Deliverance, protection and vengeance.

These are three words which shape the tone of this weeks Psalms.

I wonder how you respond to those words? How do you relate to them as themes?

Whilst God’s protection is a familiar and comforting idea, and the idea of deliverance reflects an enactment of that protection, our current climate of Christianity doesn’t much favour the idea of a vengeful God, nor the idea of praying for God’s vengeance.

Yet Psalm 58 is brutal in it’s descriptions of what the writer wants God to do;

“O God, break the teeth in their mouths;
    tear out the fangs of the young lions, O Lord!
Let them vanish like water that runs away;
    like grass let them be trodden down and wither.
Let them be like the snail that dissolves into slime,
    like the untimely birth that never sees the sun.
Sooner than your pots can feel the heat of thorns,
    whether green or ablaze, may he sweep them away!”

Psalm 58:6-9 (NRSV)

I would never dream of using language like this in a prayer, or any other context for that matter! It seems as though the fuel for such requests is hatred. Many of these Psalms are set against the backdrop of persecution, so there is probably also fear in the mix. These are intense, persuasive emotions. We mentioned at the start of our journey through the Psalms that there is such a variety of human emotion is in these Psalms, but when confronted with them as we are in this Psalm, it can be hard to know what to do with that?

Are we to act like the Psalmist and pray vengeance on our enemies? For them to be like a snail dissolved into slime?!

That doesn’t sit quite right with me. But, that could be subjective; just my personal reaction to a strong idea.

Thankfully we don’t have to just rely on our emotional responses to the emotional responses of others. Jesus himself addresses this topic and gives us grounding for how we are to read Psalms like this.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’  But I say to you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven, for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.  For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Matthew 5:43-48

That passage is taken from the Sermon on the Mount, where much of our understanding of Jesus’ ethical teaching is rooted. What is confusing about it is that sometimes Jesus says ‘you have heard it said’ and is talking about a specific other passage in scripture. Here, however, there is no passage that says ‘hate your enemy’. Perhaps Jesus is addressing a common misconception, or a certain interpretation of a law.

Either way, what he goes on to say clarifies Jesus’ own thoughts on the matter – we are to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.

Don’t ask God to break their teeth, ask God to bless them.

This is the revolutionary love of God as expressed by Jesus.

I struggle to relate to some of these ideas. I don’t think I have any enemies. I also don’t think I (personally) am being persecuted much, if at all. But I can take these sentiments and instructions and apply them more broadly.

Do I pray for those I find difficult? Or those who upset me? Those who have wronged me? Let me down? Frustrated me?

This isn’t to say that those things are equal to the persecution found in the stories of someone like King David, or those of the Church around the world who cannot freely worship, but the principle that Jesus highlights is that love is the answer, not hate.

You may well be amazed at what God does when we choose to pray for blessing in spite of our emotions.

So, if that’s God’s heart for us, to love our enemies, how do we engage with Psalms like Psalm 58?

Well, I suppose we can be understanding that it is in our nature to feel these types of emotions. The call of God to love our enemies is something that can be worked on and developed.

We can also use them as a mirror – what do we see of ourselves in them? Are we sometimes quick to anger? Do we forget to forgive? Do we have a hard heart at times?

Let this and other Psalms remind us both of our nature and our call to rise above that.

We must choose daily the way of Jesus; a way of peace, love and forgiveness.