Clergy/Leaders’ Mail-list No. 2-156 Sunday 11 Aug 2002

Reading: Psalm 120 – PEACE AND PAIN

‘I took my troubles to the Lord, I cried out to him and he answered my prayer.'(Ps 120:1, New Living Translation)

Shortly before writing this, I was talking with a Christian who is actively involved in bringing reconciliation to a troubled part of the world in which lasting peace seems elusive. He experiences opposition, receives hate mail and is unwelcome in some churches. To work for peace, as the psalmist found, can be an uncomfortable experience.

It is a commonplace that the first casualty of war is truth. Most human conflict is sustained by words – inflammatory words, at best half true, at worst complete falsehoods, which demonise the enemy and glorify ‘us’. This was the psalmist’s experience – longing for peace, he found himself surrounded by those who wanted strife; a man of integrity, he found himself surrounded by falsehood – and a bitter experience it was. Called to be agents of reconciliation (Matt 5:9; 1 Pet 3:8), we may often experience rejection. It is then easy to settle for the status quo and the easy life. Like the psalmist, once we have understood the way of God, there is no choice.

The paradox is that this, like the psalms which follow, is a psalm of ascent, probably sung by the pilgrims on the way to Jerusalem for the annual feast. Far from alleviating his pain, the approach to the Temple, the place where God is to be found only increases it. This is partly, no doubt, because his experience of God far from providing easy answers, leaves him with further questions. Our churches should not be places where easy answers are given, but where we can continue the struggle. This psalm gives no answer – it ends with the longing unfulfilled, the pain un-soothed and the frustration intact.

Dare we allow our churches to be places where a similar questioning is permitted? Encouraged?

– John Grayston

Copyright Scripture Union, 2002

To order your quarterly edition of ‘Encounter with God’ or to enquire about other SU publications, contact the office nearest your region:

Australia – East Asia – Pacific – USA – or http://www.scriptureunion.org Canada – UK & International Office –