It is remarkable how selectively the Psalms are used in some liturgies. Psalms that exalt God’s power and splendor (hymns) or praise God for His marvelous deeds and salvation (thanksgiving psalms) can be heard from the pulpits far more often than other psalms, mostly psalms with complaints and laments, which seem to be banned from many liturgies. The words of Ps 137:8, 9 just do not seem right to most people: “O daughter of Babylon, who are to be destroyed, Happy the one who repays you as you have served us! Happy the one who takes and dashes your little ones against the rock!” Many would argue that Ps 44 does not fit a worship service: “Our heart has not turned back, nor have our steps departed from Your way; But You have severely broken us in the place of jackals, and covered us with the shadow of death” (vv. 18, 19). Thus the selectiveness of Psalms in liturgy reflects the exclusiveness of moods and words that we express in our communal prayers.
Sometimes contemporary worship services featuring popular genre of praise music attempt to create “a sense of ‘false happiness’ as the main purpose and normal state of the Christian Church and of individual Christian lives.”1 This could cause us to miss the point of worship. Such restrictiveness may be a sign of our inability or uneasiness to engage the dark realities of life in worship. Walter Bruegge-mann rightly observes that “surface use of the Psalms coincides with the denial of the discontinuities in our own experience.”2 This is true not only of the selective use of the Psalms but also of prayer. Though we may sometimes feel that God treats us unfairly when suffering hits us, we do not find it appropriate to express our thoughts in liturgy or even in private prayer. The failure to express honestly and openly our feelings and views before God in prayer often leaves us in bondage to our own emotions and sin. This also denies us confidence and trust in approaching God. Praying the Psalms gives an assurance that “when we pray and worship, we are not expected to censure or deny the deepness of our own human pilgrimage.”3 Psalm 44, for example, can help worshipers articulate their experience of innocent suffering freely and adequately. Praying the Psalms helps people experience the freedom of speech in prayer. The Psalms give us words that we cannot find or do not dare to speak.
Similarly, the psalms of praise and thanksgiving help believers to powerfully express their praise and thanks to God, and affirm their trust in Him. One can hardly find more vibrant and beautiful words of praise than those of Pss 93, 96-100, 105, 113, 126, 148, and 150. Praying these psalms enables believers to abide with greater focus in the praise to God. When their praise resonates with the psalms of praise, the people are prompted to meaningfully dwell on their own reasons for thanksgiving and to reflect on the meaning of praise in the context of the universal worship of God as the King of the whole creation. The Psalms are inspired prayers which, as Bonhoeffer says, determine our prayers by the richness of the Word of God, not the poverty of our heart, and transform us into the image of Christ, who stands in our place and prays for us.4
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1 Beth LaNeel Tanner, “How Long, O Lord! Will Your People Suffer in Silence Forever?” in Psalms and Practice, 144.
2 Brueggemann, Praying the Psalms, 8.
3 Ibid., 14.
4 Bonhoeffer, Psalms, 15, 20-21.