Choose Your Own Adventure: What To Do with Rage (MPLS)

Psalm 137

By the rivers of Babylon—
there we sat down and there we wept
when we remembered Zion.
On the willows there
we hung up our harps.
For there our captors
asked us for songs,
and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying,
“Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

How could we sing the Lord’s song
in a foreign land?
If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
let my right hand wither!
Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth,
if I do not remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem
above my highest joy.

Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites
the day of Jerusalem’s fall,
how they said, “Tear it down! Tear it down!
Down to its foundations!”
O daughter Babylon, you devastator!
Happy shall they be who pay you back
what you have done to us!
Happy shall they be who take your little ones
and dash them against the rock!

Yes. Today’s reading from the bible includes a prayer, a beatitude, a blessing for the one who brings about the death of psalmist enemies children.

A blessing on the one who seizes your children
    and smashes them against the rock!

It’s pretty shocking. It’s abhorrent. It’s hard to comprehend how this was included in the bible. It’s raw and ugly. Some might say we see humanity at its worst, seeking retribution and repaying violence with violence. 

And while this kind of language might feel archaic, like its a relic from a time long past. Last week’s horrific attacks in Afghanistan, and the subsequent response, brought a chilling reminder that retribution and vengeance are impulses that are very much with us today. And while there was no mention of brutalizing children, the president’s words at the close of the week felt very similar in tone and tenor to our bible reading.

“To those who carried out this attack, as well as anyone who wishes America harm, know this: We will not forgive, we will not forget, we will hunt you down and make you pay. We will respond with force and precision at our time, at the place we choose and at the moment of our choosing.”

Oh yes, rage is alive and well. And while it may be justified and warranted, a righteous rage, a rage that is fueled by cruelties of war, injustice and evil, history has shown us far too often when anger burns too hot it threatens to consume and destroy everyone and everything in its path. 

So why is something like this in the bible? Why would we dare pray such a prayer? Is it right? Is it Christian?

Smarter folks than me have wrestled with these kinds of psalms for centuries upon centuries and there’s a little division among theologians and ethicists alike about the role imprecatory psalms or psalms of vengeance should have in Christian worship. 

Some think we shouldn’t pray them. C.S. Lewis said that in some of the psalms, “the spirit of hatred which strikes us in the face is like the heat from a furnace mouth. The hatred is there — festering, gloating, undisguised — and also we should be wicked if we in any way condoned or approved it, or (worse still) used it to justify similar passions in ourselves.”

But I would submit that the passions are there, whether we read and pray these psalms or not. They are there, festering, gloating and ill-disguised. All you need to do is look at the way that our society is functioning and you’ll see it. No, now is the time to pray these challenging words. For ourselves, for one another, and for God.

If this psalm shows us anything, it’s that we can bring it all to God. All of it. Think of the beloved if not a little campy hymn what a friend we have in Jesus. 

What a friend we have in Jesus all our sins and grief to bear. What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer. 

God means everything. I think we can imagine bringing our worries. The grief we carry. I think we can conceive of giving God thanks and praise for what is good in our life. But to rage at God, to bring our frustrations, our raw venom and anger before God, feels I don’t know, inappropriate, scary, dangerous?

The biblical witness is clear. God wants it all and we need to bring it. Because it will come out. One way or another it will come out. And when our anger boils over, it often burns those who we don’t intend, it torches those who are not targets of our wrath but become hurt by it nonetheless.

We also need to hear this psalm and to pray this psalm for the sake of one another. We need to hear and know the pain of others. We need to consider what our own actions have wrought, the suffering that we have caused. We pray this psalm in all its ugliness because we are a part of the world that perpetuates this kind of ugliness. The cycles of violence and retribution persist because we believe and demand that violence must be answered with more violence. That if we suffer then someone else must suffer in turn.

We pray this psalm because this is what we do to another. We pray this psalm because it’s what we want for those who do us harm, and what others want for us when we’ve harmed them. We pray this psalm because though we think we’re above it, though we feel like we’ve moved beyond retributive justice, we still want an eye for an eye. Our rage demands it.

But that’s not enough. 

No, we also pray this psalm, we give voice our rage and that of our neighbors so that God hears the cries of God’s people and acts. We give voice to our rage and our cries for vengeance because God promises to hear them. We speak these words, we make these demands, we lay bare all of rage and anger and our ugliest impulses before God because this is what God has redeemed, made new, set free. We speak the truth of who we are, what we feel, what we want because God has entered into the fullness of what it means to be human, God knows this rage, this separation, this abandonment. In Jesus God has experienced this pain and humiliation and degradation. All of this is a part of God’s life, now and forever.

And God has given you a place there too. But what’s more Jesus has given you a life apart from those feelings that would consume you. Jesus promises healing, restoration, wholeness. Jesus offers a life that is not marked by division and vitriol and venom, but rather peace, joy, patience and kindness.

Look, I know that sounds too easy. It’s not easy. Thousands of years of human history offer countless examples of how hard it is.

But God keeps showing up. God keeps inviting us to give voice to our pain and suffering and all that burns within us. Jesus keeps preparing a place for us at the table, a place for everyone at the table, where he gives to you and to me and all people his body, his blood, and his life so that we are not consumed by our rage but rather consume God’s grace and mercy that is for you this day and always. Amen.