Back in the 90s, The Smashing Pumpkins had an album titled ‘Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness’. It was memorable for its cute title (particularly given the name of the band) and because it was a tidy album.
For some reason, while reading Psalm 80 this morning, the title came back to me. It feels as though Asaph’s been sad for a long time. In fact, when we start our Sunday gatherings at The Big Table each Sunday with the next Psalm in the Psalter, it’s hard to avoid a simple fact: many of these psalms are laments. While you might count on the Psalms to inspire people to worship together, often it seems that they’re far more adept at comforting the broken-hearted or joining with those who are unable to answer the question; ‘Where is God right now?’. Asaph seems to be on a royal run of these laments and questions in this little slab of Psalms.
Psalm 80 is rooted in military defeat. It’s the prayer of a worship leader crying out to God on behalf of his nation: ‘Where have you gone, God? Why have you deserted us?’. The Israelites had had mighty victories – many and often. It made them look good, and it made God look good. The Lord’s doings in the past are strong grounds for appeal and expectation as to the present and the future, yet the current reality? Not so flash.
I’ve had three conversations with different people in the last week with a similar theme: ‘2011 has been a pig of a year, and I’ll be pretty glad when it’s done’. Perhaps this is not a reflection of your year, but for these guys, it’s been life. Things have happened in their families, their workplaces and finances; in their relationships, in their ministry work, and in the everyday, that they’d love to be done with. One of those conversations may as well have been a 21st-century paraphrase of Psalm 80: ‘I don’t know what God’s doing with me, but I wish we could move on…he seems to be deconstructing me on every level. Whatever lessons he wants me to learn, I wish I could learn them quick and then be done with it’.
It’s not as though these guys aren’t praying either. Just like Asaph. In verse 4, he inquires of God: ‘How long will you be angry with your people’s prayers?‘. It’s seems like God has heard the prayer and decided to respond in the opposite direction of the petition. I reckon my mates feel quite the same. It’s not a great leap to move from prayers like this to angry prayers…or no prayer at all. After all, what good is coming of it?
The salvation history of the Israelites testifies to the truth to which Jesus-follower will also testify: God has acted. Through Jesus, he has acted decisively. He is present, he faithful and he is trustworthy. If suffering seems to be filling the day, I can be confident that joy comes in the morning. The day may be long (for these guys it’s felt like most of a year), but there’s a promise of joy. That may sound glib, but it’s not when you’ve lived it. And when your suffering has drawn you closer to your Father, the joy has a mature depth as well.
In a movie we were watching last night, someone uttered the line: ‘Being still is a lot different to doing nothing’. Waiting on God, humbling ourselves before him, being still in his presence is a long way from ‘nothing’. For in that place, regardless of our circumstances, he can turn our sorrows into joy.
– Simon Elliott (originally published November 2011)