Complaint and Prayer

The Psalter models for us that the way of complaint is part of biblical fidelity and troth--at least a certain kind of complaint joined to an expectation of shalom. The psalmists complain to God, objecting that he could have and on the surface should have intervened in any number of horrific circumstances. The sheer weight of atrocity is often cited by them, speaking from a wounded position, an exhausted position. The believer says to God, "As best I can understand from my limited position you appear to have allowed horrible things to happen. Why? Should you do such a thing?"

Then, rather than walk away in disgust or disbelief, the believer waits on God. Believers protest from the ground of covenant—this is what God has promised us and who he is; therefore, should not God intervene? (i.e. Ps 44, 74, 88, 102, 142) This position at its best seeks to continue to affirm God’s mystery and goodness even amidst confusion and doubt. It has its own kind of eros, its own kind of ascending desire.

Likewise, this response holds it important to identify with the suffering of others, not to make light of their pain by seeking easily to explain it. This kind of sympathetic and confused covenantal response is loving, full of the charity of agape. The isms of the twentieth century remind us well of the failure and dangers of utopian visions. Our eschatological rationality should act in full awareness of the dangers of demagoguery, either in believing that we ourselves can change the world or in the furor of a people disappointed by that world. But this need not mean we do not reach out with the hands of love, offering the gospel of Christ.

With this in mind read (or pray) the following:

You have made us like sheep to be eaten and have scattered us among the nations.
You are selling your people for a trifle and are making no profit on the sale of them.
You have made us the scorn of our neighbors, a mockery and derision to those around us.
You have made us a byword among the nations, a laughing-stock among the peoples.
My humiliation is daily before me, and shame has covered my face;
Because of the taunts of the mockers and blasphemers, because of the enemy and avenger.
All this has come upon us; yet we have not forgotten you, nor have we betrayed your covenant.
Our heart never turned back, nor did our footsteps stray from your path;
Though you thrust us down into a place of misery, and covered us over with deep darkness.
If we have forgotten the Name of our God, or stretched out our hands to some strange god,
Will not God find it out? for he knows the secrets of the heart.
Indeed, for your sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
Awake, O Lord! why are you sleeping? Arise! do not reject us for ever.
Why have you hidden your face and forgotten our affliction and oppression?
We sink down into the dust; our body cleaves to the ground.
Rise up, and help us, and save us, for the sake of your steadfast love.