Laments for Lent – Entreaty
Psalm 10:12-15–
Arise, LORD! Lift up your hand, O God.
Do not forget the helpless.
Why does the wicked man revile God?
Why does he say to himself,
“He won’t call me to account”?
But you, God, see the trouble of the afflicted;
you consider their grief and take it in hand.
The victims commit themselves to you;
you are the helper of the fatherless.
Break the arm of the wicked man;
call the evildoer to account for his wickedness
that would not otherwise be found out.
For this fourth Sunday of Lent, I’m looking at the fourth part of a Lament – the Entreaty, where the psalmist asks God to help.
As a review, here is the form most Laments in Psalms loosely follow:
A – Address to God
C – Complaint
C – Confession of Trust
E – Entreaty
S – Sureness of Help
S – Subsequent Praise
Something that has long struck me about the Entreaties I find in Psalms is that they are pretty general. While the psalmists get very specific in the complaint, describing their troubles, in the Entreaty, they ask God to act without really telling God what to do. (Though you can argue with me about “Break the arm of wicked men.” – I’m typing that rather enthusiastically, with a broken finger.)
I was told growing up to pray specific requests, so you know when God answers them. But isn’t that treating God a bit like a vending machine? Why not pray for God to deal with the situation – and trust God to figure out how to do that?
I mean, I’ve been praying, “Call the evildoer to account for his wickedness that would not otherwise be found out,” but I would never have dreamed of asking God to have someone add a journalist to their text chain about bombing civilians! There’s a lot more room for God to work!
Some more examples:
Psalm 6:4–
Turn, LORD, and deliver me;
save me because of your unfailing love.
Psalm 17:7-9–
Show the wonder of your great love,
you who save by your right hand
those who take refuge in you from their foes.
Keep me as the apple of your eye;
hide me in the shadow of your wings
from the wicked who are out to destroy me,
from my mortal enemies who surround me.
Psalm 22:19–
But you, LORD, do not be far from me.
You are my strength; come quickly to help me.
Here’s one to pray against people doing evil things, like depriving the vulnerable of their civil rights:
Psalm 28:4–
Repay them for their deeds
and for their evil work;
repay them for what their hands have done
and bring back on them what they deserve.
Psalm 35:22-25–
LORD, you have seen this; do not be silent.
Do not be far from me, LORD.
Awake, and rise to my defense!
Contend for me, my God and Lord.
Vindicate me in your righteousness, LORD my God;
do not let them gloat over me.
Do not let them think, “Aha! Just what we wanted!”
or say, “We have swallowed him up.”
Some are very poetic and inspiring. I love this one:
Psalm 43:3–
Send me your light and your faithful care,
let them lead me;
let them bring me to your holy mountain,
to the place where you dwell.
This Psalm of Confession has a beautiful one:
Psalm 51:7-12–
Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
Hide your face from my sins
and blot out all my iniquity.
Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
And I’m going to stop there for tonight. The Entreaty is the easiest part to find in the Laments – the part where the psalmist asks God to do something. Watch for this as you read Psalms.
And now, as I do each week, I’m going to pray a sample lament, using the six parts as prompts. My hope is that you will try this at home. (And I’d love to have some pasted into the comments!)
Still on my heart very much are people being abducted off the street without a warrant, their Constitutional rights stripped from them. (And there’s nothing in our Constitution that says the Bill of Rights is only for citizens.) So tonight’s lament is for them.
Lord God, hear our prayer,
listen to our cry.
We come to before you tonight
about vulnerable people
being abducted off the street
about people being seized by men in hoodies and masks
without a warrant,
without a hearing,
without a phone call,
without notice to family,
without any kind of due process,
without any regard for human rights.
We also pray about tourists put into detention
if someone doesn’t like what they find on their phone.
They are imprisoned,
deprived of medicine,
deprived of sleep,
treated as less than human,
deprived of any rights.
Lord, you see the sparrow fall.
You see when vulnerable people are wronged.
Lord, send forth your light and your faithful care;
let them know that you are near.
Don’t let the secret police continue to terrorize;
call them to account, Lord God!
Father, we know that evil doesn’t win in the end.
Help us to learn from this
and root out the injustice built into our system.
We know that you are a God of justice;
may we hear the cries of joy when prisoners are released.
Lord, we’ll never again take for granted
that America is a refuge for the tired and poor and the huddled masses learning to be free.
May we celebrate every immigrant we meet
and look forward to again being a place of refuge.
Okay, that’s my offering for tonight. I’m having a harder time with the “Subsequent Praise” section when it’s harder for me to imagine the resolution happening soon. But that’s part of the power of the Lament – imagining our joy after God works. And we’ll talk about that in a couple weeks. For now, I’ll keep trying to imagine an America that people want to immigrate to again.