Walter Brueggemann provides what I believe is a helpful framework for the psalms. He describes the psalms as being written in three different ways depending on our life situation. Those three categories are psalms of orientation, disorientation, and reorientation. Let me quickly explain these before we look at a psalm more in depth. Orientation psalms describe situations where life is just perfect, nothing is wrong and we couldn’t be happier and more in tune with what God is doing in our world. Disorientation psalms describe moments when life comes crashing down around us and we might find ourselves upset and questioning God. Reorientation psalms describe a surprising return to a place of deliverance and contentment with God. This place then becomes the new place of orientation with God, until another event occurs that throws us into disorientation.
This week I want to look at a disorientation psalm and a psalm of reorientation. I’ll also include a list of a number of psalms from each category if you would like to dig in deeper yourself.
Listen to a psalm of disorientation, listen for the themes of longing, justice, questions of God’s faithfulness, and hope for God’s redemption. Here is Psalm 42:
The psalmist laments. The psalm is visceral, like a deer longing for water, so the psalmist longs for God. When shall I see the face of God, tears have been food. People taunt the psalmist continually asking where is your God?
Then the psalm turns to something that has resonated with us the past few months as he remembers fondly worshipping together in community. It’s incredible to me these moments in time where things we face now are eerily parallel to the frustrations, complaints, and laments of people thousands of years ago. We are not the first people to be frustrated to not gather together in worship, and we won’t be the last.
Yet in the midst of all this longing, of downcast souls, the psalmist chooses to hope in God. Amongst the grief and taunting there is a conscious decision to hope, to trust that in the end God will prevail, that God will be faithful.
These psalms of disorientation are not used enough in the church. We don’t like to grieve, and we especially don’t like to grieve corporately. We act and believe that life with God is all smooth sailing. But we know from life it’s not. And for too many people we have bad theology that grief somehow indicates a lack of faith, or a bad relationship with God. Yet, the cry of the psalmist, the questions he poses are only questions that can be asked of someone in a deep relationship.
Why have you forgotten me? Why must I walk about mournfully? We get the angriest, we the get most hurt by the people we love deepest. Questions like this indicate a life intertwined with God as he pleads for justice in his situation.
As we continue to face this pandemic as well as the resurfacing racial tensions in our world we long for God to make things right, we long for God to nourish our souls, we long for God to bring healing and restoration. And so in the face of hardship, we do the most difficult thing possible, we hope. We hope in God trusting that God will act in these situations, that God will act in and through us, that God will be our help. Hoping in God when life is darkest is both complicated and sometimes feels impossible, yet it is the faithful response we are called to as we wait for God to act.
Our hymn text today comes from lyrics by Christine Curtis based on Psalm 42. It’s entitled “As the hart with eager yearning”
As the hart with eager yearning
seeks the cooling watercourse,
so my soul with ardor burning
longs for God, its heavenly source.
When shall I behold God’s face?
When shall I receive God’s grace?
When shall I, God’s praises voicing,
come before our God rejoicing?
Day and night in grief and anguish
bitter tears have been my meat,
while my longing soul may languish
to partake of manna sweet.
O my soul, be not dismayed.
Trust in God, who is our aid.
Hope and joy God’s love provides you,
‘tis God’s hand alone that guides you.
Grace and peace to you, Amen.