otherwise, for they knew they were a people who had been called into existence by dialogue with God. To stop speaking to God, even in the face of cosmic silence on God’s part, was to cease to be Israel.6 Praying Psalm 88, then, was an act of faith in themselves as much as it was an act of faith in God. Psalm 88 is what Bruegge-
mann calls a psalm of disorienta- tion.7
T ese are the psalms we UMNS photo by Mike DuBose
we ourselves are in such straits, when we must struggle with the limits of life and the silence of God, Psalm 88 keeps us from run- ning away from the experience by putting on our tongues the words we would rather not pray. For Scripture scholar Walter Bruegge- mann, “Psalm 88 stands as a mark of realism for biblical faith. It has its pastoral use, because there are situations in which easy, cheap talk of resolution must be avoided. Here are words not to be used fre- quently, but for the limited experi- ences when words must be honest and not claim too much.”3
In these
limited situations, Brueggemann adds, “What we may not do is to rush to an easier psalm, or to give up on [God].”4 While Psalm 88 may appear
___________________________________________________________________________________________________ 6
to indicate loss of faith, then, it actually does quite the opposite. T e very act of speaking to God when God does not respond is an expression of profound faith. T e person who no longer believes would simply walk away, choosing to waste no more breath speaking to a God whose silence proves his non-existence. For the Israelites who wrote the psalms, however, the failure of God to answer prayer did not lead them to doubt or athe- ism. On the contrary, God’s silence led them to address God all the more intensely.5
T ey couldn’t do
cently, my children’s choir was pre- paring to sing a choral setting of the following text found scratched on a cell wall in Cologne, Germa- ny aſt er World War II: “I believe in the sun even when it is not shin- ing. I believe in love even when I feel it not. I believe in God even when he is silent.” In preparation we spent some time talking about what the words meant. When I asked the children what expe- rience or situation might lead someone to say “I believe in God even when he is silent,” one of the third graders responded: “When all your insides have drained out and its feels like you don’t even
need when life has thrust us out of the comfort zone of safe, secure faith, when God is not in heaven and all is not right with the world. Psalm 88 provides us the words we need to address the disorienta- tion to God. “And in that address something happens to the disori- entation.”8
In praying the psalm
we speak the truth to the God of salvation. Even more, we speak the truth to ourselves, and the truth- speaking opens the doorway to our transformation. Our disorien- tation becomes, then, not a threat to faith but a passageway to more authentic faith. T e very praying of Psalm 88 makes our disorienta- tion a grace rather than a curse, a gain rather than a loss, life rather than death.
Concluding remarks. Re-
have your soul leſt .” T is child has never seen or prayed the text of Psalm 88, but she understands its content. She is not a child who has yet experienced in her own life the kind of extreme loss or pain that tests faith in God’s presence and care. She herself has not yet heard the silence of God. Yet she can articulate from words deep within her heart what this experience feels like. I credit the adults in her life, particularly her parents, who have taught her in ways spoken and unspoken, what it means to be human beings who fi nd grace in brokenness and faith in the face of God’s silence. T is is the spiritual- ity of the psalms, a spirituality that shaped God’s people in the past, forms the Church today, and will lead us into the future.
NOTES 1 T is essay is an edited version of “Growing in Our Understanding of the Psalms, Part 2: Persisting in Prayer when God Is Silent,” Liturgical Ministry 20 (Winter 2011), 52-54.
2 Psalm trans. taken from NRSV. 3 Walter Brueggemann, T e Message of the Psalms: A T eological Commentary (Ausgburg/Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1984), 81.
4 Brueggemann, Message, 80. 5 Brueggemann, Message, 79. 6 Brueggemann, Message, 81. 7 Brueggemann, Message, 15-23. 8 Walter Brueggemann, Praying the Psalms (Saint Mary’s Press/Christian Brothers Publications: Winona, MN, 1986), 22.
SNDdeN, Ph. D., is music diris o
HARMON, SN
al M
f for programs of th
the Institute for
LiturgicalMinistry a, and co-author of the annual resource Living Liturgy: Spirituality, Celebration, Catechesis for Sundays and Solemnities. Her books include The Ministry of Cantors; The Ministry of Music; and The Mystery We Celebrate,
The Song We Sing: A Theology of Liturgical Music.
January-February 2014 • WorshipArts •
www.UMFellowship.org
KATHLEEN H
ector
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