Psalm 22

1
Psalm 22

• Learning to Pray
• The Lament

2
References

• Goldingay, John, Baker Commentary on the Old
  Testament, Psalms 1-41, (Baker Academic Grand
  Rapids, MI, 2002).
• Miller, Patrick D., Interpreting the Psalms,
  (Fortress Press Philadelphia, PA, 1986).
• Eaton, John, The Psalms (Continuum New York,
  2005).
• Keck, Leander (Gen Ed.) et al, The New
  Interpreters Bible, Vol IV (Abington Press
  Nashville, 1996).
• Craigie, Peter C., World Biblical Commentary
  Psalms 1-50, (Word Books Waco, TX, 1983).
• Westermann, Claus, The Psalms Structure, Content
  Message, (Augsburg Publishing House,
  Minneapolis, 1980).
• Brueggemonn, Walter, The Message of the Psalms,
  (Augsburg Minneapolis, 1984).

3
Cartoon with Dog
4
What is a Lament?
5
Woman statue Lamenting
6
Woman Weeping
7
What is a Lament?

• A Prayer that
• Expresses hurt
• Describes suffering
• Protests at the way things are
• Pleads to God for help/action (Goldingay)

8
What is the Purpose of Praying a Lament?
9
The Purpose of Lament

• 23 After a long time the king of Egypt died. The
  Israelites groaned under their slavery, and cried
  out. Out of the slavery their cry for help rose
  up to God. 24 God heard their groaning, and God
  remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and
  Jacob. 25 God looked upon the Israelites, and God
  took notice of them. (Ex 223)

10
God Promises to hear the Cry of the Weak

• 21 You shall not wrong or oppress a resident
  alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.
  22 You shall not abuse any widow or orphan. 23 If
  you do abuse them, when they cry out to me, I
  will surely heed their cry 24 my wrath will
  burn, and I will kill you with the sword, and
  your wives shall become widows and your children
  orphans. (Ex 2221-24)

11
What Methods Does the Psalmist Use to Try to
Move God to Action?
12
Forsaken Image
13
Forsaken
14
Arab Women Weeping
15
Crying Adults
16
Crying Adults
17
Man Weeping
18
Woman with child Weeping
19
Jesus and Mary Lamenting
20
Jesus Statue Weeping
21
Jesus Crying on Cross
22
God Mourning on Throne
23
Parting Red Sea
24
Worms and Maggots
25
Snail eating a worm
26
Mocking of Christ
27
Feeding Baby
28
Baby comforted on Mothers Breast
29
Baby on Mothers Breast
30
Lion Kill
31
Vultures at Kill
32
Surounded by dogs
33
Adult with Aids
34
Baby with Aids
35
Skin and Bones
36
Sword
37
Angry Dog
38
Lion Kill
39
Wild Ox
40
Praying with hands spread
41
Nations Worship
42
Nations Worship
43
Nations Worship
44
Nations Worship
45
Structure Motivating God into Action

• Why do you ignore me? (v. 1-3)
• You Delivered in the past (v. 3-5)
• Others mock me (v. 6-8)
• You made yourself to be my God (v. 9-10)
• Opponents are all around me (v. 11-13)
• I am physically and emotionally wasted (v. 14-15)
• My opponents are about to succeed in killing me
  (v. 16-18)
• Act! --Direct Plea for God to act (v. 19-21)
• I will publically thank you and invite others
  believers to give you the credit for my rescue
  (v. 22-26)
• You will even be famous and worshipped among the
  nations (v. 27-28)
• Even past generations (v. 29) and future
  generations (v. 30-31) will praise you and tell
  the story.

46
What Methods does the Psalmist Use to Try to Move
God to Action?

• Recount Gods past actions and contrast them
  against the present situation of Gods inaction
• Recount Gods character and ask God why he isnt
  acting according to his character
• Describe ones suffering at length in order to
  rouse Gods compassion for his child
• Describe ones suffering at length in order to
  shame God into acting
• Affirm loyalty to God so as to affirm the
  relationship by which God should be faithful
  (patron/client)

47
Can You See 3 Ways of Protesting?

• I am a worm (My own condition)
• All who see me mock me (The way others see me)
  
• Why do you abandon me. (Gods inaction)
• Notice this corresponds to 1st person, 3rd
  person, and 2nd person protests

48
What About God is in Doubt?

• And those who know your name put their trust in
  you, for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who
  seek you. (Ps 910)
• The wicked watch for the righteous, and seek to
  kill them. 33     The Lord will not abandon them
  to their power, or let them be condemned when
  they are brought to trial. (Ps 3732)

49
What about God is being leveraged in the protest?

• 25     I have been young, and now am old, yet I
  have not seen the righteous forsaken or their
  children begging bread. 26     . Depart from
  evil, and do good so you shall abide forever.
  28     For the Lord loves justice he will not
  forsake his faithful ones. The righteous shall be
  kept safe forever, but the children of the wicked
  shall be cut off. 29     The righteous shall
  inherit the land, and live in it forever. (Ps
  3725-29)

50
Has God Delivered?

• Beginning with verse 22, make a list of things
  that indicate that God may have already delivered
  the person who laments from v. 1-21.
• Make a similar list of features that suggest that
  God has not yet delivered this person.

51
What does God do in Psalm 22?

• Took her from her mothers womb and put her on
  her mothers breast
• Lay her in the dust of death
• Answered her (not rescued as in NRSV) (v.21)
• Did not despise or abhor (like the opponents)
• Did not hide His face
• Heard when she cried to Him
• Gave her the praise to share publicly
• And so Restored her to fellowship with the
  congregation (v. 25)

52
Why Would Lament Turn to Praise?

• answer from priest or prophet
• a special word from YHWH
• Recalling and claiming a word God uttered in the
  past
• Becoming open to seeing some truth afresh
• From hearing general affirmations of Gods acts
  and faithfulness
• Venting and Giving it to God brings relief and
  hope

53
What Do We Assume When We Lament?

• Things are not right in the present arrangement
• They need not stay this way and can be changed
• The speaker will not accept them in this way, for
  the present arrangement is intolerable
• It is Gods obligation to change things.
  (Brueggmann, The Life of Faith, p. 105.

54
What does the Psalmist Ask God for?

• Do not be far from me (v. 11)
• Do not be far away!
• Oh my help, come quickly to my aid
• Deliver my soul from the sword,
• My life from the power of the dog!
• Save me from the mouth of the lion! (19-21)
• Only v. 11a, 19-21 are requests in prayer

So What is the Main Part of the Lament Way of
Praying?
55
How Shall We Pray?

• Americans spend more time asking God to take
  particular actions rather than listing their
  sufferings. What does this communicate about our
  understanding of God?
• What does spending more time describing suffering
  assume about God?

56
Who Are the Opponents?

• We really arent told a whole lot of specifics
  about them. Heres what we learn from the text
• Those who are near because God is not. God left
  a vacancy that others have filled.
• Symbols offered of dogs, bulls, lions
• The lion is really dangerous and a common image
  of an attacker
• Middle Easter Peoples used animals to portray
  demons, so Israelites could pray this prayer with
  enemies in mind like
• Human enemies
• Demonic enemies
• Enemies of disease and sickness

57
Who Else May Have Prayed this Psalm in Scripture?

• David fleeing from King Saul
• King Hezekiah when Assyria sent Rabshakeh to
  taunt those in Jerusalem
• Job (31-26)
• Jeremiah (2014-18)
• Jesus (Matthew 2746 Mark 1534)

58
Should Christians recount their suffering to God?
59
Paul quotes from a Lament used by the early church

• Who will separate us from the love of Christ?
  Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or
  famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As
  it is written, For your sake we are being killed
  all day long we are accounted as sheep to be
  slaughtered. 37 No, in all these things we are
  more than conquerors through him who loved us.
  (Rom 835-37)

60
Lament is found in Revelation

• 9 When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the
  altar the souls of those who had been slaughtered
  for the word of God and for the testimony they
  had given 10 they cried out with a loud voice,
  Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long will it
  be before you judge and avenge our blood on the
  inhabitants of the earth? 11 They were each
  given a white robe and told to rest a little
  longer, until the number would be complete both
  of their fellow servants?h? and of their brothers
  and sisters,?i? who were soon to be killed as
  they themselves had been killed. (Rev 69)

61
Should Christians recount their suffering to God?

• Jesus does on the cross (quotes Psalm 22)
• Paul quotes a common saying that Christians
  applied to themselves (Romans 836)
• In the NT, believers grieve and protest. If we
  are to mirror Godwe have to be willing to enter
  our individual wounds and through them the wounds
  of the community,not hide them by casuistry, not
  seal them up. Maggie Ross in Goldingay, p. 64.
• Catholic orders have prayed the psalms daily,
  including laments, for almost two thousand years

62
But Doesnt Lamenting Show a Lack of Faith?

• Despite the protest of abondonment
• A cry to God assumes that God is able to save and
  that God can hear ones cry
• Repeatedly calls God My God
• Affirming that it was God who chose him/her from
  birth, not the other way around
• Promising to take a sacrifice to the temple and
  give public testimony of Gods deliverance

63
What Happens in a Church that Doesnt Pray the
Laments?

• Brueggemann argues that
• We develop a false self because we feel that we
  can only praise God and not complain when God
  doesnt keep his promises. We deny a part of
  ourselves.
• We havent experienced God as a baby experiences
  a loving motheras someone who is powerful but
  who is moved by our cry. Religion becomes
  coercive obedience rather than relationship
  between two partners.
• Laments enable a strong ego and a true self that
  is needed for covenantal relationship with God.
• (The Psalms The Life of Faith p. 98-111)

64
Can we acknowledge in the church when we feel
like we are

• Being personally overwhelmed?
• Falling apart?
• Seeing certain death in the near future?
• Being scorned, despised, mocked?
• Being pressed down by those with more power who
  are hostile and threatening?
• Victimized by human hands?
• Being used as the scapegoat?
• Abandoned by God?
• Not having our prayers answered?

65
What Happens in a Church that Doesnt Pray the
Laments?

• Brueggemann argues that
• We settle for meaning in our lives rather than
  for justice in society, and
• questions of justice become unacceptable in the
  community of faith
• Where the cry is not voiced, heaven is not
  moved, and history is not initiated
• Where the cry is seriously voiced, heaven may
  answer and earth may have a new chance p. 111

66
Could You Picture Us Praying This Lament with
Someone in our Midst Who is Sick or Dying?

• How might it help?
• What might be problematic?
• Would you want this type of liturgy when you are
  sick or dying?

67
What Can We Do To Practice the Lament Prayer Form?

• Write a lament for our own life
• Write a lament for someone we love, to pray it
  with them
• Write a lament for someone who is poor and pray
  it for them
• Take an international situation and write a
  lament about it

68
We Can Practice With Jesus

• Read each section of the psalm, asking what the
  meaning of it is when coming from Jesus mouth
• For an example of this, see Goldingay, p. 342-343.

69
How Can We Respond When God Answers Our Lament?

• What stories can you tell of Gods deliverance?
  How can you tell them publicly? How can you
  cause future generations to give praise to God?

70
What can we do while we wait and lament?

• Remind ourselves how God has delivered in the
  past
• Remind ourselves and God of Gods involvement in
  our life beginning with our birth
• Urge God to act now
• Believe that God will respond and start talking
  that way (Goldingay, p. 341)

71
Jesus on Cross
72
Jesus and Psalm 22

• Clothes are divided by casting lots (Mark 1524
  cf. Ps 2218)
• Those passing by mock him, shake their heads, and
  taunt him (Mark 1529 cf Ps 227-8)
• Jesus prays the opening line (Mark 1534)

73
Jesus and Psalm 22

• For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call
  them brothers and sisters, 12 saying, I will
  proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters, in
  the midst of the congregation I will praise you.
  13 And again, I will put my trust in him. And
  again,Here am I and the children whom God has
  given me. (Heb 211-13)

74
Was this an individual prayer or a communal
prayer?

• Verse 4 uses our ancestors rather than my
  ancestors
• Verses 22 promises that the suppliant will praise
  God publicly
• Verse 23 calls the community to praise God
• Verse 24 is a testimony meant for the community
  to hear
• But the agony of v. 1-21 seems to depict an
  individual all alone surrounded by enemies, not
  surrounded by his own community

75
What Images of Death are in the text?

• Worms are connected to the image of death
• our pomp is brought down to Sheol, and the sound
  of your harps maggots are the bed beneath you,
  and worms are your covering. (Is 1411)

76
What Images of Death/Sickness are in the text?

• A ravaging lion is near
• Bones are out of joint
• Mouth is dry like a potsherd, tonge sticks to
  mouth
• You lay me in the dust of death
• Can count my bones
• They divide my clothes among them
• Sword, dog, lion, bulls threaten

77
What Do We Hear With Our Ears in this Psalm?

• Bellowing
• Calling
• No quiet because there is no reason to stop
  pleading
• I get the picture of a child begging and nagging
  a parent who is not listening. The child simply
  gets louder.

78
Who will worship Yahweh? (v. 29)

• The powerful/wealthy the fat ones
• The weak/poor who are sinking towards the dust
  just like the suppliant
• The suppliant (v. 29)

79
Who will worship Yahweh? (v. 28)

• The suppliant (v. 22, 25, 29c)
• All ethnicities peoples/families/nations
  (v.27-28)
• All social classes
• The powerful/wealthy the fat ones v. (29a)
• The weak/poor who are sinking towards the dust
  just like the suppliant (v.29b and v.26)
• Future generations

80
Day and Night

• 4     He who keeps Israel will neither slumber
  nor sleep. 5     The Lord is your keeper the
  Lord is your shade at your right hand. 6     The
  sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by
  night. (Ps 1214-6)

81
v. 3 has Echoes of Moses song

• Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is
  like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in
  splendor, doing wonders? 12     You stretched out
  your right hand, the earth swallowed them. (Ex
  1511-12)

82
v. 14 Vigor Dried Up

• A cheerful heart is a good medicine, but a
  downcast spirit dries up the bones. (Pr 1722)
• 11 Then he said to me (Ezekiel), Mortal, these
  bones are the whole house of Israel. They say,
  Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost we
  are cut off completely. ( Eze 3711)

83
Tongue stuck to mouth

• Thirsty
• Cant speak
• the voices of princes were hushed, and their
  tongues stuck to the roof of their mouths. (Job
  2910)
• I will make your tongue cling to the roof of
  your mouth, so that you shall be speechless and
  unable to reprove them (Eze 326)
• Contrasts with the sufferers enemies, who scoff
  at him and have wide open mouths

84
Was there an offering?

• Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and pay
  your vows to the Most High. (Ps 5014)
• Praise is due to you, O God, in Zion and to you
  shall vows be performed, (Ps 651)

85
Why Call Oneself a Worm?

• Worms are insignificant and powerlessness like an
  insect
• Do not fear, you worm Jacob,
• you insect Israel!
• I will help you, says the Lord
• your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel. (Is
  4114)

86
Structure Individual Lament to Corporate
Thanksgiving

• Lament
• Forsaken by God and mankind (2-11)
• Prayer for help (12)
• Surrounded by trouble (13-19)
• Prayer for Deliverance (20-22b)
• Response (v. 22c) (praise)
• Thanksgiving (23-27) declared by sufferer
• Thanksgiving (28-32) declared by the congregation
• Craigie, Peter, p. 198

87
The Human Cry

• All animals with mobile eyes shed tears, but only
  humans do so to expresssadness, pain or grief,
  in a process that appears to involve both our
  higher and lowerbrain centers. Although the
  occasions and expressions of weeping varyacross
  human cultures, crying is universal in human
  society.

88
The Animal That Weepsby Silvia H. Cardoso, Ph.D
and Renato M.E. Sabbatini, Ph.D.

• A sick baby cries long and plaintively in the
  night. A young woman  sobs in despair and
  disbelief at her husbands death in the September
  11 attacks. Under cover of darkness, furtive
  tears swell in the eyes of a grown man watching
  the movie Titanic. As others grin and
  congratulate a bride, her mother weeps
  uncontrollably. Crying is at once among the most
  familiar and the most mysterious of human
  behaviors. Certainly human facial anatomy and
  physiology are intricately engineered for both
  the discharge of tears and the facial and vocal
  expressions that accompany thembut for what
  purpose?
• Tears have been around a very long time. All
  animals with mobile eyes have nictitating
  membranes, or inner eyelids, and tears that aid
  in opening, closing, washing, lubricating, and
  protecting the eyes delicate, transparent,
  adaptive lenses. Only humans, however, have
  evolved the tearing mechanism into a means of
  complex emotional expression, one of the
  behaviors that make us unique among animals, even
  primates. Because every innate behavior is
  explainable in terms of adaptation for survival,
  we know that emotional crying must serve some
  important function in humans.