By Ted Clarkson

When you first start praying the Daily Office using the lectionary from the prayer book, you will start to notice that occasionally the Psalm will be listed with a few verses in brackets. For example, this morning’s selection was listed as Psalm 69:1-23 [24-30] 31-38. The verses that are set in the brackets are optional. This usually happens because the verses are troublesome or complicated. In the case of this morning’s Psalm, they can be violent and vindictive:

Let the table before them be a trap *
and their sacred feasts a snare.

Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, *
and give them continual trembling in their loins.

Pour out your indignation upon them, *
and let the fierceness of your anger overtake them.

Let their camp be desolate, *
and let there be none to dwell in their tents.

For they persecute him whom you have stricken *
and add to the pain of those whom you have pierced.

Lay to their charge guilt upon guilt, *
and let him not receive your vindication.

Let them be wiped out of the book of the living *
and not be written among the righteous.

That is not the scripture that I needed to start my day. It is an example of an Imprecatory Psalm, one that invokes God’s wrath and judgement. Is skipping over the Imprecatory Psalms the right thing to do? In our violent world, do we need to hear about more violence in our scripture? The truth is these texts are difficult, but I don’t think we should leave them out.

No other book in the Bible captures the full range of human emotions in the same way as the Book of Psalms. Throughout our lives we have moments of joy and sadness, fear and anger, love and loss. All of these emotions are featured in the Psalter. The Psalter speaks to us especially strongly whenever it matches the feeling that we are currently experiencing. As Old Testament scholar John J. Collins puts it, “The power of the Psalms is that they depict human nature as it is, not necessarily as it should be.”

So, what about this portion of Psalm 69? I have been angry before, but I’ve never been wipe- those-people-off-of-the-face-of-the-earth angry. If these verses are not meant to stir up my anger, perhaps they can serve to remind me that there are other people in the world who have a good reason to experience this kind of rage: international refugees who cannot find a safe haven, oppressed communities who live under a cruel foreign or domestic power, or nations of people who have been decimated by genocide. When someone is the victim of bondage, slavery, or holocaust, these feelings are part of that experience. Ignoring these verses from scripture makes it easier to ignore the plight of those whose suffering is greater than anything I have ever known.

Does this mean that wiping these oppressive people from the earth or wishing that they be denied the benefits of eternal life is the right thing to do? Well, no. This morning, after reading that portion of Psalm 69, the interpretative key came to us as we read our first canticle, which was Canticle 10, the Second Song of Isaiah:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, *
nor your ways my ways, says the Lord.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, *
so are my ways higher than your ways,
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

When we pray the Imprecatory Psalms, we need to remember that these are someone else’s thoughts, someone else’s ways. And they are not God’s thoughts or ways. As an example, if I pray about something that frustrates me, that does not mean that God is frustrated.

When we pray the Psalter, we are invited into an ongoing song of praise that has not stopped for thousands of years. There is a richness and depth in the Psalter that has helped kings and queens, refugees and captives, and folk like you and me find new ways to connect with God. Instead of skipping the parts that we don’t easily understand, we would do well to pray them slowly, carefully, and in community. As they draw us closer to God, they draw us all closer together.