Sermon - Mark 14:43-72

I tell you, I am so glad to have this sermon done. Two sermons back to back is a bit of a burn at the best of times, but when they are on two completely different subjects? It's like changing gear without a clutch.

Huzzah, from Monday I can get back to Ezekiel!

PS You may recall that I say this occasionally - I include various notes and little frameworks and stuff that I use, and even anything I write but don't end up including into my sermons. So that note about "starting with something about truth" falls into that - it was there because I didn't start my sermon the usual way - I started sort of at the fourth paragraph. For this sermon I also printed out the passage and took it on the train to work with me and scribbled various things. There aren't that many, I'll type them below with verse references.

Also, I haven't timechecked this one before posting it (I usually do) so I might end up cutting some stuff out before I give it - but then, I would have included it all for you, the discerning reader, anyway.

Mark 14:43-72

- Judas betrays Jesus – putting this world first (think they are smarter than God)

- “Scripture must be fulfilled”

- trial by religious leaders – putting religion first (think they are holier then God)

- Peter's denial – putting himself first (know they are too weak for God)

v44 Why did Judas betray Jesus? -> Some people know the truth and don't want it.

v47 Why only half the story?

v48 Danger of Jesus' teaching

v49 Do you trust the Scripture so much?

vs51-52 Wtf?

v54 Not that far - perhaps how we know about the whole thing

v56 Ends justify means?

v61 Why answer a bad case? Asked a question again, but not this question

v63 What is blasphemy really?

v65 Hatred of ideology, need to embarrass

v72 Everyone deserted him, v50. Peter knows the truth, but denies it - cf Judas

Words

(start with something about the truth)

Have you ever had someone you think you can trust betray you? Have you ever had a friend let you down? Ever had a family member do something sinister behind your back? It is a terrible feeling when someone breaks trust – whether they tell a secret they promised they would keep, or lie to you about something important, or sometimes even worse. A friend of mine was the director of an organisation, and he was betrayed by one of his employees, who was rerouting his phone calls, answering his emails, taking speaking engagements and meetings with important people, and basically trying to usurp his authority with his other employees in the hope of stealing the position of director from him. At the very same time, his own brother was attempting to use an enduring power of attorney to try and steal the life savings and family home of their own mother and put it into overseas bank accounts. It is difficult to imagine the feeling of betrayal that this man must have felt, both at work and then at home as well.

This awful feeling of betrayal, however, does not prevent us from turning around and becoming a betrayer in some situations. I am not of course suggesting that anyone here would undermine their boss, or would try and steal from their own parents. But let me describe two situations where I have been accused of betraying someone, and see if you can relate to them. I have been on a panel of leaders where a close friend of mine has put up a detailed submission about an action that panel should take, and when it has come to a vote, I have voted against my close friend's submission. He felt that I had betrayed him because I had argued against him to vote down his submission that he had worked hard on. I have also witnessed a debate between my wife and another person, and when asked what my opinion was on the subject, disagreed with my wife. In this case I broke the cardinal rule that all married men know so well – always side with your wife.

Why did I do these things, commit these acts of betrayal, albeit minor, against people I love? I would have said that I was standing up for the truth, standing up for what I believe in, and that the truth is important. In reality, of course, what I was doing was just wanting to be right, and putting my own understanding of a situation or subject ahead of the understandings of others, wanting to throw in my two cents, have my say. They might say that I betrayed their trust by not agreeing with them, but the truth is that I didn't trust their ability to make a good decision on the one hand, or the force of their argument on the other.

As a church, you have been working through the book of Mark, except for one week where someone accidentally prepared a sermon on Luke and the triumphal entry. But I've been invited back, and this time I promise we will stick to the book of Mark. And you have come a long way in Mark, too. Jesus appears on the scene rather suddenly in Mark, announced by John the Baptist as the coming messiah. He travels the land doing miracles, teaching about God with authority, and winding his way slowly but surely to Jerusalem, where he predicts he is going to die. He does a little more predicting, too – actually predicting two things that happen in the passage we are looking at today. Those two things are the actions of two of his disciples. One of them, he says, is going to betray him. Once he is arrested, the rest are going to desert him. To which they all say, “No, we'd never do that!” One in particular, Simon, who Jesus called Peter, is particularly forceful, saying he'd rather die than disown Jesus. To which Jesus replies by predicting that Peter will in fact deny him three times before the morning has come and the rooster has crowed.

In Mark 14:43, all of these predictions come to a head. This section marks the beginning of the end of Jesus' preaching and teaching ministry, and starts him on the road towards the passion – towards his ministry as a sacrifice to God for our wrongdoing. In this section, we are going to see the attitude of three people towards Jesus, his ministry and his position as Messiah.

First, we see Judas betray Jesus. That is how our passage today starts. Judas sold Jesus out to his enemies, we are told elsewhere, for 30 pieces of silver. Jesus was quite popular with the crowds, as you may remember, and so the religious leaders, who were plotting to have him killed, couldn't just arrest him in the street in the middle of the day, or else the people would have been up in arms against them. So they needed someone to tell them where Jesus goes to be alone, so they can ambush him under cover of darkness. But why does Judas partake in this betrayal? We read earlier that Judas actually approaches the religious leaders and offers to hand Jesus over. It's not like they approached him in a dark alley and opened a suitcase full of money, and he was just tempted by greed. No, there was more to it than that. Just before this section, you might remember that a woman approached Jesus and poured expensive perfume over his head, and some of the disciples rebuked her, saying that it would have been better to sell the perfume and give the money to the poor. But Jesus rebuked them, saying that this was a great thing she had done, it was an anointing, it was special, because he was special.

Mark doesn't tell us specifically (although John does in his gospel), but he implies that at least one of the disciples that complained and rebuked the woman was none other than Judas Iscariot, the betrayer. This is implied by the fact that directly after telling this story, Judas goes off and finds the high priest and offers to betray Jesus. It is a phenomenal story – one of Jesus' closest disciples hands him over to his death. When Jesus says at the last supper that the one who dips bread in the same bowl as him, ancient eating customs tell us that he is talking about someone who is sitting right beside him. Judas sat right beside Jesus at the last supper, like a best friend or a close confidant. And then then that very evening he betrayed him.

I think Judas often gets dismissed as 'the one who sold Jesus out for a bag of coins'. But as I said, I don't think greed was the only issue here. Sure, we know that Judas occasionally stole from the communal purse that the disciples carried – John tells us that too. I can assure you that there have been, and still are, treasurers of churches who have dipped into the church funds. This just makes them sinners, and we're all sinners. After all, Judas hung around with Jesus a long time, and was in the group of twelve that he kept around him. He learned from Jesus, spoke in Jesus' name, drove out demons in Jesus' name. So why the betrayal? I think the straw that broke the camel's back for Judas was Jesus telling him off for wanting to help the poor. Not that he specifically cared about the poor, but that he got sick of being told by Jesus that he had it wrong.

Think of the number of times Jesus had to rebuke the disciples. When Jesus calmed the storm, he rebukes them and asks why they have no faith. When they ask him to send away the crowds to get food, Jesus tells them, “No, you give them something to eat.” When Jesus tells the Pharisees that their religious cleansing rights don't make them righteous, and the disciples ask him to explain, Jesus responds, “Are you so dull?” After he fed the four thousand and he warns them about the yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod, they think he's admonishing them for not bringing enough bread, and he says to them, “Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened?” “Do you still not understand?” They argue about who is the greatest, and he tells them they're wrong. They tell someone to stop driving out demons in Jesus' name, and he tells them they were wrong. The disciples drove away people who brought their children to Jesus, and Jesus rebuked them again. They tell the blind man Bartimaeus to be quiet, and Jesus stops them. When they are amazed at his cursing of the fig tree, he tells them to have faith in God. A disciple remarks at the wonder of the great temple to God, and Jesus replies that it will be destroyed. It gets annoying to be constantly told that you're wrong, and if you don't respect the authority of the teacher telling you that his is right and you are wrong, you grumble, and you think, “I'm not stupid. I'll show this so-called teacher.” And so Judas betrays Jesus, because Judas thinks he is right and Jesus is wrong. It is not a coincidence that in betraying Jesus with a kiss, Judas calls him “Rabbi”, or teacher.

Have you ever questioned how God does things? Have you ever thought, “Look at all this pain in the world. If I was in charge, I wouldn't do it this way. Why is that bad man allowed to earn lots of money and get into power, while good righteous people are mistreated? Why are murderers and rapists given God's grace and saved, when good people who are trying their best to help, but don't believe in Jesus, go to hell? Why is homosexuality a sin, when it doesn't hurt anyone? God, you're wrong.” These words are said by people every day, and lived out by them in every decision they make. We all say these same things – perhaps not so blatantly, but every time we do something we know is wrong, every time we let our anger get the better of us, or we spend money in things we don't need, or we judge someone, or we look at pornography, or whatever way we slip and stumble, we are saying to God, “I know better than you how to run my life.” We are betraying God, like Judas did. Selling God out for 30 pieces of silver. We are saying that we can run our lives better than God can, we know better what we need than God does, and we would rather the coins in our pocket than get told what to do by God.

Friends, if this rings a bell with you, listen up. You are wrong. God is perfect, and he knows exactly what we need. He knows the world is broken, and he is going to fix it – but he will take his time, until he has given all people a chance to hear his offer of peace and accept it or reject it. In heaven, there is no pain, no war, no hunger, no poverty, nothing bad at all. Yes, God tells you how to live your life. Yes, he will convict your conscience that you are doing the wrong thing, and yes, sometimes that stings, realising that you are doing wrong. But he also offers the solution – he offers to save you from your own imperfections, and to make you perfect in God's sight. We all know that the life of self-indulgence here on earth looks tempting, and it pulls at our desires. But it is not fulfilling, and ultimately, it leads to us being enemies of God. God is offering to make peace with us, to forget our crimes, and to lead us into heaven, where everything will be perfect. But you have to accept that God is in charge, and that he makes the decisions, not us.

Judas could not accept this, and so he betrayed Jesus into the hands of the High Priest and his followers, armed with swords and clubs. One of those standing near Jesus draws a sword and cuts off one of the men's ears. That's pretty nasty. Mark doesn't tell us the full story – Jesus heals that man. He wants us to feel the tension of the moment – two groups, armed, ready to fight. But Jesus shows that he is not prepared to let this encounter come to bloodshed. He asks the servants of the high priest how dangerous they really think he is, that they come with an armed mob to arrest him. He was in the temple courts teaching every day, and they never arrested him then. He then says, “But the Scriptures must be fulfilled.” Jesus knows that his capture and his death are predicted in the Old Testament, and so he does not put up a fight. What do the disciples do? They run. The servants of the high priest probably outnumbered the disciples, they were tired, sleepy, and their leader had just given up. So they turn tail and flee. One young man is only dressed in his underpants – when the high priest's men grab him, he struggles and flees naked, leaving them holding his underwear. So you can see that the high priest's men weren't just after Jesus, they probably wanted to arrest the whole group. But in the dark (and in the ancient world night time was really dark) when a group of people runs off into the blackness, you're not going to catch them.

Here we see the second attitude to Jesus as they arrest him and take him to the high priest. The high priest is sure that Jesus has done something wrong. But no matter how hard he tried, no matter how many people they called in looking for evidence against Jesus of wrongdoing, they could not get any true statements. They got a bunch of false statements, but none of them agreed. They tried to twist his words, but even then they could still not agree on what he had said. The high priest asked him to answer these false and confused allegations, but Jesus just sat silently. Why even answer such obviously false testimony? So the high priest stops trying to trick Jesus with false testimony and lies, and asks him straight out the key thing that the religious leaders all fear so much, “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?” Jesus replies that he is, and that he will sit at God's right hand, in a position of authority.

This was the fear of the religious leaders of Jesus' time. They were in charge of all the religious trappings of the Jews at the time. If people wanted to know how to serve God, they came and asked these religious leaders, this high priest. Jesus was saying that they were wrong. So they wanted him dead. Again, it is not just a simple matter of money or power. They knew that Jesus was teaching something that didn't line up with the way they saw God, with the way they saw worship, and the way they saw people should act if they want to be right with God. In their eyes, Jesus had spoken against the Sabbath, spoken against ritual cleansing, spoken against the temple, and these were things that these religious leaders were sure were from God. They were sure that if they followed these practices, they would be holy and acceptable as God's people. But in all their concern about holiness and how to live correctly, they had actually forgotten the God who it was all meant to serve. The high priest and his followers were so sure that they needed to protect God and his holiness that they thought any means would justify that end – even bringing false testimony against an innocent man. When Jesus claimed to be the Messiah, and the Son of God, they accused him of blasphemy, and they would have been right about anyone else in the whole world. But Jesus was the Son of God. He was the Messiah. They could not believe that they were wrong about God and how people were to approach God. They thought when it came to holiness, they knew it all.

But Jesus was not like the religious leaders. He went and took God to the people who need him most – prostitutes, drunks, tax collectors (who were basically seen as thieves and traitors), poor people, sick people, widows. The high priest and religious leaders thought that God could not protect himself from sinners, as if his holiness and purity were somehow fragile and easily destroyed. They thought that they were holier than God, and could protect God from the evils of the world. But God doesn't need protection. God's holiness is not fragile. It is mighty. God's righteousness defeats all the evil of the world. God is in control, not evil. Jesus proved that time and time again by walking into the house of a prostitute, or a tax collector, or going to the crypts of the dead, or to the barren lands where the demon possessed lived, and every single time he came out clean, and it was the evil things that had been done away with. The high priest was so afraid of Jesus corrupting the way people came to God, that he used corrupt tactics to try and bring him down. But Jesus was so holy and righteous that he could have dinner with a prostitute and walk out of her house clean, and she was the one whose life changed.

For many of us in church, we are far more like the high priest than we are like Judas. We believe in God, we seek to serve him. We want to do the right thing. We want to live a holy life. But we get it wrong, because we get so tied up in how to be a good churchgoer, that we forget what it means to be a good servant of God. We instead start to serve our own idea of holiness, our own idea of righteousness, and we begin defending it, because lo and behold, it can't defend itself. And no wonder it can't defend itself, because it's probably wrong. We are not more holy than God. God is holy, and we are called to be holy because he is holy. We are to be holy like God, not some crazy made-up holiness that we create on our own. God's holiness can stand up against any evil or any corruption. In fact, God's holiness cleanses sinful people and makes them clean. But God's holiness is very confronting, because it is holy without being judgemental. It doesn't need to judge, because it knows what is right and what is wrong, so it just goes and does what is right. That is the spirit of righteousness and holiness that dwells within the Christian. How confident are you of God's holiness? Do you trust him to have the judgement and salvation of the world in hand, and so take part in it under his authority? Or do you think that you know what is really right and wrong, and so stand in judgement over people, and try to protect God's holiness by waging your own war against perceived evil?

Finally, in the midst of the high priest's trial of Jesus, we see Peter. Peter ran off with all the other disciples, but now he has found his way to the high priest's household, and is standing in the courtyard, warming himself by the fire as the trial takes place. But he gets spotted. The high priest's servants are still after Jesus' followers, so when Peter is confronted by them about being one of Jesus' disciples, he denies it and walks outside to the entranceway. But she sees Peter standing there, she says it again, and now more servants are around. Peter starts to feel the pressure, and he denies it once more. But the other servants are a bit wary now, and they say, “You must be, you've got the same country accent as Jesus,” and Peter is so upset now that he swears at them and curses them, “I don't know this man at all!” he says. Then the rooster crows, and Peter is reminded of Jesus' prediction concerning him, and he breaks down and cries.

Peter cries because he realises that in his weakness he has done exactly what he promised Jesus he would never do – desert him. Jesus was his teacher, his rabbi, his leader, his close friend, and also he was the Son of God, the Christ, the Messiah of his people. Peter realised this, and actually confessed it to Jesus. But now, Jesus has been captured by his enemies and is being tried and convicted of blasphemy. Jesus is going to die – and Peter ran. All the disciples did. Peter didn't have what it took to serve Jesus, and when Jesus needed him most, he ran. And then when Jesus was busy being put on trial for things he didn't do, Peter was out there denying he'd ever heard of him. Peter is a failure.

I am going to go out on a limb and say that it is Peter's response that we should seek to follow. We should not be like Judas, and think that we are smarter than God. We should definitely not be like the high priest, and think that we are holier than God. No, we should be like Peter, and realise that we are, in fact, too weak for God. We will fail all the time. But God shows his strength through our weakness. God's power is made perfect in weakness, Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 12:9. The weakness of God is stronger than humanity's greatest strength, says Paul in 1 Corinthians 1:25. Yes, we will all sin. We will all fall short of the glory of God, as it says in Romans 3:23. But as it goes on to say in Romans 3:24, “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” Jesus is the strong one. It is with his strength that we are saved, with his grace that we are justified, and it is with his power that we go out to serve him.

How upset do you get when you fail at following Christ? Do you weep about it? Does it bring you to your knees, like it did Peter? He was devastated that he had let Jesus down. Are you? It should hurt us that we have disobeyed God. But so often, our attitude is so much like Judas, that we think we know better than God, or it is so much like the high priest that we think we are holier than God, that we actually don't even realise we have failed God, so it never effects us. But trust me, you are a sinner, and you have denied God just like Peter did, just like all the disciples did. Every single one – not one hung around to get persecuted with Jesus. They all did the runner. And so have you, and so have I. And we will do it again. That thought should cut us to the bone. But it should also make us cry out for joy that God forgives us, that he is the strong one so we don't need to be. Because Jesus was found guilty, even though he was innocent; because Jesus was beaten and mocked, ridiculed, stripped, whipped, and nailed to a cross; because God poured out his anger and his wrath on Jesus, we are safe. Even though we fail. Even though we are weak. We are safe. He will work in us, and through us, so that it will be his strength that accomplishes his will. He includes us because he is a great and gracious and merciful God. Not because we are smart. Not because we are holy. But because we are so weak, that by using us to accomplish his means, people will be amazed at the strength of God.

Let's give thanks and glory to God that he can use us, just like he used Peter.

Sermon: Cursing Psalms (Psalm 109)

Imprecatory psalms

Psalm 109

- the challenge of the cursing psalms and a loving God

- Why are they in the Bible? (cultural difference: honour/shame, magic)

- How should we read them? (the reality of evil, the need for justice)

- What use are they to us today? (persecution, justice)

Words

When I was at university, an email did the rounds of the internet asking a bunch of questions of Christianity. Actually, 'asking questions' is probably too light a term. The truth is, the email didn't want answers. It wanted to fire a cannon ball of hatred at God, expressing the anger and frustration of the unbeliever against a system of belief which they thought was to blame for all the pain and trouble in the world. Many non-Christians got this email and simply forwarded it on as a chain letter, and it no doubt appeared in millions of people's email inboxes. And among the vitriol was the question, “If God is so loving, why does he want people to dash babies against rocks in psalm 139? What kind of messed up, sick God is that? Read psalm 139, people.”

Now, there was a very simple answer to this particular question – can anyone tell me what it is? That's right, there is no mention of dashing babies against rocks in psalm 139! The writer of the email was obviously working on second-hand information, and had never bothered to open the Bible for themselves and check. Instead, they had simply grabbed a bunch of “Hard questions to ask Christians about their beliefs” from a list online, which in this case had a typographical error. Because of course we all know that the Bible doesn't mention dashing babies on rocks in psalm 139 at all – it talks about it in psalm 137 verse 9. The problem of course is that this answer just shifts the focus to the mistaken chapter and verse reference, but leaves the real question asked fundamentally unanswered. An answer to that question is a lot more difficult, because psalm 137 does indeed contain people praying to God about how happy those would be who take the babies of Israel's enemy, Babylon, and dash them against rocks. It's not wicked people talking about this, it's not the ungodly – it is God's people, Israel, praying to God, cursing their enemies with thoughts and images and requests and acceptance of violence against young children.

And this isn't the only time it happens, either. In fact, there is a whole group of psalms which can be called imprecatory, or cursing, psalms. These are psalms where God's people call out to him in a direct way to act against their enemies, and in doing so call for terrible, sometimes disturbing retribution. They are called cursing psalms because basically they involve God's people calling down curses on God's enemies. And let me tell you, the hate-filled vitriol of internet atheists has to work pretty hard to keep up with the vengeful savagery of the psalmists. There are some that I would simply not read publicly in church. The psalm we're focusing on today, Psalm 109, has been called a “raw, undisciplined song of hate” by some. There are some Christians, even theologians, who say that it has no place in the modern world, or in modern Christian churches. It doesn't talk about dashing babies against rocks, or bathing our feet in the blood of our enemies, some of the more disturbing language that one can find. But what it lacks in disturbing imagery, it makes up for in volume of spite.

So what does it say? Starting from verse 6, just let me look at what David, a man who sought to serve God in everything he did and said, requested God do to his enemies. Let me paraphrase and summarise them into everyday language. David wants his enemies to be ruled by a tyrant, and accused of wrongdoing by their friends. He wants them to be found guilty of wrong, he wants their very prayers to show they are guilty. He wants them to have only a short life, and for them to lose their position of importance. He wants them to die young so their children and wives are left without fathers and a husbands. He wants their families to be poor and ruined. He wants the debt collectors to come and clean out their houses. He wants people to ignore the needs of their poor, fatherless children as they beg on the street. He doesn't want these people's families to survive another generation. He wants their parents to be judged harshly by God, so that their whole family both above and below his enemies are blotted out from existence. He wants them cursed, he wants God to hold back blessings, he wants curses to never leave them, he wants his enemy wrapped in disgrace and shame forever.

Ouch. David, king of Israel, man of God's heart, is espousing a litany of hate against his enemies, and God sees fit to include this in the songbook of his people! We could probably be convicted of inciting hatred if we sung this sort of song today. How are we to understand this psalm of cursing? There really is a lot more to an ancient curse than we can easily understand from our modern viewpoint. Curses often included a list of complaints about the actions of another person, and why they deserve to be cursed. In this way, the public cursing of someone could bring shame upon them as the curser publicly voiced the real, or imagined, crimes of the cursee. We see this in psalm 109, where David complains in verse 2 that, “people who are wicked and deceitful have opened their mouths against me; they have spoken against me with lying tongues.” Again in verse 25 he says, “I am an object of scorn to my accusers; when they see me, they shake their heads.” So in this way we can see something of a similarity with modern cases of defamation, where by slander and libel someone seeks to undermine another person's character in public. You may have heard the political saying, “Whenever you throw mud at someone, no matter how clean they are, some of it sticks.”

But there is much more to it. In ancient times, curses were seen as powerful words that could cause harm and injury to another person. Cast your mind back to the story of Balaam in the book of Numbers. Although we sometimes get distracted by the fact that Balaam had a talking donkey, the reason he enters the story of Israel at all is that Balak, king of Moab, summons him to come and put a curse on the Israelites. In Numbers 22 we read, “So Balak son of Zippor, who was king of Moab at that time, sent messengers to summon Balaam son of Beor, who was at Pethor, near the River, in his native land. Balak said: "A people has come out of Egypt; they cover the face of the land and have settled next to me. Now come and put a curse on these people, because they are too powerful for me. Perhaps then I will be able to defeat them and drive them out of the country."”

So you see a curse was more than just a list of obscenities or complaints about someone's character or actions. A curse was looked at like magic words that you could use to call down pain and suffering on an enemy, to weaken them. With a curse, Balak hoped to weaken his enemy, Israel, enough that he could then defeat them in battle. These were not idle words, any more than pointing a loaded gun at someone is an idle threat. If you point a gun at someone and pull the trigger, you don't hope a bullet flies towards them, you expect them to get hurt. In calling down a curse, you were doing more than wishing, you were expecting suffering to come that person's way. What are we left with, then, in psalm 109, or psalm 137 with the babies on the rocks, or the breaking of people's teeth in psalm 58? We are left with a smoking gun in the hands of God's people, who are pointing these curses at their enemies.

Now obviously God's people realised that cursing words in and of themselves are not as powerful as their mighty God, Lord of Hosts. So they just changed their language and called down the curses in God's name, called on God to make the curses happen, and so now God is also complicit in these events – he gave the Israelites the bullets for their smoking gun by accepting their curses as prayers.

By now, the question that should be ringing loud and clear in our minds as Christians is, “Where is the love?” How does these curses stack up alongside Jesus' call to love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you? We say that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, but does God really want prayers of cursing from his people today? How can we say we are loving our enemies when we are asking for their kids to wander the streets as beggars and not survive to the next generation? You can see the temptation here to try and drop these cursing psalms like a hot potato. The other curses in the Bible are a little more easily dismissed – the prophets curse Israel's enemies? Well, that's just specific to the historical context of the prophets. Curses are called down in the Law? We are not under law, we are under grace. Jesus Christ himself curses Jerusalem? Well, he's Jesus, he's allowed. But the psalms – the book of prayers and songs in worship of God – these cannot be so easily dismissed. These words are inspired and attested to by God, affirmed by him in his inclusion of them into the Bible, which we believe he has made perfect and inerrant. And the psalms are included as the songs and prayers for God's people to use – they teach us how to pray! We can't just ditch bits of the Bible because they make us feel uncomfortable. Otherwise, why not drop out “You shall not commit adultery” or “be perfect because I am perfect” or “with man it is impossible” or “the wages of sin is death”? Of course, we can't go too far the other way either. We have to be culturally sensitive to our own times. We are no longer restrained by the food laws established under the Jerusalem council in Acts 15, but we are still sensitive to people's needs. We don't anoint people with oil when they are sick, but we still care for them. We don't wash people's feet, but we still welcome them and serve them humbly in God's name.

So, where does a psalm of cursing fit in this balance? When is it right for us to curse our enemies in God's name? To answer this question, we need to discover three things. Firstly, in the context of Jesus words, “love your enemies”, can we do this cursing at all? Secondly, who are our enemies? Finally, what should we ask for, and what should we expect? The first question is a real obstacle. Jesus' words in Matthew 5:44 are crystal clear, “I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Well, there it is, folks. How can we love our enemies if we're calling on God to kill their children, or bring them into shame and despair, or cause them to be ruled by tyrants? Shouldn't we just knuckle down and get on our knees and pray to God for their salvation? Shouldn't we pray that God will change their hearts? The answer, of course, is yes. And you know what? David did this. Listen to David's words in Psalm 35:11-17: “Ruthless witnesses come forward; they question me on things I know nothing about. They repay me evil for good and leave me like one bereaved. Yet when they were ill, I put on sackcloth and humbled myself with fasting. When my prayers returned to me unanswered, I went about mourning as though for my friend or brother. I bowed my head in grief as though weeping for my mother. But when I stumbled, they gathered in glee; assailants gathered against me without my knowledge. They slandered me without ceasing. Like the ungodly they maliciously mocked; they gnashed their teeth at me. How long, Lord, will you look on? Rescue me from their ravages, my precious life from these lions.”

David loved his enemies! He prayed for his persecutors! Even in psalm 109, where he is cursing them, he states from verse 3, “With words of hatred they surround me; they attack me without cause. In return for my friendship they accuse me, but I am a man of prayer. They repay me evil for good, and hatred for my friendship.” David loved his persecutors because he knew that is what God wanted. And we are quick to say that we acknowledge that God wants that too. And of course we are right – we should certainly not be quick to curse people, any more than we would be quick to shoot them in anger. God is a loving and forgiving God, and he calls on us, and empowers us, to be loving and forgiving to our enemies.


But King David knew what else God wants – God wants justice. God wants to see evil punished, he wants to see those that set themselves up as enemies of himself defeated. And for us, that can be a bitter pill to swallow. The idea of God as a loving God is one we cherish, and cling to. It's a warm, comforting truth, and it is true. But it's not the whole story, and we know it. For God is a just God, who desires to see justice meted out on those who disobey him, and rebel against him. This is a hard thing to say, but we have to come to terms with the truth of it. Hell is not empty. God sends people there. God hates sin. God wants justice. When people disobey God, ignore God, and refuse his authority as God, it is God's will that they are punished both in this world and in eternity. In psalm 109, David is putting voice to God's will to see the enemies of God punished, if they do not repent. The situation for us is no different. God still has enemies, God still loves justice, God will still bring down punishment on them. In praying for the punishment of sin and unrepentant sinners, we are praying in line with God's will. This is a hard teaching. Can you accept it? Do you accept that God's will means some people do not go to heaven? Can you accept that in the one hand God holds love, and in the other he holds judgement? Because this is the one true God.


No doubt you still struggle with this, and honestly I don't blame you. I think it's got a lot to do with our second question – that is, who are our enemies? How many of us today in the modern western world even really have enemies? I mean, I suppose technically we have troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, so I suppose they are our enemy in some sense. Perhaps you have an angry next door neighbour whose fruit always falls on your side of the fence, or plays his music too loud or something, or sends you angry letters. But seriously, how many of us have enemies that are like David's enemies – who spread lies about us, physically attack us, mistreat us or discriminate against us, and want everything we stand for and believe in destroyed? These are not just David's enemies, they are God's enemies. This is probably the reason why these psalms are so far from our understanding – we simply don't have people knocking on our door ready to kill us simply for coming here this morning. That idea for many of us is unfathomable. Perhaps we don't even see the enemies of God. So then are these psalms of any worth to us at all?


The answer is yes, but it means expanding our frame of prayer reference a bit. Will we pray against those who seek to undermine and destroy Christianity here at home? Those in positions of power and privilege who use their influence to try and attack God through his church, in whatever way they can? The Richard Dawkinses and the Peter Singers, and the university lecturers who go out of their way to give their Christian students a hard time, the atheist employers who won't give a Christian a job, those members of the sceptics societies or the atheist societies who lobby the government to deny right to Christians. God has no end of enemies. Remember too, there are Christians who live in fear. There are Christians who wait for that knock on the door, who receive threats in the mail, who are attacked, slandered and mistreated where they live. Do we feel the injustice when our brothers in Christ get sentenced to 15 years in jail simply for being a house church leader, like Alimujiang Yimiti was in October 2009? Do we feel for the families of three Christians who were killed, and many more injured, by Muslim bombing attacks on churches in Iraq over Christmas? Do we get angry when Christian women get raped, and are then forced to marry their rapists in countries like Egypt? The enemies of Christ are very real, and are striking harshly and evilly at God's people around the world. Will we pray for justice? Will we stand alongside our persecuted brothers and sisters in Christ and pray for God to judge his enemies for their evil deeds?Even as we love these enemies, even as we pray for them as they persecute us or our brothers and sisters far away, there is a place for asking God to bring his judgement on those who wilfully seek to continually disobey and rebel against his rule.


Which brings us to the final question about how these cursing psalms relate to us. What is it we should be asking for, and what exactly should we expect from God in this matter? Are we really going to be praying for people's teeth to be knocked out? For their children to be killed, or their homes to be looted by debt collectors? To be honest, I just don't think we feel the anger for these crimes against God and his church to be able to muster up this sort of language. Maybe if our turn comes to feel the whip of persecution on our backs, we will change. But for now, we can at least pray for justice. We can pray that those who attack Christians will be defeated. On Christmas Day in Mosul last year a group of armed Muslim extremists stormed a church demanding to perform Muslim rites in the church building. They started shooting and the church guards – because over there churches need guards – returned fire. Who are we praying will win such a gunfight? May their rifles jam and their ammunition explode in their faces. May those who oppress and persecute churches in their country be discovered for their fraud or their adultery or their mistreatment of animals, and lose their important office. May those who seek to crush the spirit of Christ in our young people with militant atheism face depression and anxiety and sadness at their life's work.


But what we can not forget, what we must not forget, is that this justice only holds if they do not repent of their wrongdoing. It makes for a challenging prayer, to both pray for the salvation and judgement of wrongdoers. But that is what we must do. As Christian author John Day put it, loving prayer for repentance and salvation is the business as usual of God's church – but when evil men remain unrepentant, the godly call for God's extreme justice. Because God is faithful and just, and will forgive all sin of those who repent of it, who turn away from it and turn to God for forgiveness. Those people are no longer enemies, but friends, brothers, sisters, and we should welcome them with open arms. Just like Christ has done for all of us.


If these cursing psalms give us a greater appreciation of God's love and his justice, then we are already well served. If they assist us in praying and caring for our persecuted siblings in Christ, then they are a valuable tool. And if they enable us to recognise those enemies of God in our own midst, and pray for their salvation and judgement, then we can only be more effective in the places God has put us.

A Poem

This poem was written by a friend in NY (New York for you non-USA people) who heard my sermon on psalm 22 (listen to it yourself here), and was moved to write a song of complaint herself. I call her Pame. Enjoy.

Dear God

Why am I so alone, Dear God?

Is it because it's what I choose?

Is it because i'm afraid of what I might lose,

Because I am so selfish?

I question daily, what my purpose is, here.

If it is really mine, or something theirs,

And constantly I wonder if anyone cares,

Even You, the Lord.

Why do you test me,

Make a jest of me?

Then again it might not be them,

It might be You, it might be me,

Living in this space of uncertainty,

That You might exsist at all.

Who will catch me when I fall?

Seems like it always has to be me.

Where is someone supposed to be?

Where are You?

Am I to settle into a blanket of uncertainty,

Constantly?

Are You, God simply a crutch,

For when I feel I have done so much,

Or so little for those around me.

A simple figment of imagination,

Who shuns with complation?

Not just you God,

Why do they all forsake me?

Am I so weak as to,

Only use you to speak through,

When all is falling apart?

What are the real depths of my heart?

Where can I even start..

At the middle or the end?

Where do You bother to come in?

Why should I even believe?

Is there even room to comprimise,

What is Your disguise then?

What am I supposedly going to recieve?

Or should it be me the one I despise,

Not You?

Show me that my doubts are untrue!

It's as if I have lost my spine,

And all the promises,

That You have made,

Through other people's writing,

Is supposed to entwine

My faith, so simply.

Tell me how to behave,

And why I should enslave,

My soul to You.

Is it too late,

To believe?

I Pray,

Lift me up from this misery,

Take me in your arms and make it all

Blasphemy.

Take away my sufference for a day,

Make it all go away,

Just for one day,

Dear God.

I Pray.

Show me.

"Praying is all very well, but if you don't drop everything that's tugging you in different directions and hold empty hands out to God, he can't really put anything in them or take hold of them to lead in any direction."

- said by our very own Nina Van Drempt

Ezekiel chapter 1

vs 10

Lion, Ox, Eagle - all of which are powerful beings.

vs 11

Why do their wings cover their bodies? I have no idea. Unless it is to keep themselves covered for the sake of decency. I mean, they are beasts with human faces.

vs 12

We've already heard about them going straight ahead. But it's the mention of spirit that seems odd to me. I would have thought it would be the wind they are following. When did the spirit come into it, and why, if it is the spirit of God, isn't it capitalised? Perhaps it will become clear.

vs 13

Scary stuff. I don't know that it is meant to really symbolise anything more than a very scary and impressive approach.

vs 14

So they moved in straight lines and didn't turn, but they sped back and forth? The flashes of lightning bit makes me think that they're almost blinking forward and backward, like a movie special effect.

vs 15

Just one wheel each? So they're not chariots. Unicycles? I think I'd pay to see that circus.

vs 16

Right, so the wheels are all alike, made of topaz, and a wheel intersecting a wheel? Okay. I mean, if you're trying to confuse me, you've succeeded.

vs 17

Ahh, see, I was going to ask about that. Because I thought they were in a line, and then a verse earlier said something about all their wingtips touching, and I thought, "but doesn't that mean they'd be in a circle?" I thought I was being anal, but look, here it is in black and white.

Now, apparently these wheels can travel sideways. Which sort of makes more sense with the wheel-intersecting-wheel thing. I mean, how else would you describe that? It sounds like four ribs that make up a hollow ball to me now. Topaz? Still weird for a wheel, or gyroscopic bally thing.

vs 18

Okay, I was waiting for eyes. Now we have the all-seeing eye balls. I wouldn't want to have my eyes stuck to wheels rolling in the dirt. But you get the feeling that they see everything.

Ezekiel chapter 1

Yes, you read right. I may be here for some time. Especially given this will get interrupted by sermon prep and stuff.

vs 1

Forgive me if I don't know what year Ezekiel was born, so this does make for a slightly difficult dating system. No doubt if you are really interested, you'll look it up somewhere. The nub of the matter is that this is during exile. So it's a sucky time. Although I guess any time is a good time to get a vision from God - and exile possibly the best time.

vs 2

There we go, see, that gives us a much better date. Good man, Ezekiel!

vs 3

So Ezekiel is a priest. That's good to know. And we now even know that where he is is in the land of Babylon. So that's pretty exiled.

vs 4

I'm not quite sure where the fire came from. But it's apparently red or white hot, and glowing. Which is pretty cool. The storm itself we assume is part of the vision. You imagine a whirling maelstrom of cloud and lightning, and tell me you don't think it's something to do with God, and God being all powerful.

vs 5

These four living creatures do a whole lot for God in visions. Now remember, part of the reason we're reading Ezekiel (in Bible study, and hence why I'm reading it here) is because we want to learn about Revelation better, and Penny refused to let us do Revelation without doing Ezekiel. So here we are with four creatures. They look kind of human - which is not my recollection of the ones in Rev, but hey, four is four, and creatures are creatures.

vs 6

See, that's just pretty messed up right here. What does the number four signify? Something, surely. Four wings I'd say means they can move around all over the place. Four faces? Seeing lots, perhaps? I don't know, I think eyes do that job. Four faces just makes them freaky.

vs 7

Yeah, okay. Sometimes you just have to admit you don't know what something means, and it just looks impressive. Bulls are a symbol of power, calfs I would think less so - although having said that, what did Israel make as an idol of God? A calf. So there you are. And bronze is a powerful alloy used in the manufacture of weapons. It's easy to forget we are talking iron age here I think, 593BC or so apparently, and so bronze is a symbol of strength I reckon.

vs 8

Freaky! Serious freak alert. I do not want to meet these things in a dark alley, or in a fiery windstorm of lightning for that matter.

vs 9

They're almost marching in angelic formation - wingtip to wingtip, not turning to the side as they move straight ahead. You read all this, and come on - even if you don't get all the imagery, just on the face of it the picture is one of power.

God is powerful, even when his people are in exile. Comforting thought.

Obadiah

vs 11

By standing idle when injustice is occurring, you are essentially like one of the robbers. Which when you think about it sucks, because you don't even profit. But you'll still be treated as one. This here is a verse you could use to establish the principle they've called in the States the "bad Samaritan" - the idea that by doing nothing when someone is in trouble, you are in fact liable.

vs 12

This was the issue - this was the reason they stood back. Because they don't like Israel, and they wanted it to fall. And God does not take kindly to this attitude towards his people. Especially from those who are so closely linked in their history.

vs 13

Just because God is judging his people doesn't mean it's right to be a part of that judgment. God can open a door for his people to be punished. And evil people can walk through it. That doesn't mean his vengance will not come down on you if you still choose to take action against his people. God just knows that evil people will do it, though.

vs 14

These just sound like the actions of people who have a personal vendetta. I mean, looting a house that's already broken into is opportunism. But lying in wait for someone fleeing a burning building... what kind of scum?

vs 15

And most nations back then - and probably now - don't stand up to God's test. What we do will be returned on our heads. As nations. I suddenly care who I vote for a little more now.

vs 16

I'm not sure if this is meant to be a blessing or a curse. It's hard to tell. I mean, it could mean a number of things. It could mean that when the nations come to plunder Edom, they will do the drinking there.

vs 17

This is why I think that they'll do their drinking in Edom. Because in this verse it is Zion that becomes the deliverance and inheritance once more.

vs 18

And so the destruction of Edom is set out. It will come from God's people, it will be total. God has spoken.

vs 19

I'm not exactly sure what is going on in the next two verses. Are these Israelite people who are moving into Edom? Or is it other peoples from around Israel?

vs 20

The promise of God's people returning and having land is here. Even through the punishment of Edom there is hope for Israel. And I think this is the whole point of the little book. Through vengance comes salvation. Part of being saved from wickedness is the judgment of that wickedness.

vs 21

As will all places be in the end. God's dominion will stretch into eternity, and all things will come to his feet. I mean, it's his already, but he'll claim it, as it were.

Obadiah

vs 1

When we read this, we have to remember that although Obadiah was prophecying about Edom, most likely he was doing it to Israel. He may have gone down to Edom, or this message may have made it to them, but I think the primary audience of this written prophecy is Israel.

So the nations have been told to rise up in battle against poor Edom.

vs 2

Ouch. What is the reason behind this? Do they get given a reason? We'll find out, I guess. But imagine having all the surrounding nations hate you. Bit like Israel now.

vs 3

Sounds like Edom is placed in a pretty good strategic defensible area. But God's message is that high rock mountains and defensible areas are no match for him.

vs 4

Ouch. And when God brings you down, that's big time down. Israel learned that via exile.

vs 5

God is saying that having God against you is worse than having thieves or robbers or grape pickers, because even they will leave something behind. God is going to strip them bare.

vs 6

Ouch, even the hidden treasures taken. It's funny, but I guess back in those days one of the best ways to keep treasure was to just hide it.

vs 7

Even your friends will be against you. What an awful thought, to think that the people you rely on will not only ditch you, but actively work against you. And to be told beforehand of such a betrayal would make you feel terrible.

vs 8

And that's it for Edom. Even wise people, those wise people you hear about in Proverbs for whom things will be okay because of their wisdom - they're all gone.

vs 9

I don't know who Teman is. Oh, he's Esau's grandson. And this is really powerful and awful language. "Everyone will die. Slaughter, death, fear." Harsh!

vs 10

Now we get the reason. Edom has been violent against God's people, so now it is going down.
They are brothers, Jacob and Esau. But when Jacob was being robbed and harassed by the nations, Esau did nothing but watch, and possibly join in. Now they are going to get the same - the nations will plot and join against Edom, and it will fall. Not always good to be on the winning team.

Psalm 25

vs 12

I think the question is rhetorical. Either that, or you're recognise them because God will instruct them in his ways. Which is a pretty cool promise.

vs 13

This is sounding very proverbs-y right now. But I guess in reality what it is is promise-y, as in God's promise to his people.

vs 14

It's not as though God keeps the details of his covenant hidden from people. In making the covenant known, though, I suppose he is also offering for you to sign up to it.

vs 15

What is the snare? No idea. Could be his enemies, could be his own sin. Whatever it is, though, David knows that only God can free him from it.

vs 16

Poor David. He did have times of great affliction, and of loneliness. To be able to turn to God in such times is a huge comfort, and not in a psychological crutch way either. You can't know it till you've been there.

vs 17

The troubles might not go away, but the anguish and pain and sorrow can. God can give joy even in the midst of trouble.

vs 18

Don't take away the affliction necessarily. The sins are the primary problem, and no doubt the root cause too. So David asks God to hit the problem where it hurts.

vs 19

We have nothing like the number of enemies anymore, do we? Although living a life in leadership and political influence helps.

vs 20

Don't just protect me because of who I am. Protect me because I am protected by you. It's not tautological. The honour of the protector is at stake.

vs 21

Integrity and uprightness protect not because of what they are in themselves (although proverbially they do do that too) but because God delights in the upright and the righteous. What does that mean for the rest of us?

vs 22

Is this just a toss in line at the end, for all of Israel? Or was David using the singular to call out on behalf of his people? He can do that. He is king, after all.

Psalm 25

vs 1

The inevitable trust that humanity has - for we are a people of faith - is here by David set upon God. He is in this psalm petitioning for God to keep himself and Israel safe from themselves, mostly.

vs 2

There is also the everpresent threat of enemies from outside which plagues Israel, not to mention this idea of being shamed which is so hard for us to understand outside of a shame culture.

vs 3

Shame, shame, shame. Why is David asking God to protect him from shame? Because that's what God does - he doesn't let those who rely on him be shamed. No, it's those who aren't faithful who are shamed. Treacherous "without cause" is an interesting statement. Not often you'd hear a king say that there might be a cause for treachery.

vs 4

TNIV got rid of the 'O' here, and I'm glad to see it go personally.

David doesn't want to be a traitor - he wants to know the ways and paths of God, so that he can follow them.

vs 5

Why does David seek to follow God's path? Because God is his God, his saviour, and that is where his hope lies.

vs 6

They are indeed. God's mercy stretches right back to the beginning, not just of his dealings with Israel, but with people generally. By David's time, there has been many hundreds of years of God's faithfulness, even just to Israel. How many thousand do we need?

vs 7

This is quite an ask. David asks that rather than being remembered for his sin, that God instead looks at David through his loving eye and remembers his love for David and his people. That tghis is pre-Jesus is at once astonishing, but also reminds us that God hasn't really changed.

vs 8

As opposed to, you know, just blasting them to cookie bits. I think we forget how plausible an alternative that is to sin.

vs 9

The humble. People who can't be humble before God have themselves a fairly serious ego problem. Wait, that's all of us. D'oh.

vs 10

See, this is one thing the Jews knew full well - God loved them, especially when they were doing good. We tend to look at the world through "God loves everyone" glasses, and he does! But there is something special about being a Christian. God will eventually let the non-Christians go. He makes no promises to them.

vs 11

David wears his sin, accepts its gravity, and yet still asks and expects forgiveness. Pre-Jesus expects forgiveness. Why? Because he knows that God wants glory, and it will make his name great. Woe betide us when we ask forgiveness but God forgiving us wouldn't make his name great...

Psalm 24

vs 1

Yep. Forgive me for not finding such statements a breath of fresh air or a new revelation. This sort of thing gets done to death, in my opinion. Which is sort of funny, since it's not hammed up much in the psalms themselves, in my opinion.

vs 2

It's nice to have an explanitory cause too. Why does it all belong to God? He made it. We hear all this so often, but really it's quite a revolutionary thought for ancient times. One nation's god able to create the whole world? Come now, silly thoughts.

vs 3

No-one, of course. That's the point. God is in one sense unapproachable. And yet people have been up his holy hill, and have stood before him. A relational paradox.

vs 4

Okay, so apparently people can come up to the mountain of the Lord. But you can see that they must be holy. Pure and separated from the things of the world.

vs 5

Those who are pure will receive blessing and vindication. And those who are prepared to climb a big damn mountain.

vs 6

I suppose David is of the opinion that his generation were actually pretty on the level in wanting to reach God. And you know what? Considering before and after, he might even be right. That must be a nice thing for him to look back on.

vs 7

This is assuming that the king of glory actually wants into the city. If he does, then that is rather cool, and no doubt you want the gates open.

vs 8

The mighty Lord, triumphant in battle, would have been a pretty comforting picture for the people of Israel during David's time. We're just not so embattaled.

vs 9

Wow, repetition! I've never seen it so obvious in a psalm before. It's almost a chorus.

vs 10

And the same again! That's actually quite fascinating. Nice little psalm.

Psalm 23

vs 1

The picture of God as our shepherd is somehow comforting. That he gives us everything we need is a powerful truth. But I've heard it so many times. It just loses its zing a little. In that way, it's nice that the TNIV has different words. Refreshing.

vs 2

Nice place for sheep, I guess. It really is a lovely picture, and all the more when you imagine it a little more metaphorically, and think that God will give us comfort.

vs 3

For his name he does it. That's an important message to us, to remember that God has his glory in mind always.

vs 4

TNIV took a big risk prefering the other translation there. I mean, everyone knows this psalm. But the message is basically the same - a scary valley that we must walk through - but we have our comforting shepherd there to guide us.

vs 5

These are all pictures of welcome, of acceptance, of hospitality. That God welcomes us and sits with us even in the midst of our enemies is such a powerful picture. It's like setting up a tea party behind any lines.

vs 6

That's a nice assurance to have. It's a very pleasant psalm, really. We get sad because we hear it at funerals a lot. But it's really quite cheery.

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.

Nothing to see here. Move along. There will probably be a sermon in this space soon.