Christian Life in the Psalms

Week 6: From From Trials to Trust

1. Opening reading: Psalm 56 (NRSV)

Be gracious to me, O God, for people trample on me;

all day long foes oppress me;

2 my enemies trample on me all day long,

for many fight against me.

O Most High,3 when I am afraid,

I put my trust in you.

4 In God, whose word I praise,

in God I trust; I am not afraid;

what can flesh do to me?

5 All day long they seek to injure my cause;

all their thoughts are against me for evil.

6 They stir up strife, they lurk,

they watch my steps.

As they hoped to have my life,

7 so repay them for their crime;

in wrath cast down the peoples, O God!

8 You have kept count of my tossings;

put my tears in your bottle.

Are they not in your record?

9 Then my enemies will retreat

in the day when I call.

This I know, that God is for me.

10 In God, whose word I praise,

in the Lord, whose word I praise,

11 in God I trust; I am not afraid.

What can a mere mortal do to me?

12 My vows to you I must perform, O God;

I will render thank offerings to you.

13 For you have delivered my soul from death,

and my feet from falling,

so that I may walk before God in the light of life.

Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit:

as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen

 

 

2. Looking back and looking forward

–A review of where we have come in the class and what still lies ahead,

3. Bonhoeffer on suffering

In what sense can we dare to offer up the psalms of lament as our own prayers?

4. Sinking into the language of lament: sample passages

 

Ps 13: 1–4

How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?

2 How long must I bear pain in my soul,

and have sorrow in my heart all day long?

How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

3 Consider and answer me, O Lord my God!

Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death,

4 and my enemy will say, "I have prevailed";

my foes will rejoice because I am shaken.

Ps 31:9–13

9 Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress;

my eye wastes away from grief,

my soul and body also.

10 For my life is spent with sorrow,

and my years with sighing;

my strength fails because of my misery,

and my bones waste away.

11 I am the scorn of all my adversaries,

a horror to my neighbors,

an object of dread to my acquaintances;

those who see me in the street flee from me.

12 I have passed out of mind like one who is dead;

I have become like a broken vessel.

13 For I hear the whispering of many—

terror all around!—

as they scheme together against me,

as they plot to take my life.

Ps 35: 7, 11–16

7 For without cause they hid their net for me;

without cause they dug a pit for my life.

11 Malicious witnesses rise up;

they ask me about things I do not know.

12 They repay me evil for good;

my soul is forlorn.

13 But as for me, when they were sick,

I wore sackcloth;

I afflicted myself with fasting.

I prayed with head bowed on my bosom,

14 as though I grieved for a friend or a brother;

I went about as one who laments for a mother,

bowed down and in mourning.

15 But at my stumbling they gathered in glee,

they gathered together against me;

ruffians whom I did not know

tore at me without ceasing;

16 they impiously mocked more and more,

gnashing at me with their teeth.

Ps 44:9–16

9 Yet you have rejected us and abased us,

and have not gone out with our armies.

10 You made us turn back from the foe,

and our enemies have gotten spoil.

11 You have made us like sheep for slaughter,

and have scattered us among the nations.

12 You have sold your people for a trifle,

demanding no high price for them.

13 You have made us the taunt of our neighbors,

the derision and scorn of those around us.

14 You have made us a byword among the nations,

a laughingstock among the peoples.

15 All day long my disgrace is before me,

and shame has covered my face

16 at the words of the taunters and revilers,

at the sight of the enemy and the avenger.

Ps 55:4–8

4 My heart is in anguish within me,

the terrors of death have fallen upon me.

5 Fear and trembling come upon me,

and horror overwhelms me.

6 And I say, "O that I had wings like a dove!

I would fly away and be at rest;

7 truly, I would flee far away;

I would lodge in the wilderness; Selah

8 I would hurry to find a shelter for myself

from the raging wind and tempest."

Ps 74:4–9

4 Your foes have roared within your holy place;

they set up their emblems there.

5 At the upper entrance they hacked

the wooden trellis with axes.

6 And then, with hatchets and hammers,

they smashed all its carved work.

7 They set your sanctuary on fire;

they desecrated the dwelling place of your name,

bringing it to the ground.

8 They said to themselves, "We will utterly subdue them";

they burned all the meeting places of God in the land.

9 We do not see our emblems;

there is no longer any prophet,

and there is no one among us who knows how long.

Ps 79:1–4

1 O God, the nations have come into your inheritance;

they have defiled your holy temple;

they have laid Jerusalem in ruins.

2 They have given the bodies of your servants

to the birds of the air for food,

the flesh of your faithful to the wild animals of the earth.

3 They have poured out their blood like water

all around Jerusalem,

and there was no one to bury them.

4 We have become a taunt to our neighbors,

mocked and derided by those around us.

Ps 88:3–9

3 For my soul is full of troubles,

and my life draws near to Sheol.

4 I am counted among those who go down to the Pit;

I am like those who have no help,

5 like those forsaken among the dead,

like the slain that lie in the grave,

like those whom you remember no more,

for they are cut off from your hand.

6 You have put me in the depths of the Pit,

in the regions dark and deep.

7 Your wrath lies heavy upon me,

and you overwhelm me with all your waves.

8 You have caused my companions to shun me;

you have made me a thing of horror to them.

I am shut in so that I cannot escape;

9 my eye grows dim through sorrow.

Every day I call on you, O Lord;

I spread out my hands to you.