Clergy/Leaders’ Mail-list No. 3-082 Sunday 27 Apr 2003

Psalms on Sundays Reading: Psalm 6 – GOD, THIS IS URGENT

What really is urgent and important for you today?

Forgive me for what may be a particularly English reaction, but don’t you think the Psalms sound pushy sometimes?

This wonderful, eloquent, moving lament sometimes breaks through with the shock of real, impolite emotion. ‘How long?’ is the cry of someone in pain, not a decorous public prayer. Then, fascinatingly, the psalmist finds grounds for appeal. Not ‘Save me God, because I’m worth it’; but ‘Save me God, because you’re worth it’. In verse 4 he appeals to God’s best qualities, his unfailing love. In Walter Brueggemann’s phrase, he is ‘mobilising God’ (The Psalms and the life of faith). What seems daring, even cheeky, is actually a move of the most profound trust.

What do you say to those who are close to death? What do you feel if you are facing death, perhaps because of a serious diagnosis? Is the Christian response always to be quiet and accepting, in the manner of Jesus before his accusers, and the pagan response always to ‘rage against the dying of the light’ as Dylan Thomas wanted his father to do? There is a time for both (Eccl 3:2,3). When is it right to stop asking for healing and ask simply for peace and an assurance of the resurrection?

Suffering can be a form of discipline from God (v 1, see Prov 3:12); it can be an attack from the enemy, or at least a temporary opportunity for enemies to gloat (vs 7,10). In both cases it is appropriate to protest, to make feelings known, to channel the pain. It is almost inevitable that the followers of Christ will experience something of the way of the cross; the associated emotions are thought and felt through to a helpful conclusion in this psalm.

At one time people would paraphrase these ‘penitential psalms’ as an exercise during recovery from an illness. How would you rework this one to fit your experience?

– Roger Pooley

Copyright Scripture Union, 2003, Encounter with God

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