Worshiping with the Psalms in Time of War

We begin with empathy for the suffering, those who have lost friends and property at the hands of their enemies. These psalms of imprecation allow us to hear the cries of those who are powerless and who suffer in the face of war and unjust suffering. These psalms ground our worship in reality, in the harsh realities our times. They are the voices of those we bomb.

We follow the cries of the victims of war with psalms of lament, psalms that cry out to God in the face of enemies, in the reality of their success and prosperity. They remind us that people make war, it is people that kill. Laments give voice to our feelings of helplessness and to our hope in God, the judge of the universe. We pray that God will thwart their power and bring justice and righteousness to this earth.

Having explored the feelings and expressions of those who are suffering and those who feel powerless in the face of war making, we need to express our confidence in God. The hymns, the psalms of God's sovereignty claim that God is in control, the foundations have been established, and the waters of disorder and injustice will not prevail against our God. We need to be an affirming and confessing community. We need to believe that God is not with the forces of invasion, but is opposed to them.

Finally, we end with psalms of praise, psalms of hope and celebration. Surely, God is to be praised even in our times. Surely, God's praise can be voiced even in a time of war when the current stage seems so bleak and mindless. Praise is an act of hope and of faith. Hope for the future and faith in our God who has the interests of the suffering at heart.

The psalms that pray for God's justice and retribution are prayers that we as Christians sometimes feel we cannot pray. Yet they represent the cry of those who have been victimized by war for God's justice. These are petitionary prayers for divine action, not for human empowerment. These are prayers for justice, not for vengeance.

By omitting these psalms from our worship, we have lost touch with the very basic and understandable human emotions of those who suffer in wartime. These psalms present vividly the raw emotions of an Iraqi mother who watches her child die because of sanctions imposed by United States. We may not feel able to pray these prayers, but we must empathize with those who can. Can we not hear in Psalm 137 the cry of those whose loved ones have been killed or maimed by the US bombing of Baghdad? Can we not empathize with their suffering, we who are so insulated from the ravages of war?

Two imprecatory psalms: Psalms 58 and 137

The word in Hebrew translated 'vengeance' should rather be translated 'retribution.' Psalm 58, for an example, is a request for God to act justly by judging the wicked justly. This is not a call for vengeance but for justice. It is addressed to God, the court of last resort. This petition is not about human action but is rather trust in God's action.

A theological implication of not using these psalms

"Christian God-talk has lost its sensitivity to suffering. From the beginning, Christian theology attempted to keep its distance from the troubling question of justice for innocent sufferers by transforming it into a question of the redemption of sinners. The theodicy question, the problem of God in the face of the profound history of the world's suffering, the pain of God's world, became a soteriological circle; it was soteriologically encoded - and not without evil consequences. Christianity transformed itself from a morality of suffering to a morality of sin; a Christianity sensitive to suffering became a Christianity sensitive to sin. Primary attention was given, not to the suffering of creation, but to its guilt. Christian theology became, above all, a heuristic of guilt feelings and anxiety over sin. This hobbled its sensitivity to the suffering of the righteous and obscured the biblical vision of the great righteousness of God - and yet, in the face of that righteousness, the hunger and thirst of everyone has to be accounted for." (A statement by Johannes Baptist Metz, a German theologian, quoted in Erich Zenger, A God of Vengeance? pages 75-76.)

The lament psalms comprise the largest group of psalms to be found in the Psalter, yet their verses of lament are often clipped out in churchly use. Many of them seem to speak a foreign language about enemies and praying for their judgment rather than for their forgiveness. These are pleas to God to stop the juggernaut of evildoers.

These psalms remind us at every turn that evil wears a face - wars do not just happen by themselves. The President pushes for war; politicians seem only too eager to get on the bandwagon; 'evangelical' preachers add religious fervor. These are the wicked who would bring destruction on the innocent. We need to remind ourselves of our common human responsibility for evil. People act to deceive and promote war for their own purposes.

Three psalms struggling with enemies: Psalms 3, 10, 36

We should remind ourselves that the enemies in the psalms were not necessarily foreigners. They can even be members of one's own household. They can be persons present in local and national society. They are defined by deceit, oppression, and the undermining of the innocent. They are our enemies because they promote evil rather than attempting to curb it. They push for war rather than trying to stay it.

The language of striking cheeks, smashing teeth, and breaking arms is metaphoric language. The wicked are likened to animals of prey. The hand raised to do injustice and destruction needs to be broken. They need to be defanged to render them harmless. So on the national scene, the instruments of war need to be rendered useless so that God's justice might be done. Can we pray for the failure of military weaponry?

Note the call for God's justice-should not all Christians hope and pray that God's will and justice be done on earth? Should we not hope that plans of violence hatched in secret will be annulled by God? Should we not call God to act in our present situation when we feel helpless and the plans of the mighty seem unimpeded?

As we work and struggle for peace, 'our enemies' are those who promote war, those whose slick words seek to persuade people that war is necessary and even good, that war will make a better world. These are the enemies of those who would make peace.

Psalms of Affirmation

In the psalms of affirmation we find powerful expressions of God's sovereignty, expressions that should be in the hearts and on the lips of the faithful. We need to give voice to the grand vision of these psalms lest we become too bogged down in our own situation, our own feelings of helplessness, and our own inadequacies in the face of the great evil that confronts us. We need to do more than complain or feel victimized. We need to confess the God of the psalms.

One cluster of hymnic credos, statements about God and God's reign and power, is found in the Zion psalms, Psalms 46-48, to which we might add Psalm 49, which warns of the consequences of not trusting in God, but trusting instead in one's self and one's possessions.

Another cluster is found in Psalms 93-99, which are hymns extolling God's reign over all the earth and over all nations. The call for God to exercise God's rule is one that we as Christians pray frequently when reciting the Lord's Prayer. We do want God's will to be done on earth. We do want God's justice to reign. We do want God to set things right.

Hymns confessing God's sovereign reign: 46, 46, 48 93-99

Psalm 94 is a very powerful call for God to appear and exercise judgment against those who oppress. It begins with an appeal to "God of vengeance." Remember that in the context of a call for justice, this word is better translated "God of retribution" - that is, a God who does bring about justice. Notice how often the theme of justice appears in the hymns 93-99. In fact, justice is the foundation of God's rule, Psalm 97; see also Psalm 89:14.

The universality of God's reign

Notice the universal scope of these psalms. Psalm 96 is particularly striking in this regard. The universality of God's reign is linked with mission in this psalm. We are to declare God's glory and God's kingship throughout the whole earth because God reigns over all the earth. But where there is injustice, then God's rule has not yet come, or has not been realized as it should be in that place and time. We are the emissaries of a God of justice. This is an especially difficult, if not impossible task in a time of an offensive war, since the God confessed in these psalms is so different from the God of the Christian West proclaimed by nationalistic preachers. We are supposedly fighting for ourselves, our safety, our well-being. War in Iraq is not about the kingdom of God. Nevertheless we believe with these psalms that God reigns and the forces for war and destruction will be judged.

In the psalms we are invited, even enjoined, to go beyond the confession of God's greatness to the praise of this God. Indeed, in the psalms of belief there are implicit and at times even explicit expressions of praise. The line between confession of faith and praise is a very thin one because when we praise God we are also confessing about God. It takes great faith to sing and pray the psalms of praise.

There is a cluster of powerful praise psalms at the very end of the book: Psalms 145-150. It has often been noted that the Book of Psalms ends on a note of praise. It may begin with tears in Psalm 3, but it ends with joy. So in our worship it seems healthy for us, too, to end our worship services - even in a time of war - with praise to our God.

The Psalms' coda of praise: Psalms 145-150

Psalm 146 is a particularly visionary psalm and seems to fit our times well. The call is for God's people to trust God rather than rulers. There is a note of faith in reminding us that our God is the maker of heaven and earth. But most striking is the content of our praise in this psalm - God is to be praised because God aids and supports the weak and powerless on the one hand, and brings to ruin those who are wicked on the other. This psalm gives us opportunity to make an inventory of the reasons we praise God. In my experience, we often praise God for the good God has shown us - for example, for food and health. But rarely do we praise God because God cares for others. In a time of war, I believe this psalm invites us to praise a God who cares about the Iraqi victims of our war.

The theme of God's care for the weak and for victims is a theme that runs through these psalms; note especially the psalms on either side of 146. In a time when justice seems out of mind and difficult to see in the world about us, we need to shout aloud that our God is about justice!