"When Persistence Isn't Enough"
Sermon Presented August 21, 2005
Psalm 88
Last Sunday night after going to bed, I started thinking about the sermon I had preached that morning and all of a sudden, I realized that there was something I had omitted! It wasn't just a sentence or a paragraph, but a major thought that should have been included. The thought was: What do we do when persistence isn't enough? My sermon left you with the idea that if you are persistent enough and pray hard enough and get really "in God's face" so to speak, as the woman in our text last Sunday did with Jesus, then God will eventually relent and give you what you want.
Now if you've heard me preach on a regular basis, you know that this isn't my theology, but I did nothing last week to dispel that notion. By not addressing the silence of God, I may have left some of you with guilt, some with anger and some with the idea that your pastor doesn't know what she's talking about. Now I know that you are a forgiving congregation, but I want to set the record straight today by finishing last Sunday's sermon. I should have about the right amount of time, because I promised you that when a parishioner shares his or her faith journey, I will cut my sermon time by 10 minutes. You're in luck!
The first thing I did was to look for a text. I thought of several, but eventually settled on one of the lament psalms that doesn't end on a positive note as most of the other lament psalms do. Our text ends in the pit. It ends in utter darkness.
Psalm 88 (Read text.)
Psalm 88 is an embarrassment to conventional faith. It's the cry of a believer whose life is in shambles and who desperately wants contact with God. However, God is absent and the psalmist is utterly alone.
Now did you notice that I said the writer is a believer? This person knows the glory of having an intimate relationship with God, but now God cannot be reached. The verses are peppered with desperate speech: "I cry out…Hear my cry…I call upon you…" The psalmist expects God to hear and answer. That's been his past experience in relation to God. But not now, not here! The psalmist is harsh on God's unresponsiveness.
We don't know why God is silent. The psalm isn't interested in any theological reason God might have. The psalmist simply reports on how it is to be a partner of God and yet experience no sign of God. A reason won't help at this time. The only thing that will help is God's presence.
Even though the psalmist gets no reply, the pleas continue. The faith of God's people is like that. The failure of God to respond doesn't lead to atheism or doubt in God or rejection of God. It leads to more intense speech to one who must surely be present and thus addressed.
Now the psalmist becomes angry with God. The voice is that of a dying person crying out to the only source of life. The speaker is utterly helpless and the fault is firmly fixed on God. But even more intense speech brings nothing but silence. The psalmist believes that even at this moment, God can still give life, but the window of opportunity won't be open for long. Soon the power of death will overtake him or her, the speaker will be lost, and God will have failed.
Finally the poet moves to direct accusation and from there to darkness - where the psalm ends. Nothing works. Nothing is changed. Nothing is resolved. And the worst feeling of all is being shunned by God.
So what do we do about this text? We have two options. We can either wait in silence or speak it ourselves. However, we can't rush off to a more positive psalm or give up on God.
What is a psalm like this doing in the Bible? Let me suggest two reasons. First, life is like that and these lament poems intend to speak to all of life, not just the good parts. Here, more than anywhere else in scripture, faith faces life as it is. Second, this psalm isn't a psalm of silent depression. It's speech. And it is directed to God. To be the people of God means to address God, even when God appears to be unresponsive. Psalm 88 shows us what it's like to be faithful at times of complete abandonment. The poet speaks out against the darkness. The psalm stands for realism for biblical faith. It's there for the times when cheap talk must be avoided. It speaks of a time when words spoken to God must be honest.
I have recently read poetry and stories written by a person in depression, and Psalm 88 is such a poem. And just as art, music and literature are therapeutic for helping a person examine her or his soul, so was this psalm for the psalmist.
I want to read Psalm 88 again, this time from Eugene Peterson's The Message, a contemporary rendition. Psalm 88
God, you're my last chance of the day.
I spend the night on my knees before you.
Put me on your salvation agenda;
take notes on the trouble I'm in.
I've had my fill of trouble;
I'm camped on the edge of hell.
I'm written off as a lost cause,
one more statistic, a hopeless case.
Abandoned as already dead,
one more body in a stack of corpses,
And not so much as a gravestone-
I'm a black hole in oblivion.
You've dropped me into a bottomless pit,
sunk me in a pitch-black abyss.
I'm battered senseless by your rage,
relentlessly pounded by your waves of anger.
You turned my friends against me,
made me horrible to them.
I'm caught in a maze and can't find my way out,
blinded by tears of pain and frustration.
I call to you, God, all day I call.
I wring my hands, I plead for help.
Are the dead a live audience for your miracles?
Do ghosts ever join the choirs that praise you?
Does your love make any difference in a graveyard?
Is your faithful presence noticed in the corridors of hell?
Are your marvelous wonders ever seen in the dark,
your righteous ways noticed in the Land of No Memory?
I'm standing my ground, God, shouting for help,
at my prayers every morning, on my knees each daybreak.
Why, God do you turn a deaf ear?
Why do you make yourself scarce?
For as long as I remember I've been hurting;
I've taken the worst you can hand out, and I've had it.
Your wildfire anger has blazed through my life;
I'm bleeding, black and blue.
You've attacked me fiercely from every side,
raining down blows till I'm nearly dead.
You made lover and neighbor alike dump me;
the only friend I have left is Darkness.
This psalm stands as a mark of realism for biblical faith. It's for times and situations when easy, cheap talk of resolution must be avoided. These aren't words to use frequently, but they are for experiences of grief when words must be honest and not claim too much. When you need someone to stand beside when you are in utter darkness, you can stand beside the psalmist who offers this gift for such a time.
What do you do when persistence isn't enough? You pray Psalm 88 over and over and over again.
(Source: The Message of the Psalms by Walter Brueggemann, pp. 78-81)
