Hotline 2002

Bible study 2: from trauma to triumph

Good morning. Yesterday we began to rediscover the Psalms, unrolled a scroll and were introduced to Walter Brueggemann's three way description of the Psalms, and started with a Psalm of orientation: Psalm 23. These are not categories but ways of viewing the spirituality of the people behind the poetry. We were also reminded of the importance to root the world of the Psalms in the land of the bible, in the context of its middle eastern setting , rather than superimposing our western culture. Today we move suddenly and dramatically into the world of disorientation.

For the covenanters of Qumran who may have left the Psalm scroll in cave 11 there was an expectation that life in their community would have an equilibrium and safety. Their own hymns give the picture of an oasis of community life…. Look at these words from one of the Thanksgiving Hymns. Looks quite a pleasant lifestyle…Mind you if you got out of step with the rules of the community, there were strong disciplinary consequences. (Their section O process was pretty severe especially if you fell asleep in assembly) Then in AD 68, as the Jewish revolt raged, the Roman legions neared the desert monastery - ideal as a site for a military garrison with its tall tower and commanding view - and the world which possibly had been calm and unthreatening was shattered. One explanation is that the occupants took their precious writings with them, hiding them in the nearby caves. What actually happened, we will never know.

In the same way we cannot pinpoint the actual circumstances that surround the Biblical psalms that describe personal trauma. Some Psalms display aggressive phrases of revenge and anger that would wake up many sleeping congregations. It is very tempting to be selective and avoid these passages. Stay with what we are comfortable. Brueggemann has some warnings for us if we do this.

The integrity of Bible study is only kept when we avoid selection and move into the wholeness of the narrative, prose and poetry. So let's plunge into the descriptive world of Psalm 22:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from helping me?
My God I have cried to you by day and got no answer,
And by night and gained no respite.
Yet you are the holy One,
Enthroned upon the phrases of Israel.
It was in you that our fathers trusted -
Trusted and you delivered them;
It was you that they trusted and were not put to shame.
As for me, I am a worm, not human,
A scorn of all and despised by the people…
All who see me laugh scornfully at me;
They gape at me and shake their heads.
"Let him lean on the Lord - he will deliver him!
He will rescue him, for he is his favourite!
I am surrounded by many wild oxen,
Strong bulls of Bashan encircle me.
They come at me with open mouths
Like lions that tear their prey and roar.
I am like water poured on the ground
And all my bones are out of joint
My heart is like wax.
Melting into my bowels.
My mouth is dry like a piece of clay pot,
And my tongue is glued fast to my gums
You are laying me in the dust of death.

Not a happy person! We are drawn into a world of Hebrew poetry that is immensely expressive and spares no punches. To qualify for a Lament, you follow the pattern of all poetry of this kind in the ancient Near East, from Egypt and Mesopotamia. These are not poems with an odd wimper here and there. They are 100% laments.

Not the sort of thing you greet your neighbour with: Oh how are you today? Oh not so bad. My heart is like wax melting into my bowels! It is more the poetry of Black Adder.

The Revd Dr. Kenneth Slack (of blessed memory to this Assembly) once brought out a little book on the Psalms entitled New Light on Old Songs and he quoted the scholar who said that anyone studying the laments should not approach this unless he or she has a headache!

Look at all the imagery used in this Psalm. All aimed to give a picture of personal chaos. Notice how many similes there are: like water poured on the ground, like wax, like a clay pot. Look how many picture metaphors:

Picture one Mockery.

This nasty kind of public reaction seems to have come because the writer may have sent out messages of being religiously superior. Are there shades of Joseph and his brothers here? Was the Psalmist the kind of person who had boasted of a secure and preferential relationship with Yahweh, his God? God's favourite? The passages which describe that faith which had been there even from before birth would hint at this.

Picture 2: is one of Fright: untamed animals surrounding you. One bull in a field may cause us reasonable anxiety. A circle of bulls with a back-up of wild oxen borders on manic panic! To reinforce it with a parallel Hebrew phrase that describes the scene like lions making the kill leaves nothing for the imagination to amplify.

Picture 3: Dislocation. We may have witnessed a shoulder being put back in the middle of a rugby game, but here the Psalmist says all his bones are dislocated. He is not just in need of orthopaedic attention, if you look at the list that follows he is need of a cardiologist, a gastro-enterologist, and an orthodontist.

We might well ask:

Why is he in such a desperate situation in the first place?

How has his world fallen apart?

Is this all a description of a grave illness?

Or is it a combination of a number of unfortunate circumstances?

Who are these wild beasts that surround him? Criminals? invaders? Personal enemies or public threats?

Is this a man with mental illness - paranoid about nightmares of persecution?

How do we enter into the world of this man? We are drawn into a world where little was known of the causes of pain or the alleviation of such pain.

But there is more to it than just a personal cry for medical help or for a safe house:

Here we have a man who believes that God has gone into hiding. At the moments of dereliction, God is nowhere to be seen. The word translated groaning in verse 1 has the sense of roaring, while the words rendered "cried" and "got no answer" imply that it is a fervent and repeated entreaty that goes consistently unheard.

For us it is a reminder that we need a way of handling God's silence. Psalm 121 speaks of a God who neither slumbers nor sleeps. A 24 hour God! When a human being is in the depths, there is a cry for God to break his silence.

For all involved in pastoral ministry, this is the most testing of moments. When this is happening, we are closest to the agony of Christ on the cross.

We have much in common with the time of the Psalms.

War , drought, famine, injustice, are the backcloth of our world. The Psalmist is inviting us into that real world of discontinuity. Here in the pages of the Bible we are witnessing public and private outrage and anger. These Psalms have two important links for us as Christians:

We can place these Psalms alongside the anger that we feel at certain times in our lives over issues that directly or indirectly affect us.

But the greater link is with the passion of Jesus, part of the defining moments of God's action.

The essence of crucifixion is that Christ embraced evil not in some pretend way but in actuality. The God of these Psalms is a God "of sorrow and acquainted with grief." Orderliness is overcome by raggedness, terror and hurt. The speech of the Psalmist slips into well tried phrases and complaints. …. Revenge and the harsh reality of suffering …. Sometimes a sense of guilt… but time and time again we have the words of someone in desperate need.

That desperate dislocation hit the world last September 11th. On that eventful day, the whole balance and symmetry of the world was broken and no person felt safe. All the usual checks and balances went out of the window.

It is interesting that out of the smouldering remains of the twin towers there arose all the elements that make up our Psalter, so no wonder new poems were written.

Psalms of lament and agony; Psalms with anger and thoughts of revenge.

Out of the same situation there were psalms of praise for fire-fighters, police and rescue workers.

In services and acts of remembrances in churches and synagogues, the congregations would have found themselves back into the Psalms, bonded over the centuries with the Hebrew poets, linked by human tragedy and circumstance. Behind all these Psalms we can see the struggle of the human spirit, from tears to laughter, from praise to anger and back again.

But how difficult it is to put ourselves pastorally into anyone else's shoes. We were disorientated but not like the people who lost loved ones in the World Trade centre, at Lockerbie, Aberfan, Dunblane, Paddington, Hatfield and Potters Bar - have you noticed how place names are for ever linked with events that happened on a one off occasion.

How do we open ourselves up to the cruel world of the devastated human spirit? But that is precisely our work as a church, in pastoral care. What modern bereavement counselling picks up is all seen in this Psalm: I quote the patterns which Elizabeth Kubler Ross outlines in her book on death and dying: she speaks of five elements.

1. Denial and isolation: No not me, it cannot be true. THIS IS NOT HAPPENING TO ME!

2. Anger: which includes a deep feeling of indignity and humiliation. (Worm not man)

3. Bargaining: This is an attempt to postpone the event or find a way out or a rescuer.

4. Depression: a sense of nothingness, guilt, lost opportunities.

5. And eventually…. Acceptance: accepting the radical and ultimate loss, or the changed circumstances.

How do you train a minister or an elder for that moment when you walk into a house and you know you are there as God's representative to bring comfort and healing for brokenness. You or I are not going through what that person or family is really feeling, but we are sharing it. You may find yourself hugging a person you have never had such physical contact with before. At a time like this there is very little need for words. Is this another way of understanding God's silence? Think of the times when Jesus was silent: In the judgement hall? Sweating it out in Gethsemane? Think of those times when Jesus met a silent God.

As for you, Lord, do not be absent;
you my helper come to my aid.
Save me from the sword,
my life from the power of the dogs.
Deliver me from the mouth of the lion
and from the horns of the wild oxen. (vs.19-21)

Can these Psalms help us as we face these pastoral or personal situations? My experience is that there are very few times in the life and work of ministry and the church, when we are not involved somewhere with someone in a moment of disorientation and brokenness.

We are going to have a period of silence, when all kinds of thoughts may come into our minds. Then we are going to sing : Put peace into each other's hands, but with two extra verses which were written recently by the Revd Dr Fred Kaan for a Hospice, in central Lancashire.

HYMN

Put peace into each other's hands
And like a treasure hold it,
Protect it like a candle flame,
With tenderness enfold it.

Put peace into each other's hands
With loving expectation;
Be gentle in your words and ways,
In touch with God's creation.

Put peace into each other's hands
Like bread we break for sharing;
Look people warmly in the eye:
Our life is meant for caring.

Give thanks for strong - yet tender hands,
Held out in trust and blessing.
Where words fall short, let hands speak out,
The heights of love expressing.

Reach out in friendship, stay with faith
In touch with those around you.
Put peace into each other's hands:
The Peace that sought and found you.

Fred Kaan
© 1989 and 2001 Stainer and Bell

You have answered me!
I will tell stories of your renown to my friends
I will praise you in the congregation.
Praise the Lord, all you who fear him,
Honour him all you seed of Jacob,
Be in awe at him all you seed of Israel!
For he has not abhorred or despised the affliction of the poor;
He has not hidden his face from him
But has heard when he cried to him.
Because of you I can praise you in the great congregation;
I shall perform my vows in the presence of all who fear him.

You have answered me! In the Psalms the move from Disorientation to new Orientation is dramatic and swift. There is no hanging around.

So the re-birth of faith comes with a confident cry, rarely found in translation because the word is at the end of verse 21: "YOU HAVE ANSWERED ME!" Professor John Rogerson, former head of Theology and Religious Studies at Sheffield University, makes a claim for this to be the real transition word: an exclamation of faith.

You have answered me.

The big word I believe for new orientation is the word Surprise. It is a C.S. Lewis word: Surprised by Joy. We can be so anaesthetised by church life, we forget that God can surprise us. In the spirituality of the Psalms, we find it in the Hebrew word for return. It is all about deliverance and liberation, saving and healing. So we find a psalm that was full of anger, turning into buoyant praise. For the Christian faith, that move is decisively embodied in the resurrection, but it is articulated at Pentecost, when that liveliness and confidence expressed itself in a new orientation for the emerging community of the followers of Jesus.

The marks of this new grasp of the relationship of God can be seen in these verses that end the Psalm.

1. Praise in the congregation. The Psalmist sees that he is drawn to worship and to share his new found relationship with the whole congregation. Now here is a new line for the notices or should I say intimations on a Sunday morning. Instead of the news of fresh disasters that there were no cakes at the coffee morning, the church secretary has a chance of speaking about "Good News" : Alice McIntyre has returned to church to give thanks for her recovery from illness; Joseph Brown is here to praise God for the fact that he has found work after two year's unemployment; Kaleigh Sandford aged 6 is here to sing her favourite chorus because she is now well enough to play sports again having been on her back for over a year.

This Psalm is opening the door to communal thanksgiving. How often do we open our doors to individuals who want to give thanks. For 25 years of marriage, for the safe arrival of a child, for the recovery from illness, for a reconciliation between people who have disagreed for a long time; for the move from work to retirement, - and many more. The recent Government legislation to bring such family acts of celebration into the public domain, giving registrars the means to lead civic ceremonies of celebration comes as a wake-up call to the church.

2. Justice for the disadvantaged. A personal thanksgiving for a reversal of fortune spills over into praise to God who is seen as the champion of the poor and the underprivileged.v. 26: the poor will eat and be satisfied. May their hearts live for ever!

Part of that expression of justice is a hope that all will be judged and treated fairly. As a contrast to the poor, we may note that the well banqueted - Rogerson translates them in verse 29 as the fat ones of the earth will also fall down and worship him. So we have not just a word for the strugglers but also for the well healed. In fact that obligation to bow down before the all supreme God reaches out in a universal way to the ends of the earth. There is nothing parochial about this call to worship.

All the ends of the earth will remember and return to the Lord,
and all the families of the nations will fall down and worship him.
For kingship belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations.
The fat ones of the world will also fall down in worship to him...

3. Universal praise. All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord! When you look at the change that Pentecost brought to the emerging church, and the language barriers that were broken down, you are able to marvel at the surprises that God still has in store for us. In God's surprise there are no restrictions to the geography of praise.

Text

Posterity will serve him
Stories will be told to future generations
They shall come and recount his deeds to a people not yet born…

4. Stories will be passed on - the Psalmist says: to a generation not yet born. Now we have on our agenda the concerns for the young, but we rarely talk about the way we are to communicate to the next generation. We have enough to think about with this generation. The story of faith has to be communicated and the heritage passed on. At the heart of the Jewish faith there is a strong commitment to do this passing. You see it in the family communal meals at the Festivals. You see it in the Deuteronomic command…. This Psalm raises questions about our commitment not just to safeguard the story but to pass it on. The last few words of the Psalm reminds us that it is not what we have done. We recount what he the Lord has done.

So the Psalm reaches a triumphant conclusion by affirming that even the generation unborn will be guaranteed the knowledge of the saving ways of God.

There can be no more positive and triumphant ending than with the words The Lord has acted!! He the Lord has done it.

We have been looking at a Psalm that breaks into our own experience, like a shaft of contemporary sunlight.

We started in the valleys and wadis of the Dead Sea. These writings were too precious to be destroyed. Little did they know that 20 centuries later a young shepherd boy would stumble upon this buried treasure. The hidden scrolls were evidence of a community's determination that not everything should be lost. Behind the PSALMS there are stories from trauma to triumph. A compendium of the poetry of people's faith over and against the events of their time, and our time. Behind them all we will find the struggle and the triumph of the human spirit, and the surprises God still springs. The sun never goes down on God's compassion and love. Even through the deepest loss, he will guide us to the springs of the water of life.