Psalm 109 - Praying through Gritted Teeth to Glorious Praise

(1) Breathing Fire

I pull my iPhone from my left pocket to check the time as I walk down Lincoln Way in downtown Auburn. It‘s 8:13 pm—Monday. Plenty of time to pick up Micah by 9. I turn right, down an alley towards High St. My car is parked by Alesci’s barbershop. I had just come from Royal Indian Cuisine restaurant. The sun is setting. The parking lot is almost empty. I get to the parking lot and reach for my car alarm key. Click! Click!

I turn right, down an alley towards High St. My car is parked by Alesci’s barbershop. I had just come from Royal Indian Cuisine restaurant. The sun is setting. The parking lot is almost empty. I get to the parking lot and reach for my car alarm key.

Click! Click!

I open the door. I hear loud, angry expletives coming from a man across the street, hidden by a row of cars parked by the street. I get in the car. I reach for the door lock. Click! I sit there waiting for the man to come out of the shadows. A couple of seconds later, a middle-aged man—medium built, round face, thin blond hair, walks passed the cars towards a tree along the sidewalk, a piece of document in his right hand. He reaches for a branch with his left hand, yanks on it with fury and lets out a roar.

Click!

Few things make a person angrier than the feeling of helplessness and frustration of finding that the resolution to the tension you’re feeling and the key to your satisfaction are in the hands of events you cannot control and individuals you cannot bend to your will. All anger is this way. It is a response to an attack.

I sit there waiting for the man to come out of the shadows. A couple of seconds later, a middle-aged man—medium built, round face, thin blond hair, walks passed the cars towards a tree along the sidewalk, a piece of document in his right hand. He reaches for a branch with his left hand, yanks on it with fury and lets out a roar.

He’s breathing fire. Steam is coming out of his ears and nostrils. So I drive off the parking lot in a hurry, keeping my eyes—and my car—far away from him lest I be consumed by his rage.

(2) Reminder

Few things make a person angrier than the feeling of helplessness in satisfying one’s strong desires. But what makes a person fly into a rage is the frustration of finding that the solution to the tension he’s feeling and the key to his satisfaction are in the hands of events he cannot control and individuals he cannot bend to his will.

is one of the imprecatory psalms along with , , , , , , and 137. It is a difficult psalm to understand. It is full of curses and maledictions. It is shockingly dark, ugly, and vindictive. It makes us cringe. It makes us want to stay in our car, click the lock button, and keep driving. It makes us wonder why it is even in Scripture. We’re not alone in this. Bible interpreters have also struggled with and its kind. They write it off as an inferior ethic to the enlightened ethic of Jesus.

Why did God include these psalms in the canon of Scripture? Is it merely so he can remind us to skip them? Is it merely so he can remind us about the bad old days before Jesus? Is it merely so he can remind us how not to pray? Now we pray as Jesus tells us to: “Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you”? But this would be a gross misrepresentation of God’s first testament. For do we not also see in the Old Testament echoes of Jesus’ ethic of love?

What of ?

Deuteronomy 6:5 NIV

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

What of ?

Leviticus 19:18 NIV

“ ‘Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.

No, —and the rest of the imprecatory psalms—have something more positive and profound to teach us. If for nothing else, reminds us that what I saw on the sidewalk of High St on Monday night is common occurrence across the world with far more serious results than broken tree branches. It reminds us of the deadly consequences of ignoring our anger. We think of those who perished in El Paso, TX; Dayton, OH; Garden Grove and Sta. Ana, CA because of the madness of others. reminds us to deal with and confront our anger.

If for nothing else, Psalm 109 remind us that what I saw on the sidewalk of High St on Monday night are common occurrences across the world with far more serious results than broken tree branches. (I think of those who perished in El Paso, TX; Dayton, OH; Garden Grove and Sta. Ana, CA)

reminds us not to sweep anger under a rug, or brish it aside. In , we find God’s unorthodox way of dealing with unholy anger.

(3) Take it off the streets!

As soon as we start reading , God grabs us with these beautiful words: “My God whom I praise.” It begins with an address to God. Despite all our questions about this psalm, we find that it is first and foremost a prayer. And there lies the secret to learning from it. Despite our apprehensions about it, is first and foremost an address of faith. It is a prayer that begins like all prayers do, a direct address to God.

We cannot begin to imagine how difficult it must have been to utter these first few words. For what these words represent are the choices we make all day long about what we leave in the streets and sidewalks of our lives, and what we choose to include in our prayer lives. Here we find that David in has already made the most difficult choice even prior to verse 1, a choice we too must make. This decision is to take his anger off the streets and into the very presence of God—totally unvarnished and unfiltered. It is the unseen, but the most important move in the psalm—a move we’ll do well to emulate.

We first follow Psalm’s first move.

(1) Take it off the streets

Right off the bat, God is telling us in that the most difficult of all human emotions belong in our prayer life. And he tells us to take it off the streets and the sidewalks of your life. “Bring it here before me unvarnished and unfiltered and I will not only teach you how to really feel; I will teach you anger as I meant it to be—not as a dark energy that forces submission and consumes others, but anger as blessed and redemptive energy to fire up your passion to destroy sin in your life and in the life of others. But you must first get your anger off the streets and sidewalks of your life and into your prayer life. Make your anger a matter of prayer. Do it and you will really begin to pray!”

(4) Follow its tortuous path

Then

(2) Follow its tortuous path

So we follow the psalmist and find that his tortured prayer path is rough indeed. So what do we find?

We find that: All anger is a response to attack.

Psalm 109:2–5 NIV

for people who are wicked and deceitful have opened their mouths against me; they have spoken against me with lying tongues. With words of hatred they surround me; they attack me without cause. In return for my friendship they accuse me, but I am a man of prayer. They repay me evil for good, and hatred for my friendship.

Psalm 109:2b–5 ESV

For wicked and deceitful mouths are opened against me, speaking against me with lying tongues. They encircle me with words of hate, and attack me without cause. In return for my love they accuse me, but I give myself to prayer. So they reward me evil for good, and hatred for my love.

Psalm 109:1–5 NIV

My God, whom I praise, do not remain silent, for people who are wicked and deceitful have opened their mouths against me; they have spoken against me with lying tongues. With words of hatred they surround me; they attack me without cause. In return for my friendship they accuse me, but I am a man of prayer. They repay me evil for good, and hatred for my friendship.

Unrighteous anger and righteous anger are cut from the same cloth. They are both aroused as a result of unjust attack. The difference between the two is the perception of the individual feeling attacked, and his or her response. The next time you get angry, stop yourself long enough to ask, “Why am I reacting in this way? Why am I feeling attacked? Why is my anger being aroused? ” And immediately make it a matter of prayer. Take it off the street as quickly as you can and into the presence of God. And he will shed light over your angry spirit.”

David reveals to God why he is angry. It happens to be the universal reason for anger—I’ve been unfairly attacked. Anger is a response to an unjust attack. It doesn’t have to be real or big. It only has to be real real in the perception of the aggrieved.

then walks us down the rough path our unrighteous anger takes.

We lash out when we are attacked.

We get so angry because we fee

Second, we find that: Anger demands justice

Read .

This is what we find in

Psalm 109:5–15 NIV

They repay me evil for good, and hatred for my friendship. Appoint someone evil to oppose my enemy; let an accuser stand at his right hand. When he is tried, let him be found guilty, and may his prayers condemn him. May his days be few; may another take his place of leadership. May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow. May his children be wandering beggars; may they be driven from their ruined homes. May a creditor seize all he has; may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor. May no one extend kindness to him or take pity on his fatherless children. May his descendants be cut off, their names blotted out from the next generation. May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the Lord; may the sin of his mother never be blotted out. May their sins always remain before the Lord, that he may blot out their name from the earth.

The Psalms’ realism is in full display. We find that is a mirror held before us reminding us that God is describing us at the very core of our anger. is us unvarnished and unfiltered when we get angry. Yet, the difference here is that David’s unvarnished rage has been taken off the street and in the presence of God. He takes his unholy anger to God and, instead of taking vengeance himself, he asks God to do it for him. Not exactly the most ideal. But it is a step in the right direction.

moves again. He continues to hold the mirror before our face and continues to challenge us to keep it there. For he says, the reason why you lash out when you are attacked is because of you are self-righteous.

We lash out because we feel self-justified.

Psalm 109:16–20 NIV

For he never thought of doing a kindness, but hounded to death the poor and the needy and the brokenhearted. He loved to pronounce a curse— may it come back on him. He found no pleasure in blessing— may it be far from him. He wore cursing as his garment; it entered into his body like water, into his bones like oil. May it be like a cloak wrapped about him, like a belt tied forever around him. May this be the Lord’s payment to my accusers, to those who speak evil of me.

And last, tells us that

We lash out because we are afraid.

Psalm 109:21–29 NIV

But you, Sovereign Lord, help me for your name’s sake; out of the goodness of your love, deliver me. For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me. I fade away like an evening shadow; I am shaken off like a locust. My knees give way from fasting; my body is thin and gaunt. I am an object of scorn to my accusers; when they see me, they shake their heads. Help me, Lord my God; save me according to your unfailing love. Let them know that it is your hand, that you, Lord, have done it. While they curse, may you bless; may those who attack me be put to shame, but may your servant rejoice. May my accusers be clothed with disgrace and wrapped in shame as in a cloak.

We are most dangerous when we are afraid. We are also most vulnerable. But notice that, because David has turned his anger into prayer, his fear now becomes the very source of his strength. For he summons God for help. Help me! Deliver me! Save me!

David rages on. His eyebrows merge, his pupils constrict, his breathing increases. With gritted teeth and clenched fists he roars. Time collapses. Space shrinks. Action bursts furiously like a volcano spewing out plumes of ash and heated gases into the sky until the earth burns and justice—his sense of justice—is satisfied.

Read .

(5) Enjoy its reward

But he’s taken it off the streets and sidewalks.

Oh the beauty of the imprecatory psalms! it is a mirror of our broken souls. But it is also a promise. A promise that...When we take our anger off the streets. When we follow its tortuous path and interface with God along the way. Then at the end of the tortuous prayer road,

It is the sad story of blessed and redemptive anger—that which God designed to energize our passion to destroy sin—turning dark, ugly, and vindictive in the hands of fallen human beings.

(3) Enjoy its reward

We find something very interesting in David’s tortuous path of angry prayer. We find that the angrier he got before God the greater his satisfaction becomes. By the time we reach verse 30, David is transformed. Gone are the curses and maledictions—from 13 in the second section of his prayer, down to 2 each in sections three and four of his prayer, and down to 0 in the final section.

This is the reality we face today. There are more unholy anger in daily interaction than there are redemptive, blessed anger—anger that cries out in humble vulnerability and submission to the timing of a good and just God.

Psalm 109:30–31 NIV

With my mouth I will greatly extol the Lord; in the great throng of worshipers I will praise him. For he stands at the right hand of the needy, to save their lives from those who would condemn them.

Paradox

(6) My Rage at the Dumpsite

So when we find this rage in the psalms, we are right to be repulsed. If this kind of anger and rage has no place in the world, what is it doing here in God’s Holy Book?

Three Mondays ago, my son and I drove to the dump site in Roseville, off the 65. It was part of my great plan to sell my Chevy Silverado. I cleaned up my garage and filled my truck with all the trash and junk I could gather—one final time before I say goodbye to my beloved truck. I gathered all the old paint, used motor oil, and other chemicals that I had been waiting to dispose. I set it in the back seat and some in the truck bed on top of all the trash.

We get to the dump and proceeded to empty my truck of all the regular trash first. So far so good. Then we headed to the chemical waste disposal area. I pull up and an older man meets me with his cart. “What do you have?” I have less than 15 gallons of various chemicals—old house paint, motor oil, etc.”

We struggle to understand its presence in the time-honored Psalms of all places—the fountainhead of Jewish and Christian Spirituality.

I took out two 5-gallon paint buckets. “Sir, these are 90% empty. But these two 1-gallons containers are full.”

“I can’t take all that. You’ve got too much. I can only take 15 gallons a day.”

“But these two 5-gallon containers are empty!”

“It doesn’t matter. You’ve got too much.”

“What do you mean? All these combined is less than 15 gallons!”

“I said you have too much. Please hurry up ! I haven’t got all day. Others are waiting behind you.”

I pick up the rest of the stuff, my tail between my legs. I have been defeated, humiliated, blocked. Nothing I can do will make this man yield to my desire to gain satisfaction.

I turn to my son sitting in the passenger seat, hoping to gain an ally. He sides with the old man. I turn to the line behind me, giving them the bewildered look, seeking for more allies. They give me the blank stare.

Suddenly, my breathing increases. My pupils constrict. My eyebrows merge. I begin to breath fire. Smoke is coming out of my ears and nostrils. I flew into a rage.

I rush to my truck, slam the door shut, and drive off. My son tells me to calm down. Immediately I turn on him.

How dare this old man block me from the satisfaction of getting my righteous task done!

I had let my anger spill out into the street of my life. Like the middle-aged man off High Street. That was me three Mondays prior in a different place.

As I drove my son to his friend’s house, I realized the folly of my action. It took a good twenty minutes for me to calm down. Then I started to pray. Lord God, why was I so easily provoked? I turn to my son and begged for his forgiveness.

We all get angry. tells us this. But God would have us take our anger off the streets and into God’s presence. God would have us follow its tortuous path and learn the hard lessons of why we get angry. And at the end of this rough road God would have us reap the joyful fruit of peace.

Then we can truly feel. Then we can truly know what anger is like—God’s holy anger—anger to energize our passion to destroy sin in our lives and in the lives of others.