Clergy and Educators

ICJS Scripture Forum, 2003-2004
Session #3

Scripture Forum
Session #3
Goucher College
December 12, 2003

Introduction to the lament genre
(Dr. Rosann Catalano):

   Claus Westermann and Walter Brueggemann laid the foundations for new ways of thinking about the lament literature.
   It is generally accepted by historical critics that the narrative arc of accounts of salvation-liberation-freedom is recounted within a particular structure that moves from pain to praise: The account begins with people in pain and ends with a promise of praise. [N.B. In this sense, Psalm 137 is an atypical lament psalm because it does not end with a promise of praise.] Westermann refers to this kind of account as a "bipolar theological narrative." The "creedal" statement in Deuteronomy 26: 5-10 is one example of this narrative arc. Another sig-nificant example is found in the exodus narrative. The Hebrews are enslaved because "a new king arose over Egypt" (a political reality); they are not delivered from slavery because they are enslaved to sin. (The notion of enslavement to sin is a particularly Christian move, al-though the Haggadah makes a similar move in saying that the ancestors were idolaters.)
   It is important to note that God's saving action is part of a larger arc because the first action in every account is a human action: People in pain make a decision to cry out to the LORD. In the midst of pain, you do something instead of nothing (pastoral counselors will tell you that you cannot be healed until you can say what is wrong). You recognize that your world is in chaos, and you appeal to God. God hears your cry, God sees your pain, and God responds. Christians tend to think of "salvation" only in terms of God's response, but the whole arc should be considered to be part of the salvific act.

• Comment: Critics will say that people have a responsibility to act, not just to pray.
• Response: There is a notion that this kind of literature leads to passivism, but that is a misunderstanding. Prayer isn't doing nothing. Prayer comes after you've done everything you can, when you see no future, when there is nothing else to do and nothing else to say. The message of lament literature is that you are not alone in the midst of chaos; you call on God and get God to act.

   The motivation of lament is to "get God off His duff" to do something. If you read the call across the lament genre, you will find that buried in the call is always an accusation: "God, You're sleeping on the job." Laments are not pretty: Desperate people say and do desperate things because they have nothing left to lose. The pri-mary function of the lament is to give voice to pain and initiate the act of salvation.
   In the psalms, God is called to "arise." The psalms of lament are the peak of the lament form. As the form be-came more sophisticated, the notion of addressing God more directly and forcefully was muted into a call for God to "arise."
   The last element in the lament structure is a promise to praise: "God, when You do what You have to do, I'll praise You."
   There is no consensus regarding how many of the psalms in the Tanakh are psalms of lament. The number varies between fifty and sixty, which nevertheless rep-resents a large portion of one genre.

   The point (for the purpose of this year's Scripture Fo-rum) is that the narrative arc that frames every account of God's saving action is embedded in Hebrew prayer and is something that Jesus and his followers knew.
   Reading, studying, and/or praying the Passion narra-tives in the Gospels becomes a richer experience when done against the background of the lament because one can see, hear, and feel more of the layers embedded in the theological logic of the narrative. The reader misses the most important theological statements if he does not hear the music of the laments behind the narrative. [Comment: Paula Fredriksen has stated that the Passion narrative in the Gospels is a "midrash on the lament psalms."]

   In terms of structure, according to Westermann, there are two "moments" in the lament: the moment of plea, and the moment of praise. Linguistically, there is a break between these two moments, signaled by the words "but" or "and yet." The break is the theological space in which God has to think about how to respond. After you've said what you have to say, you stop talking, and God wrestles with His response.
   It is important to realize that both the supplication for deliverance and the way in which God is to respond are generic in the psalms -- there is no blueprint for these things. It is up to God to figure out how He will be God for the people in pain who cry out to Him, and how God is God is connected historically to who the people are at the time they cry out.
   The linguistic break in the lament is reflected liturgi-cally for Christians in the fact that the story of the death and resurrection of Jesus is told over three days and on the middle day (Saturday) there is no liturgy. Theologically there is a space in which God does nothing (God does not raise Jesus on Shabbat because to do so would be work). This is the pause between the moments in the lament.

Free-flowing discussion begins:

• The same paradigm occurs in Exodus: At the end of the plagues there is a pause while the Israelites wait to go forth from Egypt.
• Miracle stories are told in sort of the same way.
• Christians don't want to deal with this liturgical pause; they want to go from Good Friday (or even Palm Sunday) straight to Easter. Yet we spend a large part of our lives in that "Saturday moment," and we don't know how to deal with it.
• On Holy Saturday churches are beehives of activ-ity (preparing for Sunday morning), but this is a way of avoiding the pause.
• In Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the Moravians get up on that Saturday morning and scrub the headstones in the cemetery. At night a brass ensemble plays German choral music.



• In Psalm 137, the curse makes it quite clear what we want God to do; the curse is both metaphor and something concrete and specific. That clarity paves the way for accepting the violent action when it occurs, as well as shutting down any openness to the way in which God may choose
  to respond.
• Objection: Psalm 137 is not a typical psalm, and the rest of the psalm expresses a generic wish to have God get the people back to Jerusalem.
• Response: Psalms of imprecation represent the extremes of the genre, especially in giving such specificity to the petition. Psalms of imprecation are out of control. It is extraordinary that they have been included in the corpus.
• Suggestion: Perhaps Psalm 137 has been included because it expresses the wish to return to Jeru-salem.
• Response: It is too facile to say that Psalm 137 has been included because of the wish to return to Jerusalem, because if that were the only reason for its inclusion, the Masoretes could have easily cut out the last two verses.

The discussion turns at this point to Psalm 22:

• The psalm isn't even numbered in Christian Bibles the same way as it is in Tanakh: Christian Bibles (including, for example, the NRSV, RSV, NJB, NIV, and KJV) include the ascription but do not number it. In Hebrew (and the JPS Tanakh translation) the ascription is the first verse, and the psalm proper begins in the second verse. [Scribal note: The Vulgate numbers this psalm the same way the Tanakh does.]
• In Christian liturgy Psalm 22 is used all the time. In Jewish liturgy, on the other hand, pieces of Psalm 22 appear in various places, but the psalm as a whole does not occur anywhere. This is probably
  a reaction to the christological connections that have been attached to the psalm.
• Question (that went unexplored): How many lament psalms are actually used liturgically in
  the siddur?
• The narrative arc of the psalm is familiar -- the movement of being afflicted, crying out, God hearing, and the moment of praise.
• A Jewish participant mentioned that, when looking at a lament psalm like Psalm 22, he thinks of David and the way David turned to God. He also pointed out that almost all the prayers in the siddur are communal, but this one begins with "Eli" -- "My God"; this one is personal.
• Another participant, in response, suggested that this psalm became a window into David's world, speaking first and foremost about a particular historical era, but the first participant objected, saying that when troubled congregants come to him he points them toward the personal psalms of lament.
• Another response: It doesn't matter if we assume that Psalm 22 is by and about David because there is nothing that happened to the patriarchs that hasn't happened to us. An association with David doesn't limit the psalm to be only about something that happened to him, or to others who lived in the ancient world. The psalm has both an original context and a current applicability.



• Question from a Jewish participant: How can Jesus be God and cry out to God?
• Christian response: The line from Psalm 22 only occurs in two of the four Gospels (Matthew and Mark), and only the first line is quoted ("My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"). The con-text is very limited.
• Another Christian participant did not agree that the citation of the psalm should be viewed on such a limited basis. Jesus is hailed by his followers as Messiah and a Davidic link is established, yet he dies an ignominious death. There is a need to make sense of this and to provide assurance that death is not the end. The citation of Psalm 22 in Matthew and Mark presupposes what is to come; it is crucial for Christians to understand that there is more to come.
• We'll never know what Jesus really said, but we do know that putting this psalm in his mouth has shaped Christian understanding. Only the first line may have been cited, but the bystanders at the crucifixion and the hearers/readers of the Gospel know the whole psalm.
• Mark's Gospel has no resurrection narrative but only the proclamation that Jesus of Nazareth had been raised, but if the hearers/readers knew the literature of lament, they knew the rest of the story because they had only one Scripture.
     When you tell the story of the crucifixion and resurrection, you're also telling the story of what God has done in Jesus for us. To tell the story, you draw on the tradition and you shape it. What Jesus actually said doesn't matter. The tradition is clear, so the proclamation told within the tradition is also clear. Since the passion narrative is structured on the basis of the tradition, the resurrection is the answer to the lament.
     In the case of Mark's Gospel, Jesus speaks -- "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" -- and he knows that he then has nothing left to say; the rest is up to God. So Mark has no resur-rection narrative. It is up to the followers of Jesus to say the rest of the psalm.
• A Jewish participant objected that not everybody had the background of the Jewish scriptures, so he is not convinced that people would know the whole psalm on the basis of the citation of the first line.
• If the composition of the Passion narrative is early, would it not be more likely that people would know the psalm inasmuch as earlier on many of those in the Jesus movement would have been Jews? [Scribal note: A quick look at some research on the Passion narrative reveals a handful of scholars (including John Dominic Crossan) who challenge the existence of a pre-Marcan Passion narrative, while the majority of scholars (including Raymond Brown, The Death of the Messiah) accept the existence of such a narrative (or narratives).
  One scholar even suggests that the pre-Marcan passion narrative may derive from a period as early as the late 30s C.E.]



• Many Christians read Psalm 22 in the context of
  an atonement theology: Jesus' "I" includes all of humanity, and his predicament brings about a result for all humanity. Is there a sense that
  the suffering and pain endured carries with it a redemption for Israel?
• Samson Raphael Hirsch would not find such associations odd, but he was writing for Jews
  in a Christian environment. Hirsch makes a universalistic move with Psalm 22: He sees the suffering as being for a universal redemptive purpose. In doing so, Hirsch, who seems to
  have known Christianity, appears to be co-
  opting a Christian interpretation.
• A Jewish participant stated that this psalm is existential for him. There is a reassurance that God is there and that everything will be all right.
• The range of usage of Psalm 22 within Christian tradition is very wide.
• Another Jewish participant said that the psalm reminds him of Job: Job is suffering without knowing why, yet he knows that God is great.
• A Christian participant suggested that it is important to take the first verse very seriously: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
  If You were present, I could endure. The issue is the abandonment more than the suffering. The question is, Where is God?
• That notion occurs in a lot of the psalms. The enemies of Israel mock her, asking, "Where is
  your God?"
• God's reputation is at stake here: Don't save me for my sake; save me for Your sake. This notion
  is part of a lot of the psalms because desperate people can be very manipulative.
• Psalm 22 does not make the same move that is made in Psalm 137. The impulse for violence is missing and, beginning with verse 26, the psalm ends with an all-encompassing vision: No one is untouched by the transformation.
• Nevertheless, the motivation for the prayer is abandonment. The psalm holds in tension the disorientation of absolute abandonment and the knowledge that the LORD reigns supreme.
• This is what Job is about, too. Job wants to know that God is there. (This speaker then referred to Robert Frost's play in verse, A Masque of Reason, in which there are three characters: God, Job, and Job's wife.)
• The last portion of the psalm is an existential necessity: You can't go on if there is nothing there.
• Question: But couldn't the person praying the psalm have hope for himself and want bad things to happen to his enemies?
• Suggestion: Maybe this psalm is spiritually more mature than Psalm 137.
• Psalm 137 is communal, but Psalm 22 is one individual crying out. This is an important distinction.



• Read over time in the Christian community, the message of this psalm is that suffering is redemp-tive, in contrast to a Jewish existential reading.
• This remark elicited a number of responses from Jewish participants:
• Suffering as redemptive is very problematic.
• A lot of Judaism consists of the notion that "they believe that, but we don't."
• Redemptive suffering is at most a minor chord in Judaism.
• Olam haba ("the world to come") is the answer to suffering.
• If this psalm were read within a context of sacrifi-cial worship, one would expect a move to transfer the suffering onto something that would effect transformation. It seems that the atonement dynamic would be a natural move to make.
• In Judaism there are different kinds of sacrifices, so the psalm can be read differently.
• A Christian participant who expressed a disinclina-tion toward any notion of redemptive suffering pointed out that Jesus doesn't tell people to suffer; he fixes things.
• Another Christian participant remarked that walk-ing in the way isn't easy, so suffering does bring about maturity, but we don't seek suffering. In Psalm 22 there is a sense of the sovereignty of God. She added that this psalm is not descriptive of her human condition: God has not abandoned her; she has abandoned God.
• Response: That gets God off the hook. The one praying this psalm believes that God has aban-doned him. Even in the midst of abandonment, however, he is praying. The tradition teaches us to pray to the One who has abandoned you. We cannot control God, but even in the face of aban-donment we can proclaim God. We don't know about God's fidelity, but this psalm is a striking declaration of human fidelity. It's easy to remain faithful when things seem right in the world.
• Post-70 Judaism was struggling with the question of why God had abandoned the community and the individual.
• Suffering was part of the mix in Mark's community. Early followers of Jesus turned to this literature to help them understand what was happening in their community.
• There was a double whammy for Jewish followers of Jesus: Jesus was crucified and the Temple was destroyed.

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