1 How long, O Lord?
will you forget me for ever? *
how long will you hide your face from me?
2 How long shall I have perplexity in my mind,
and grief in my heart, day after day? *
how long shall my enemy triumph over me?
3 Look upon me and answer me, O Lord my God; *
give light to my eyes, lest I sleep in death;
4 Lest my enemy say, "I have prevailed over him," *
and my foes rejoice that I have fallen.
5 But I put my trust in your mercy; *
my heart is joyful because of your saving help.
6 I will sing to the Lord, for he has dealt with me richly; *
I will praise the Name of the Lord Most High.
--Psalm 13
What I love most about the Psalms is that they cover the entire range of the human experience. Every single emotion that we feel can be found in the Psalms, from the loudest shouts of thanks and praise to the deepest groans and wailings. Normally, if we were gathered in the church together, we would sing the Psalm, led by a cantor, which is an ancient custom that goes all the way back to even before the time of Jesus. But whether we sing them or say them, the Psalms are beautiful reminders that all of our feelings and experiences are precious in the sight of God, and Psalm 13 really captures that because it is a Psalm that speaks to where we are.
“How long, O Lord?!” the Psalm begins. They say that this Psalm was constructed by David when he was running from King Saul, who was trying to kill him. But this Psalm could just as easily have been written by any of us, am I right? How long, O Lord?! How long before we can gather with our church folks in prayer, and song, and Sacrament? How long until the scourge of COVID-19 is repelled from this land? How long must we see those sick and dying before people stop thinking only of themselves and start wearing their masks? How long can we hear the cries of the poor and neglected, the most vulnerable in our society, whom we have been so quick to forget? How long will young black men have to walk down the streets in fear that they will at best be accosted by law enforcement and at worst killed be for being ‘suspicious’? How long before our country finally recognizes the sins of its past—which are still systemic in our present—and commits to changing its narrative? How long, O Lord?!
Psalm 13 is a Psalm of lament, of deep wailing and crying out in grief. There are many Psalms of lament; perhaps the one best known to some of us is Psalm 22, the one that Jesus himself quotes on the cross when he says, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ These Psalms deepen our faith and our humanity. They get us to look at ourselves and the world around us and force us behold those things that we don’t really want to behold. They help us deal with reality by preventing us from ignoring our various existential crises. These Psalms deal with what Howard Thurman called the “contradictions of life,” because they begin with an acknowledgement of pain and finish with a reminder of God’s goodness and love. They are examples of faithful prayers that meander, and they inspire our faithful lives to evolve.
Howard Thurman, author of Jesus and the Disinherited, understood the power of the Psalms.
There is a pattern to Psalm 13, as well as any other Psalm of lament, a formula that they all follow: the begin with an address, then a complaint, then a petition or prayer, followed by a confession of trust in God, and finally a promise of praise. This Psalm begins with a strong address—How long, O Lord?!—a cry of desperation. The complaint that’s raised here is the grief the David feels and the fear of his enemies triumphing over him. Then comes the prayer for God to look upon David, to answer him and give light to his eyes. Verse 5 offers the confession of trust in God’s mercy, and the last verse is a promise that David will continue to sing to God and praise God’s name. This is the pattern of all Psalms of lament, but because of how short Psalm 13 is we can see that pattern quite clearly: address, complaint, prayer, confession of trust, and promise of praise.
At first glance this seems pretty simple, doesn’t it? David offers his pain to God, and then very quickly he moves to a place of praise. But we don’t know how long it took him to construct this Psalm, do we? He very well could have written the opening verses that speak of crying out to God and accusing God of forgetting him when he was hiding out from Saul in a Judean cave somewhere, only to not finish it until he was certain his life would be spared. Reading passages in the Bible often gives us the sense that it happened all at once, but that is rarely the case. David may have been in that place of deep despair and frustration for a really long time.
Nevertheless, the Psalm comes back to an acknowledgment of God’s goodness and mercy. In verse 5, after making his complaint and offering his prayer, David says, ‘But I put my trust in your mercy,” as if to say, “Yes, this pain I feel is real. And yes, right now, God, you seem so far away from me that I am having trouble finding you. But I still know that you’re real, and I will still sing your praise.”
Yes, David laments and gives his despair and desperation space to exist. He gives voice to his worries and complaints and acknowledges his fears and anxieties, while at the same time he keeps moving through all of it, landing at last in a place where he can offer God praise. This Psalm is a journey, and David—or whoever wrote it—understood that the only way to get out of a place of pain and get to a place of praise is to go through all of that stuff.
This is what 12-step programs understand and why they repeat the mantra “the only way out is through.” Personally, I cannot think of any modern institution that understands the spiritual journey like 12-step programs, at least not in the western world. Anyone who has been through such a group can speak to the importance of acknowledging one’s pain and grief, how it matters that those experiences are given voice, and how wading through the muck is the only possible means by which a person can get to a place of praise. A great many of us are so stuck in our current culture of shame, where we are always taught that the answer to “How are you?” is “Good,” or “OK,” but never the real truth because who wants to hear that?! Sometimes we just need the permission to cry out, to be frustrated, to ask God, “Where are you?!” Psalms like this one give that permission and remind us that all of our feelings and experiences are held in God’s hand, even when God feels so very far away.
Bill W., the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, understood the power of giving voice to our pain.
Right now is a time of lament, and we need some Psalms to sing and cry out in these times. We need to be able to offer our pain and sorrow to God, for it is only in doing so that our fears can be transformed into hope. I wonder what might our lament Psalms sound like right now. Perhaps something like this...
Address: When will you come to help us, O Lord?! Complaint: We are lost, lonely, and in pain, held captive by the dual pandemics of virus and racial injustice! Prayer: Give us courage and hope that this is not all there is, that light and love are on the other side. Confession of trust: Though you seem far away, yet even still, we love you and put our trust in your healing grace and mercy. Promise of praise: We will sing your praises in the midst of our sorrows.
I just put together a Psalm of lament for these times, and I encourage you to do the same. Take some time to pour out your grief over everything these last 4 months have brought us, and give voice to your experience. Cry out to God with your pain, knowing that the only way out of it is through it, and see where it takes you. Maybe you would even like to share them with each other, just to let someone else know they’re not alone in their pain and frustration.
Psalms like Psalm 13, and the one I've come up with, and the ones you may construct in the coming days, are not just about giving voice to the groans and wails of our hearts—though that is very significant, especially in our time—but they also renew our sense of hope because they always come back to trust in God and the determination to keep praising and loving this God who not only gives us these emotions with the understanding that we will feel them and use them, but who has also felt them, who has also lamented from the cross, cried for a dead friend, and asked for strength to get through a time of trial. Therein lies the hope, in a God who has gone through all of this and who goes through all of this right alongside us.
May you take heart this week, knowing that you have permission to lament and grieve, and that your crises do not go unheard by our loving, liberating, and life-giving God!
