Living with the Psalms - Part 4

As I've prayed my way through the Psalms, I've noticed that about fifty of them are missing from the various prayerbooks. Generally speaking, these are the psalms of lament.

Some of these psalms grumble about sickness, difficulty, or God's distance. Others pray for revenge against enemies. These psalms expose any shallow optimism that has crept into the sanctuary. And they remind us, once again, that we do not live in the center of the universe.

I'm intrigued to hear of congregations that know these psalms are in the book -- much less sing them. While some think that the best way to grow a church is to be cheerful, I want to put in a good word for honesty. "Why is my soul downcast within me?" is a pretty good prayer from Psalm 42, and blessed is the church that is honest enough to pray it.

In the book edited by Brown and Miller, one of the writers notes that a lament is actually a cry for help. It is a protest against mechanical spirituality and automatic grace. As I serve a church that is less and less propped up by the culture, and the doctrine of "inevitable progress" is exposed as fiction by the recurrance of human foibles, maybe we could lobby for the greater inclusion of all the psalms in the Christian songbook.