Sermon - Psalms of complaint (Psalm 22)

I know you've all been waiting (whoever you are), so here's my latest sermon.

Psalm 22: Psalms of complaint

#3 Complaining to God is legitimate

#4 Sometimes we need to initiate – God then accommodates

#2 Saying that something is not right with the world is true!

#5 Prayers of complaint always end in trust in God and praise for God

#5 Articulation, submission, relinquishment

#1 God's word is not just about God, but also about us and how we relate with God

#3 The world is not a good place – we have a right to complain about it

Words

Last weekend, millions of people would have been sitting in churches somewhere in the world and heard the words of Jesus when he was on the cross, “Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani”, and they would have heard that this means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”. And I dare say that a number of them, hearing those words, wonder at why Jesus said them. Perhaps you have wondered at those words before. I know when I first became a Christian, and probably for several years, I didn't really understand what those words meant. I mean, didn't Jesus know what he was getting into? Isn't that the point of the garden of Gethsemane, where he says, “Not my will, but yours be done”? So why does he now have to ask this question? Doesn't he know why God is forsaking him? It's the whole point of his mission to earth, so we hear at Easter – that Jesus comes to die on the cross, paying the price of death that we deserve for our rebellion against God. Our sin went onto Jesus, and God turned his face away from him, treated him as the criminal, punished him instead of us. Jesus was forsaken, as he had to be. So why ask, “Why have you forsaken me”?

If it doesn't seem obvious to you, then chances are you don't know your psalms as well as the Jews who were around at the time of Jesus' death would have known them. For us, the cry, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” sounds like a cry for understanding. But for a Jew who knows their psalms, it is the first line of King David's psalm 22. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning?” In fact, when we read this psalm, looking back on the events of Good Friday, we see that any Jew who knew their psalms would have been shocked at the similarity between what was happening to Jesus, and what is in that psalm. In verse 6 we read that the psalmist is scorned and despised. In verse 7 the people mock him and throw insults at him. In verse 8 we read words that are so similar to those used to mock Jesus, it is uncanny, “He trusts in the LORD," they say, "let the LORD rescue him. Let him deliver him, since he delights in him.” Later in verse 16 it says, “They pierce my hands and my feet” - wounds of a crucifixion. Verse 17 says, “I can count all my bones” - not a bone of Jesus' body was broken as he was crucified. Verse 18 says, “They divide my clothes among them and cast lots for my garments.” And we see the very thing happening to Jesus' clothes while he is on the cross.

You could be forgiven for thinking that this psalm was written by someone watching the sufferings of Jesus. But rather, it was written nearly some 1,000 years before by the king God chose over Israel, King David. When David wrote it, he had little conception of a messiah coming after him. He wrote from his own sufferings, his own persecution, his own bad situation. He wrote it as a complaint to God. David had his own fair share of bad experiences in life, and at one such time he penned this psalm, complaining to God about his situation.

Now when I say the word “complaint”, I think the first picture that would pop into our minds is that of a crying child saying something like, “It's not fair!” or “I don't wanna!” I think as a culture we tell people not to complain. When a child doesn't like its vegetables, we tell them, “Don't complain. You are much better off than those starving kids in . They would love to eat what you're eating,” and so we tell them that you're not allowed to complain if there is someone in a situation worse than yours. If they get beaten up at school, we tell them, “Don't complain, do something about it,” and so we tell them that complaining is not an active response to something bad happening. If they get bad marks in an exam, we tell them, “Don't complain, it's your own fault. You should have worked harder,” so telling them that the bad things that happen in life are generally your own fault, and its up to you to solve them. If they make a bad decision or someone takes advantage of them, we say, “Don't complain. That's the way life is. Get used to it,” so telling them that there's sometimes nothing you can do to change a situation – that life is just full of sorrow and pain. And if something really bad happens, we tell them, “Don't complain, God has everything under control,” and so we tell them that God wants it to happen that way, and if it's God's will, we shouldn't complain about it.

Yet, when someone does something that we are not happy with, or we think is wrong, or when we think we have been hard done by or we deserve a second chance, what do we grown ups do? We complain! If we are served something in a restaurant we don't like, we complain to the cook, we complain to the waiter, we complain to the other customers around us. If we get beaten up, we complain to the police, we complain to the government, we complain to the newspapers! If we aren't happy with our marks, we complain to our lecturer, we complain to a moderator, we complain to the university department, we complain to an appeals board. If we feel like we've been ripped off by someone, we go to court and we complain to a judge! And if we don't think the judge made the right decision, we appeal the decision and complain some more!

In Australia, we have a technical term for such a person – whinger. Being called a whinger is not a flattering term, is it? But when someone faces a situation of injustice or something is happening that we don't like, we always complain about it. We let people know that we think it's wrong and that we think it should change. Do we call those of us who protested against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan whingers? Those who protested against Aboriginal discrimination, whingers? Who protested for women's rights, whingers? Who protested for worker's rights, whingers? Who protested against slavery – was Willam Wilberforce a whinger? So we will complain to our governments for change. But can we complain to God? Isn't it disrespectful to do so? Aren't we meant to just praise God and thank him? Aren't we objects of God's mercy?

Well, you might be surprised to learn, as I was, that the book of psalms contains more complaints to God than any other kind of psalm. There are more complaints than there are songs about God as king. There are more complaints than there are praises. There are more complaints than there are thanksgiving psalms. More complaints than blessings, than curses, than victory psalms – as one scholar (Gunkel) has said, complaints make up the 'basic material' of the psalms! Psalms 3, 5, 6, 7, 13, 17, 22, 25, 26, 27, 28, 31, 35, 38, 39, 40, 42, 43, 51, 54, 55, 56, 57, 59, 61, 63, 64, 69, 70, 71, 86, 88, 102, 108, 109, 120, 130, 139, 140, 141, 142, and 143 are all psalms of individual complaint to God. These are only the psalms that follow the specific model of being a complaint made by an individual. If we include the communal complaints of Israel as a whole, and the psalms which contain elements of complaint, we would have an even longer list.

The very existence of these psalms in the Bible tells us four things that are important for us to know. First and foremost, their existence tells us that God's word is not just about God. It is also about how we humans relate to God. We as humans feature large in God's book! He wants us to know about him, but he also wants us to know how to relate to him! We don't just read the Bible to find out about God, his character, his will and his promises. We also read about how God wants us to relate to him. God doesn't just want us to be full of information about him – he wants us to be deep in relationship with him. The psalms are a vision to us of how we can relate to the God we learn about in the Bible.

The second thing we need to know from the existence of these psalms is that there is something wrong with the world. If there was nothing wrong, why would we complain so much? The truth is that the world is broken. Whether it be illness or natural disaster, where the natural brokenness off the world hurts us, or whether it be mocking, hatred and persecution inflicted on us by enemies, where other people hurt us, the fact is that there is something wrong with the world. You might say, “But doesn't God say he created the world, and it is very good?” Yes! But then we came along with sin and we messed it up. It's a good world – but broken. The broken bits are sharp, like a broken bottle, and they hurt us.

The third thing we need to know from these psalms is that we have a right to complain to God about the sharp, broken bits of the world. This is a huge, huge thing. And I don't know about you, but for me it can seem daunting, disrespectful. Who are we to complain about the world? God created us! Without him we wouldn't even exist! He put us in this world, which he made for us. Whose fault is it that it's broken? Our fault! What right do we have to complain? None! But God gives us the right. He listens. He writes the rules, and he says, “I give you the right to complain to me about the brokenness of the world.” This is part of the relationship that God wants us to have with him. He wants us to recognise that the world is broken, he wants us to mourn it, and he wants us to come to him about it. It's not whinging! God has made in us a longing for a perfect world where there won't be any hunger, or suffering, or pain, or persecution, or evil of any kind. He wants us to know that this ain't it.

Finally, the fourth thing we learn from the existence of these complaining psalms in the Bible is that God wants us to initiate the conversation. He wants us to come and ask for help. Now, you might think this is harsh. And sometimes, sometimes it feels really awful. The first verse of psalm 22 wrenches the heart, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning?” You might picture a little child in a supermarket who has hurt themselves and is crying, and the parent is standing just a few feet away, but doesn't step over to help the child. The child wails and cries, but until it asks for help, the parent stays back and lets the child suffer. It's a terrible picture. Why is no-one helping that child? But God wants us to realise that we have to have faith in him, we have to call out to him. We have to learn to know that he is in charge, and that only he can make things better. We have to initiate – God will then accommodate.

Keep these four things in mind when reading these psalms of complaint. They exist to help show us how we can relate to God, they affirm that there is something wrong with the world, they show us that God has given us a right to complain to him about the wrong things in the world, and they tell us that we have to initiate the conversation with God. These psalms really are a gift to us, to all Christians, and when you think about why they exist, it is little wonder that there are so many, and that they are so appealing and can be so comforting.

I said before that these psalms of complaint follow a model, and they do. They are poetic, and like all (good) poetry they follow a pattern that can be distinguished. For your interest, that poetic pattern looks like this (thank you Lasor, Hubbard and Bush) – all psalms of complaint contain these elements: (1) A cry to God for help; (2) A stylised description of the crisis that is being complained about – so like the bulls of Bashan surround me, or the lions tear at my flesh, or I am being poured out like water; (3)An affirmation of trust; (4) A series of petitions to God for help; (5) An additional argument or appeal to God; (6) A vow or promise of praise for God's help; and (7) An assurance of being heard by God.

This is a fine model, and if we were all going to go away and write a psalm of complaint, I would look at this more deeply. But what I would like to look at instead this morning is how we actually should complain to God, and what will happen when we do. Because I think that while I know there are one or two gifted poets here, the rest of us will struggle simply to put this stuff into practice in our own prayer lives, let alone to shape it into a poetic form that we can share with others. Of course, if you are gifted in poetry or song writing, perhaps you would give thought to writing such a complaint? As churches, I think we have lost something of our communal relationship with God by not having modern songs and psalms of lament and complaint that we can share together. The vast majority of modern Christian songs are, I think, praise and worship, and that is great! But I think the occasional song of lament, of complaint - asking why, petitioning God for help, affirming our trust in him and displaying our assurance that we are heard by God – would be of huge benefit to the church. So I won't name any names, but you songwriters out there know who you are, so get cracking.

For the rest of us, though, how do we use these psalms of complaint to help us reach God with our laments, our complaints, or pains and sufferings? For this, I want to use a much simpler model for complaint psalms that is given by a scholar called Walter Brugemann. He says that the key to understanding the complaint psalms is to recognise that when we complaint to God, we must follow three steps – articulation, submission and relinquishment. Brugemann is a scholar, so he likes big words. I prefer to say that we need to follow three steps – we need to let it out, then we need to put it down, and then we need to give it up.

So firstly, we have to let it out. These are prayers of complaint! They contain our hurt, our anger, our upset, our pain. We are complaining to God that this is not the way it should be! We are complaining that we are going through all this hurt and suffering, and God is nowhere to be seen! Day after day the pain continues, and yet God seems to just let it keep happening! We are complaining that the world is broken, that its sharp edges hurt, and we want something done about it! This step of articulation means we have to come to terms with the way we feel. Yes, of course God is there, and yes, we know he loves us, and yes, we know he is all mighty, and we know we are saved. But it still hurts! We still feel bad! Anyone can tell you that just because you know something is true doesn't make the pain or emotional anguish go away. So articulate it. Let it out. Tell God how you feel. Ask him those hard questions. Why are you suffering? Why did this bad thing happen? Why hasn't he come back yet to make it all better?

It might sound terrible to us, but this is how the psalms do it. This is how David did it. This is how Jesus did it. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus knew full well why he was forsaken – it was God's plan! But he still lets it out. He articulates the pain and the hurt that he feels there on the cross. Verse 2 says, “My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, but I find no rest.” David feels like God is not listening, so he lets God know that's how he feels. He tells God in verse 6 he feels like a worm, because of the scorns and insults people are heaping on him. He feels like he's under attack by powerful bulls, like he's being torn apart by hungry lions. He feels beset on every side, and he lets God know. He even tells God that he feels like God himself is laying him down in the dust to die, like he feels there is no-one to help him. He tells God what he wishes God would do - “Don't be far from me, come quickly to help me, deliver me, rescue me, save me!” He lets it all out to God.

So go ahead and let it out to God! Tell God how you feel. Tell him how you see the situation. Tell him what's happening to you, how you wish it was different. Tell him what you wish he would do. God knows you are hurting, he knows you are angry. He knows the world is broken, and he wants you to initiate the conversation. He wants you to approach him with it. If all we ever do is praise God and thank him and worship him and never approach him with how we really feel, the problems we really face, the hurt we really have, we aren't in relationship with God. We're being fake. God doesn't want fake. He wants us to let it out.

You might think that sounds hard, but really, it's the easy part. Because after we let it out to God, we then have to put it down before God. We have to submit to God. We have to accept that God is in charge over this issue. We can tell him how we wish he would deal with it. We can tell him what we want. But we have to put our hurt and our pain down at God's feet and say, “This hurts, and I want you to take care of it, because I can't.” When we look at psalm 22, we can see how this takes shape for David, how he puts down his troubles before God. To him, God feels far away. But in verses 3, 4 and 5 we see the truth of the matter, “Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One; you are the praise of Israel. In you our ancestors put their trust; they trusted and you delivered them. They cried to you and were saved; in you they trusted and were not disappointed.” David feels forsaken, but he knows that God delivers his people, and so he has to has to submit to that truth. You have to take the anger and hurt and pain of your circumstances, and put them down before a God who you know is all powerful, and all loving, and you have to accept that he is the only one who can deal with them. You have to submit to God's authority in the matter, recognise his pre-eminence over you - even your pain and suffering. In our prayers of complaint to God, we are not demanding that God resign his position as if it is somehow his fault. Your suffering and your pain are not some scandal that God must feel responsible for. God is in charge, and you are coming to God to set wrong things right. You don't go to court to blame the judge for your problems. You complain about what has happened to you, then you look to her to set things right. You have let out your feelings, now you must accept God's authority to take action.

Is that how you see God? Do you see him as a judge in authority who can arbitrate between you and a broken world, heal the wounds, make sure justice is done? Or do you see God as some politician on whom to heap blame, and try and make responsible, and push for his resignation? Because that is wrong. God is not beholden to us. Realise that if you are complaining to God about your life, you are also putting God in authority to be in charge of that life. We have to all learn to submit our lives to God, and accept that he is the one in charge, not us. That's what Jesus did on Good Friday.

Finally, we are told that the last step in the prayer of complaint is relinquishment. I've said that after we let it out, and we put it down, we finally have to give it up. For many of us I think this is the hardest step of all, because it means letting go of that situation which is causing us to suffer, and accepting that it belongs to God, and he will take care of it now. In the Bible, prayers of complaint always end in trust in God and praise for God. Complaining to God is a step of faith. We are taking it on faith that if we step out before God and bring him our problems, that he will accommodate us and deal with those problems. We have let it all out – all the anger, the pain, the suffering, the tragedy of our circumstances. We have then put it down at the feet of God, accepting his authority to deal with our life as he sees fit. In this final step, we give it up – we have to be prepared to walk away from that problem, trusting that God has it now, and will deal with it. So much faith should we have in God to deal with that problem, that we should be able to say, like David in the psalm in verse 24, “For he has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help.” We should be so assured of God's action in our circumstance that we can say, as in verse 31 that future generations “will proclaim his righteousness, declaring to a people yet unborn: He has done it!”

Imagine you were in significant financial trouble. You can't pay your mortgage, or your credit card bills. You're in debt up to your ears. You even, in a panic, borrowed some money from some shady criminal types. The day is coming when all these debts are going to fall due, and you know you just can't pay. So you call out to someone for help. You pour out to them all the woes and troubles that you have had, and you beg them to help you with your trouble. Imagine they don't say anything back, but you know that every time someone has come to them, every single time, they have been helped. You know that whenever you've needed this person, they have been there for you. How well are you going to sleep that night? It all depends on how much you trust that person to be able to deal with that problem, doesn't it? How likely is it they can solve the problem, and how likely is it that they actually want to help you? That's what will determine whether you stay up worrying all night, or whether you sleep like a baby. And when someone asks you, “Hey Ben, how are things with you? How are your financial troubles?” if you really trust that person to solve the problem, you'll say, “They're fine. Been taken care of,” because they are as good as solved.

How many Christians do you think lost their jobs and their homes in the recent global financial crisis? For them, this would have been a real life situation, not just an imaginary story. How well did they sleep, I wonder. How well would I sleep? Could I give it up - my painful, worrisome situation - knowing that God has it under control? Some scholars think that the Israelites were so sure of God's answering their prayers that they would give thanksgiving offerings at the tabernacle or temple before they had even received the answer to their prayer. They would say, “He has done it!” Would you be prepared to put money down in expectation that God will surely answer your prayer, your complaint? That's what it means to relinquish – to give it up.

Let it out, put it down, give it up. That is how we should complain to God, how we should acknowledge his authority, and how we should expect action from him.

To close, I'm going to read a poem that I wrote in the form of a complaint to God. Seeing as I told all songwriters here to write one, I figured I should at least try. This is my complaint to God, but I hope that, like other individual complaints, it might help us all.

I call you my God,

but you're so far away.

Yet I know you are there,

so I ask every day.

Sometimes they attack me,

those who don't believe.

They jeer and they sneer,

but no help I receive.

Why is there suffering?

Why is there pain?

It's a fair enough question,

why don't you explain?

You, God, have made things

so hidden and vague,

while they ask, "Why the crusades?"

or "Why the black plague?"

Please, open your mouth, God!

To them, make it plain.

Help them see that a Christian

can still have a brain.

Show them they're mistaken,

When they say I'm a beast,

Like a greedy tele-evangelist,

or a paedophile priest.

Give me strength to continue

to stand up for what's right,

and not fall for the dark things

in which they delight.

I call out to you, father,

to make these blind ones see.

And I know that you'll do it,

because you did it for me.