Making the Psalmist's Prayer Our Own

SCRIPTURE TEXT: Psalm 146

Rev. Monte Marshall

Psalm 146 is a prayer of praise: “Alleluia! Praise Yahweh, my soul [or with my whole-self]!” I will praise you all of my life; I will sing praise to my God while I live.” The question is: What are we to praise God for? 

According the psalmist in this morning’s text, there are several reasons to praise God: Yahweh is the trustworthy source of our well-being and happiness. Yahweh is our help. Yahweh is the One “who made heaven and earth, and the sea and all that is in it!” Yahweh keeps faith forever. Yahweh reigns “through all generations.” Yahweh secures justice for the oppressed. Yahweh gives food to the hungry. Yahweh sets captives free. Yahweh gives sight to the blind. Yahweh raises up those who are bowed down. Yahweh loves those who do justice, protect strangers, sustain orphans and the bereaved, and thwart the way of the corrupt.

On the other hand, the psalmist’s prayer reminds us that those human beings who rule over us don’t deserve the same trust because they’re mortal just like the rest of us. As one commentator puts it: “Leaders, like all humans, will come and then go to the ground and all of their plans will go with them…Life-long praise and trust are reserved for [Yahweh] alone.”[1] According to United Church of Christ pastor, Talitha Arnold, “Psalm 146 should be required reading for every political candidate running on the ‘I’m a Christian, so vote for me’ platform.”[2]  

So this is the psalmist’s prayer of praise. Now the question is: How many of us will make the psalmist’s prayer our own? And I’m not just talking about praying the prayer by uttering words; I’m talking about living the prayer!

Well, it seems to me that there are good reasons for making the psalmist’s prayer our own. After all, we have known the God the psalmist praises.

Do we remember what it was like when we were slaves down in Egypt? We were strangers in that foreign land. And there came to power a Pharaoh who didn’t remember our brother Joseph and so he made us his slaves. He afflicted us with burdens too heavy to bear. He said, “Make bricks,” and so we made bricks, thousands and thousands of bricks, to build Pharoah’s cities.

And then one day, Pharaoh gave the order: “Kill their newborn male children to keep them from becoming too numerous in the land.” Do we remember how they came and took away our newborn sons and threw them into the Nile? Do we remember how we cried?

But then our brother Moses met God on the holy mountain. Yahweh said to him, “’Go to Pharaoh and say to him, Let my people go!’”

Do we remember how God triumphed over Pharaoh and set us free? Do we remember how God delivered us through the sea and fed us manna in the wilderness?

And then, when we reached the holy mountain, God gave us the law. Do we remember what our public policy was back then? The poor, the weak, the foreigner were protected under the law. The poor could eat grapes in a neighbor’s vineyard or pluck grain when passing by a field. The poor were to receive the tithe of every third year. Anything that grew up in fallow fields belonged to the poor. It was illegal to extract interest from the poor. The poor were protected from permanent indebtedness through the remission of debts every seven years.

And do we remember the law concerning the Jubilee year? Every fiftieth year, the land was to lie fallow, all debts were to be canceled, all slaves set free, and all family property returned to its original owners without compensation.

This was the law. This was Israel’s public policy. This was God’s will for justice and mercy. But did we keep the law? No. We wanted to be like the other nations so we put our trust in rulers and we worshipped other gods and forgot what it was like to be oppressed. As a result, injustice flourished and the people were again afflicted with burdens too heavy to bear.

But thanks be to God, Yahweh sent prophets to set us straight. And in the fullness of time came Jesus. Do we remember the text from the prophet Isaiah that he read in the synagogue at Nazareth? “’The Spirit of God is upon me: because the Most High has anointed me to bring Good News to those who are poor. God has sent me to proclaim liberty to those held captive, recovery of sight to those who are blind, and release to those in prison—to proclaim the year of God’s favor.’”

While our eyes were fixed upon him, he said to us: “’Today, in your hearing, this scripture passage is fulfilled.’” And indeed it was! We experienced God’s liberating power at work in him and through him.

And so we praise God: “Alleluia! Praise Yahweh!” There are good reasons for making the psalmist’s prayer our own that are rooted and grounded in our history as God’s people.

But the reasons don’t end there. Making the psalmist’s prayer our own is critical in our own day and time because the oppressed are still crying for justice, for food, and for freedom. Listen to this litany of human misery that is, tragically, not exhaustive, but merely suggestive:

• In the world today, “almost half the world—over three billion people—live on less than $2.50 per day.” Some 795 million people in the world—that’s about one in nine people—do not have enough food to lead a healthy, active life. “According to UNICEF, 22,000 children die each day due to poverty.”[3]
• “At the end of 2014 there were an estimated 14.4 million refugees.”[4] “Every five seconds a person is displaced in the world today. This means that on any given day, thousands of people are being forced to leave their homes.” They are fleeing their homes and communities because of “war, violence, persecution, and torture.” Many spend decades living in squalid refugee camps.[5]  
• According to Amnesty International, in 2015, “more than 98 [nations] tortured or otherwise ill-treated people and 30 or more illegally forced refugees to return to countries where they would be in danger. In at least 18 countries, war crimes or other violations of the ‘laws of war’ were committed by governments or armed groups.”[6]
• In 2013, an estimated 30 million people still lived in some form of human slavery.[7]

Do we see why, in response to this litany of human suffering, that it’s so critical for the psalmist’s prayer to become our own? It’s a prayer of hope for the downtrodden of own day, and it is a reminder of who we are and what we are to do as the church of Jesus Christ.

So why not make the psalmist’s prayer our own prayer? Alleluia! Praise Yahweh! Amen.