Psalm 13, a Lament
A Hebrew woman in Egypt, at the time when Moses has returned from the wilderness:
Eli, I don’t understand. You tell me that the Lord is taking care of us, but here we are, slaves in Egypt. They make us work all day, we have very little food, and our children have to work when they should be playing. They treat us worse than their own donkeys and dogs, yet you tell me that our Lord is stronger than their gods.
Moses tells us that God sent him to free us, but now we have to work harder than before. Moses goes and talks to Pharaoh, but then he comes back and tell us that the Lord has hardened Pharaoh’s heart … that the Lord has hardened Pharaoh’s heart! So we cannot leave. I don’t understand why the Lord would make that happen. Why does the Lord make Pharaoh blind to our pain? Why do bad things happen to us if we are the chosen people?
You tell me that we are chosen, that we are the Lord’s special people. We have tried to follow the Lord. We have not worshiped the gods of Egypt. We have kept our own ways, doing what Joseph told us to do. We do our best to care for each other, to be good people. Why does the Lord make bad things happen to us?
Eli, I don’t understand. You tell me that the Lord is all powerful and controls everything. You tell me that it was the Lord who created the world and who brought humans into it. You tell me that we were made in the image of the Lord. You tell me that it is the Lord who makes the sun rise and makes the night lights shine. You tell me it is the Lord who gives life, and it is the Lord who takes life away. Then tell me, please, why the Lord made us slaves? Why does the Lord make Pharaoh keep us here? Why does the Lord cause us such pain? Is there no hope for the future? Why do good people suffer so?
God, your children are hurting.
# # #
Job’s wife:
Job, I don’t understand. You tell me that the Lord is good, but just look what the Lord has done to us! All our children, both sons and daughters, are dead! Every one of them was killed by a great wind that blew down the house! Our children! Do you hear me, Job? Our children are dead! And you tell me, “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away.” [1] The Lord didn’t birth each one of those children. The Lord didn’t nurse them! The Lord didn’t teach them to walk and to talk. I did! The Lord had no right to take them away from us!
I don’t understand you. If the Lord is so powerful, why has the Lord treated us this way? You are a good man! You’re kind and generous. You love me and take good care of me. Why can’t the Lord do the same? You treat others fairly. You’re kind to the servants. You share what we have. Why can’t the Lord be like that? Why does the Lord let this happen to us, to you?
I thought that the Lord punishes evil people and protects good people. I thought the Lord takes care of those who are faithful. You’ve been good. You’ve been faithful. Why does the Lord cause us so much pain? Why does the Lord not protect you? Why did the Lord not take care of our children? Why did the Lord do this to us?
Job, you tell me that the Lord knows us, knows who we are, knows what we do. Does the Lord not see the good you have done, the good man you have been? Does the Lord punish those who are good? Does the Lord kill the innocent? Does the Lord kill our children and our servants? If this is the Lord’s doing, if the Lord sends good things to bad people and bad things to good people, then what good does it do to worship the Lord, to fear God and turn away from evil? What good is God? Where’s the hope?
God, your children are hurting.
# # #
The mother of a blind baby in the first century:
Micha’el, I don’t understand. We have kept the law. We have kept the Sabbath. We have taken our offerings to the Temple as required. We have observed the feast days. We make our annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem with everyone else. We do not eat what we should not eat. We do not associate with sinners. We give alms to the poor. You study the law. You say the Shema every morning and every evening. You wear it on your hand, on your forehead, and you wrote it on the doorposts of the house and of the gates.
You say that nothing happens unless God wants it to. Doesn’t that mean that God makes everything happen? Did God make our baby be born blind! Why are we being punished when we have done nothing wrong? Now the neighbors talk about us behind our backs; they treat us as though we were evil. They liked us before he was born, and they treated us with respect. But now, because he was born blind, they say that we are being punished for sinning, for breaking the law. What laws have we broken? Why is God punishing us? What have we done wrong? Why do bad things happen to us when we have not been bad? What hope is there for us and for our son?
God, your children are hurting.
# # #
The wife of one of the men killed by the tower of Siloam (Luke 13:4):
Jesus, I don’t understand. My husband was a good man. You knew my husband. You know he was a good man. You talked with him, ate with us, played with our children. But when the tower fell on him, and on the others who were working there together, … Now people tell me that the tower fell on him because God was displeased with him and with the others. They tell me that this was God’s punishment, because my husband was sinful. They tell me that such things only happen to bad people, that good people never suffer, that good people have healthy children, that good people live long lives … Jesus, why did God kill my husband? What hope do I have for a future? Why did God take my future away?
God, your children are hurting.
# # #
Mary, the mother of James (one of the women at the tomb in the gospel of Luke)
I come back here often to this garden. It’s such a peaceful place now. Now it brings me joy. Now it reminds me of hope. It didn’t always.
I remember that evening. I’ll never forget it. I have never felt such pain, such loss, such grief, such … There aren’t words to describe what I felt. We had walked together, eaten together, talked together. We were a close group, and yet there was always room for another to join us. Jesus taught us, but he was more than a teacher. Jesus shared with us, not just food, but his whole being. He shared his ideas, his understanding of God, his closeness to God, his relationship to God. Jesus made us feel like he really cared about us, and that God really cared about us, too.
He struggled to help us understand God the way he did. He called God his father. His father! Someone close to him! Someone who cared about him and cared for him and loved him. Someone who cares about us and cares for us and loves us, too. Someone who wants good things for us, not bad things. Someone who holds us in strong arms. Someone who comforts us like a mother. Someone who wants us to be loving, too.
It was hard for us at times. We thought that God only lived in the Temple, that that was the only place we could worship God. We thought that God was responsible for all the pain and hurt in our lives. We always saw God as separate from us, up there, out there, looking down on us. God caused people to be born blind. But Jesus said he came from God, and Jesus healed the blind. Why would God heal people through Jesus if God was punishing them by making them blind in the first place?
And then … it was a horrible day. I don’t even want to talk about it! We watched where the men put his body, so we could come out as soon as the Sabbath was over. It was a long night. And I struggled with all Jesus had taught us and with all that I thought I knew about God. If Jesus could be killed like that … if Jesus … Jesus knew God in a different way. Jesus and God … you felt like Jesus knew God personally.
So God couldn’t have been responsible for Jesus’ death! God couldn’t kill his own son! But if God didn’t do it … And then I wondered if God was hurting, too, the way I was. When they flogged Jesus, did God cry? When they pounded the nails into his flesh, did God bleed?
When I come back here to the garden now, it’s different. You see, even amid all our pain and our suffering, there’s hope! There’s hope because God raised Jesus up out of the tomb! God does not cause pain and suffering; people do. It wasn’t God who killed Jesus; it was the soldiers. But they didn’t have the last word because God did. And God does. God will always have the last word, even when we hurt, even when we suffer. And that last word is hope.
When we sat with Jesus, when we talked with Jesus, we felt a sense of hope, new possibilities, new opportunities. If God loves us so much, then God reaches out to us, not in punishment and anger, not in pain, but in love, in hope. Not that God only cares about us if we do what God wants, but that God cares about us, God loves us, as we are! Bad things will happen to us, but it’s not God who causes them. God helps us get through them. God holds us and comforts us in our pain. God brings us a future, a hope, a reason to live for tomorrow. A hope. A reason to be. A resurrection of our own!
For consideration:
General Questions
1) How does this story follow its Scripture?
2) How does this story expand its Scripture for you?
3) What is the message of this story?
4) How does the message apply to us today?
Specific questions
5) How can the Psalmist write, “The Lord has been good to me” with all those difficulties?
6) If you had lived in their time, how would you respond to the slave woman? To Job’s wife? To the blind baby’s mother? To the wife of the man killed by the tower?
7) Not all laments end on a positive note. Does such a lament represent a lack of faith? Why or why not?
8) Write a lament for yourself or for someone who is facing a difficult time.
[1] Job 1:21a
