David Capes
We need to look at those Psalms where there’s not a resolution, where everything doesn’t turn out in a positive way.
Frederico Villanueva
Yes, a common movement in the lament Psalms is from lament to praise. So, for example, Psalm 13 would begin with “How long, oh LORD,” but then at the end, “but I trust in You. I will be joyful. I will sing”. There’s a vow of Thanksgiving at the end. If you read only certain Psalms which move to praise or some expression of trust, you miss the full teaching of scripture. You’re sometimes pressured to be okay at the end, though in life you are in a time of lament.
But the question is, what if you’re not yet okay? Now you need Psalms like Psalm 88 which begins with “My God, my salvation. I cry to you”, and he cries, he laments from beginning to end, and there’s no hope expressed. Actually, it ended with the word “darkness”. In Hebrew, the last word is darkness. So that’s the literal ending of the book. And some people may be uncomfortable with that. But I find that liberating, because you are not alone when you haven’t experienced a solution, the answer, the joy that you’re looking for. It’s okay.
I’m not saying that it’s a good place to be. But it’s a place that we see it is normal to experience the depth, the pain and the humanity described in the Psalms. Psalm 39 ends with “Lord, look away that I may smile before I go and I’m no more”. So, if Psalm 88 ends with darkness, this one ends with nonexistence. Wow, wow. Those are tragic laments.
David Capes
Yes, because there are tragic moments in life that don’t always resolve. You described it earlier, and I’ve heard the term “horrendous evil”. That is the evil that happens in our lives for which there is no explanation. Nobody can say this is why this happened. People may try, but we realize at some point that it’s hard to find any satisfactory answer. I think of something like the Holocaust. How do you answer that? How can we deal with that kind of evil in the world? And there are other examples, more individual examples, but that’s just one of the greatest, most tragic examples of recent history.
Frederico Villanueva
The presence of radical evil, the presence of unexplained things that are unfair, unjust. The tragic laments are very helpful, because one of the biggest things that we need, according to Rowan Williams, is how to speak of failure and suffering without lying and denying. It’s not easy to speak about these things. That’s why the Bible, particularly the Psalms help us, particularly in dealing with the tragic things in our live. Particularly Psalm 39 and Psalm 88 and those psalms which move in the opposite direction from praise to lament. Psalm 9 and 10 and Psalm 40. We need this because they speak about realities, they help us articulate, give voice, confess, because we are not good at confessing failure and defeat.
David Capes
No. It’s the hardest thing to confess, isn’t it, to say I’ve failed. And it’s hard sometimes to completely explain. So, there are those lament Psalms that start with lament and end with praise. I think of Psalm 22 which is the famous one and starts “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”. That’s how it starts, but then it ends on a different note.
And then there are psalms that begin with praise and end with lament. When I think about the songs that we sing in our churches today, they don’t do that. They don’t start with praise and end with lament. They don’t start with lament and end in praise. They all go from praise to praise. We don’t have many that are about lamenting, because we want this positive experience. We want to express the idea that everything is great. My life is great, my family is great. My health is great. That’s how we talk to one another.
At church, somebody might say, Rico, how are you? And you would say, Fine. I’m okay. Where is the space at church each Sunday where we can say, you know, my life is falling apart. Maybe my family is falling apart, or I’ve lost my job and I’m about to run out of money to pay my bills. How do we talk about those things on Sundays? What I hear you saying is that the Psalms give us some language to do that. Are the laments expressed well in the translations or do we all need to learn Hebrew?
Frederico Villanueva
Well, if we have the opportunity, it’s best in the original language still. Some of it is lost in the translation, because the beauty of the poetry of the sounds in Hebrew gives you a better picture. One example, one image would be the movement from praise to lament. Picture that in your mind. We can say, I’m not okay today. I’m terrible, but it’s okay. The Lord has been good. Psalm 9 would begin with, “I will give thanks to the Lord.” But then in the middle, it says, “Why, oh, Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?”
Psalm 89 as well, the big Psalm, begins with thanksgiving, but then in the middle, he says,”But you have rejected, you have spurned, you have renounced your covenant” and so on. And one of the things that biblical scholars have not paid attention to are the opposite movement. I think part of it is because we tend to read into the text our own culture.
For example, in Western society, you have a movement from problem to resolution, progress and enlightenment. So sometimes we read into the text, that there should be a resolution at the end. Well, not everything is like that in life and we need to acknowledge that. You may not want to accept that, but that’s the reality. And some of the Psalms move from praise to lament deliberately for a purpose. For example, Psalm 9 and 10 moves from thanksgiving to lament in the light of the oppression of the weak and the poor. It speaks of the powerful, wicked man, hunting the weak, the innocent, oppressing, murdering. And in the light of that, he asked, “God, why do you stand far off?”
David Capes
Yes, and God, you let that happen. You let that happen.
Frederico Villanueva
So, you talk about the Holocaust, for example, genocide, or even on a smaller scale, the loss of a family member. These things that are so unfair. You just can’t explain those away.
David Capes
Yes, a beloved child that you lost, or a spouse. This is what life consists of, isn’t it? Your work has been very good for us. It enlightens us about the need to embrace the whole scriptures, that whole one-third of the Psalms. Maybe they should be read out loud. They should be read out loud to God. We need to learn to do that in our churches.
One of the great traditions from our country are the Spirituals, the songs that came out of slavery. They very often expressed some sense of hope, referring to Scripture as well. I know we sang them growing up in church. We didn’t always know that it was a Spiritual that started from the pain of slavery. But we came to understand at some point that these were born in fear and pain and doubt. All crying out to God, saying don’t turn a blind eye. Come and save us. Come and save us.
Dr. Rico Villanueva, thank you for being with us today on “The Stone Chapel Podcast.” We look forward to your full lecture, and we’ll have details about that in the show notes.
Frederico Villanueva
Thank you also for this privilege. Thank you, David.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
