In this, another communal lament, the psalmist asks, “O Lord of hosts, how long will you be angry with your people’s prayers?”(verse 4). So I ask myself, ‘Can God really be angry with prayers?’
And then I realise that not everything labelled as a prayer is really true to the spirit of prayer,
or deserves to be labelled as such. And I find fault with the psalm. I find fault even though I
admit that the psalmist, like the rest of us, can only pray from our perspective. Check this
out. The notion that God is ignoring their prayers is qualified by this giveaway claim-“ You
make us the scorn of our neighbours.” (verse 6) . Being an object of derision seems to carry
more weight than any inner recognition that we have been, done and gone wrong.
Confession doesn’t feature in the psalmist’s petition. The case is rather , that God has
selected and transported a vine from Egypt and given it extra special treatment (verses 8-
11). And then, all of a sudden, and for far too long, God has literally ignored this prized
possession and let her enemies have a field day towards her destruction.( verses 11-12) .
Only through a rehearsal of these good and bad fortunes, does the psalmist come to the
point of asking God to show some proper regard for God’s very own. ( verses 14-14)
Wow! God seems, over and again, to make the people need to “take shame out their eye”
so they recognise the need to get sin out of their heart.
It’s no doubt a good thing that we were made for community. When problems intensify the
shaky ground on which we stand and we cannot “rejoice with those who rejoice and weep
with those who weep,” we need to take stock and recognise that the root cause is often a
problem of the heart. Of course, I don’t mean that you or I needs a cardiologist to fix that
problem!
When are we going to recognise wrong for what it is without us having to be made the
object or subject of someone else’s scorn? Is that why parents are so hurt when their
children embarrass them in public?
Come on, people. Let’s take stock daily. Let’s not allow horrors to continue for too long
before we detect the need to change direction. Let’s ask for such a sensitivity to seeing and
hearing from the wrong perspective, for feeling well or ill for the wrong reasons, for doing ,
going and being wrong before we worry about how long God is going to ignore our “prayers”.
Then confession will feature in nearly every attempt at praise, and the waiting time will not
seem so long after all.
“Restore us. O Lord of hosts; let your face shine, that we may be saved.” (verse 19)
