Proper 20 / Pentecost 18 / Ordinary Time 25
Devotional
Water From the Rock
Lectionary Devotional for Cycle C
Object:
We have become a taunt to our neighbors, mocked and derided by those around us.
-- Psalm 79:4
Psalm 79 is a psalm of community lament. Unlike most individual lament psalms, the community lament psalm contains no answer from God. The psalm ends with the people having poured out their agony and now they wait for God's answer. Dr. Patrick Miller refers to these as holocaust psalms. Because of our general awareness of the horror that Jewish people suffered in concentration camps, we can hear them praying this psalm from those camps. Defiled, killed, taunted by neighbors (vv. 1-4), they cried, "How long, O Lord?" (v. 5).
As bad as they might have been, they knew that their oppressors were even worse, and they asked the natural question of "Why us?" (vv. 6-7). They appealed to God's compassion against any sins of their ancestors for which they might now be suffering (v. 8). They appealed to the character and reputation of God as a basis of their salvation (v. 9). The entire psalm becomes a prayer of any people who have felt their faith mocked by their experience of injustice.
In a less dramatic fashion, it could also be the prayer of many faithful Christian communities that feel themselves mocked and derided by the secular culture around them. It is natural for the psalms to use hyperbole in their description of people's condition. Within that framework, many churches have felt the derision of society. They, too, can pray, "We have become a taunt to our neighbors, mocked and derided by those around us." They plea for mercy, and then they have to wait for God's answer.
-- Psalm 79:4
Psalm 79 is a psalm of community lament. Unlike most individual lament psalms, the community lament psalm contains no answer from God. The psalm ends with the people having poured out their agony and now they wait for God's answer. Dr. Patrick Miller refers to these as holocaust psalms. Because of our general awareness of the horror that Jewish people suffered in concentration camps, we can hear them praying this psalm from those camps. Defiled, killed, taunted by neighbors (vv. 1-4), they cried, "How long, O Lord?" (v. 5).
As bad as they might have been, they knew that their oppressors were even worse, and they asked the natural question of "Why us?" (vv. 6-7). They appealed to God's compassion against any sins of their ancestors for which they might now be suffering (v. 8). They appealed to the character and reputation of God as a basis of their salvation (v. 9). The entire psalm becomes a prayer of any people who have felt their faith mocked by their experience of injustice.
In a less dramatic fashion, it could also be the prayer of many faithful Christian communities that feel themselves mocked and derided by the secular culture around them. It is natural for the psalms to use hyperbole in their description of people's condition. Within that framework, many churches have felt the derision of society. They, too, can pray, "We have become a taunt to our neighbors, mocked and derided by those around us." They plea for mercy, and then they have to wait for God's answer.
