are lazy or they would find work.  My prayer would have been voiced by children and women and men who live daily in an environment of abuse because people no longer see the image of God in humanity.  I would have prayed with men and women and children dying of AIDS because so many feel it is someone else's problem.  My confession would have admitted responsibility with all who live in dysfunctional families and dysfunctional churches.  I would pray with clergy who no longer have passion about God: who are more interested in building funds than in building community.   I would try to forgive and pray with husbands who cheat on their wives and wives who slander their husbands.  I would cry for children who hate them both because families have forgotten what reconciliation means.  I would ask forgiveness for corporate waste and environmental pollution because I am part of humanity who has forgotten that "subdue the earth" means giving all creation under it, its due, its justice.  J. David Pleins gets to the heart of the matter when he says:

Words of anger at God are terribly uncomfortable, but the psalmist recognized that worship will remain a shallow affair if the worshipper's rage is left outside the sanctuary.  This willingness to give expression to the agony of the sufferer  is, in biblical terms, an act of worship.  To speak from one's pain and  oppression - to no longer hide one's rage over injustice - is the essential first step in approaching God who, in our suffering seems so aloof.5

Providing a place to deal with brokenness through prayer is one of the most pastoral things the church can do for contemporary society.  Not that every neurosis would be healed in this manner, but God needs a chance to do what God does best and that is to lovingly lead humanity through the brokenness to wholeness! 

By becoming familiar with all the psalms there is a built-in safeguard against developing a romantic and saccharine piety totally foreign to biblical tradition.  However when psalms which call for vengeance are avoided and psalms which speak of God's wrath are ignored, Christians fail to expose themselves to the richness of all that is revealed.  Praying all the psalms is risky.  It could make one re-evaluate how one lives.  Praying all the psalms can become counter-cultural and even subversive because praying all the psalms is inclusive of all that is in life.  Praying all the psalms changes perspective  No longer can God-talk be just "God and me."  Praying the psalms creates reliance on community.  Prayer taken to community may also have a transforming affect on community. 

It is in the chaos, in the terror, in the loneliness, in all the pain of life one begins to understand the reality of dependence on God.  Life is not one's own.  There is no autonomy separate from God.  The ultimate reality is that one's identity is defined by a relationship with God.  The psalms are a glimpse into the life of a people who had an open and honest relationship with God.  Israel cried in pain, approached God in questioning trust, vented anger, and revealed feelings of abandonment, sorrow, penitence, and waited for God in anxious complaint or quiet reflection.  Israel did not shy away from the stormy side of life  It was a reality for them as it is a reality for persons living in the twentieth century.  God is waiting to be called by this generation into the storm to transform it.

1 Erich Zenger, A God of Vengeance?, trans. Linda M. Maloney (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995, vii-ix. 
2  Ibid, 25.
3  All psalms translated by author.
4  A.A.Anderson, Psalms 73-150, vol.ed. Ronald E. Clements and Matthew Black (Grand Rapids: William Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1985) 896-901.
5 J. David Pleins, The Songs of Tragedy, Hope and Justice (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1993), 15.

Originally published in Sisters Today