Scripture: Psalm 22:23-31 (NRSV)
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” That’s the opening cry of the Psalm from which our text is taken. A classic lament, and our text a familiar vow of praise of the sort found not infrequently in lamentation literature. It is the hymn that Jesus begins to recite from the cross, branding that anguished cry onto our collective consciousness. Perhaps he would have continued reciting through the praise portion – had he lived.
Why praise in the midst of scripted complaint, choreographed despair, ritualized hopelessness? For the ancient worshipper a “sacrifice of praise” was part of the lamenter’s strategy to incline the ear of one’s deity, to call attention to one’s case, to evoke sympathy for one’s suffering. To provoke perchance a positive response, in hopes that the deity might (also) be assuaged by the sweet aroma of adoration.
Hymnody at the service of special pleading does not lack authenticity or sincerity. The power of this ancient genre is its embrace of praise within the context of complaint. Or even more to the point, the validation of complaint within the context of worship. Those suffering in our midst should be empowered to make us squirm during sharing time. We should feel their sense of abandonment like a shroud of existential angst. If all we hear are the victories, then we’re not really listening. Only then can their songs of praise, intoned from the abyss, ennoble human pathos.
The bottom has fallen out, catastrophe looms, the world no longer makes sense – how can I keep from singing?
Scripture: Psalm 22:23-31 (NRSV)
You who fear the Lord, praise him! All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him; stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel!
24For he did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted; he did not hide his face from me, but heard when I cried to him.
25From you comes my praise in the great congregation; my vows I will pay before those who fear him.
26The poor shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the Lord. May your hearts live forever!
27All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord; and all the families of the nations shall worship before him.
28For dominion belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations.
29To him, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, and I shall live for him.
30Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord,
31and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that he has done it.