Pray Your Rage – Recovering the Lost Art of Lament and Imprecation
When was the last time your prayer sounded something like this?
“Is this any way to run a country?
Is there an honest politician in the house?
Behind the scenes you (politicians and leaders) brew cauldrons of evil,
behind closed doors you make deals with demons.” (Psalm 58:1-2, The Message)
Many, if not most, of us don’t know what to make of a prayer like this, even if we realize it’s from the Bible. We assume that prayers are supposed to be comforting rather than combative, pacifying rather than perturbing. Our discomfort reveals a disconnection between what we perceive as spiritual feelings like peace, joy, or compassion, and unspiritual feelings like rage, sadness, or fear. If this discomfort and disconnection is true of us then we need to rediscover the gift of anger. This will help us to become both spiritually and emotionally mature. It will also teach us how to pray prayers like the one in Psalm 58.
The Gift of Anger
Too many of us assume anger is wrong. Not long ago a leader in our ministry said, “I’ve been angry with students and I need to repent.” I was thrilled to hear how this friend became aware that he was angry. This is good self-awareness. I was also glad to hear a commitment not to indiscriminately vent his frustration on students. This would have been wrong. Still, his comments reflected this unbiblical idea that anger is wrong. It’s not.
Anger is a right response to injustice. It is a right response when someone or something that we value is demeaned, defaced, or desecrated. Anger gives us the energy to stand up to bullies, to demand accountability for actions that have hurt those we love. Anger helps us enforce rules that keep our communities intact. It helps us to change rules that aren’t working. Anger can be a benefit to others, as long as it’s stewarded in healthy ways. The coach who says, “don’t you dare quit on me,” and the mother who says, “that behavior is unacceptable,” is offering a gift, not a curse.
Both the Old and New Testaments reveal a God who is angry at injustice. Isaiah 61:8 says;
“For I the Lord love justice,
I hate robbery and wrongdoing;
I will faithfully give them their recompense,
and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.”
In John 2, Jesus makes a whip of cords and drives money changers out of the temple for their extortive economic practice. These examples rule out the possibility that anger is unspiritual or an affront to character of God. The challenge for us is to direct our anger in spiritually healthy ways.
Classically, Christian spirituality has recognized two ways of expressing anger in prayer; lament and imprecation. We need to learn both.
Complaining to God
Lament refers to prayers of complaint. In lament we cry out in anger and anguish at the pain, grief, injustice, and wickedness we see around us. Psalm 13 is a prayer of lament:
“How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I bear pain in my soul,
and have sorrow in my heart all day long?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?”
This prayer complains about a sense of abandonment, pain, and grief. It doesn’t piously acquiesce to unbearable sorrow. It challenges and provokes towards heaven. Lament is the prayer of the grieving. It is the prayer of the persecuted and marginalized. Lament enables us to pray our rage at the injustices and indignities we experience. It gives voice to the voiceless.
Jesus described the prayer of lament in his parable of the persistent widow, who came night and day to bring her complaint before the unjust judge (Luke 18). Jesus himself prays a lament on the cross when he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46)
Learning to lament enables us to pray rage rather than be consumed by bitterness. Some time ago I was hurt to discover I’d been the unflattering topic of conversation among a group of colleagues. Conflict and disappointment that should have come to me, instead became the topic of conversation at a conference I did not attend. When I heard what was said I felt exposed, violated, and betrayed. Praying a lament from Psalm 55 gave voice to the grief:
“It is not enemies who taunt me—
I could bear that;
it is not adversaries who deal insolently with me—
I could hide from them.
But it is you, my equal,
my companion, my familiar friend,”
Cursing in Prayer
The other way to pray our rage is to curse in prayer. These prayers are often called imprecatory because they ‘call down’ judgments or evil.
If laments make us uncomfortable, imprecations cause us to shut down altogether. Yet here they are in the Bible’s own prayer book. Psalm 3 is one of my favorites:
“Rise up, O Lord!
Deliver me, O my God!
For you strike all my enemies on the cheek;
you break the teeth of the wicked.”
Imagine asking God to break someone’s teeth! Why would we pray that way?
Imprecations are the prayers of the violated. They are the cry for justice boiling over. These prayers recognize that there are some forms of evil, some actions of injustice that need to be confronted and condemned, dismantled and destroyed.
There is a fear that the raw strength of these prayers, the violent imagery, the ill wishes might prompt us to act violently, in the name of God. Sadly, Christian history is full of examples of scriptural texts being used as a pretext for violence. This trend continues to this day, so concern about violent words leading to violent action is justifiable. A mentor who taught me to pray the imprecatory Psalms shared a helpful perspective. “We must learn to pray our violence and entrust it into the hands of the God revealed in self-giving love.” In other words, we pray our rage to God so that we don’t display our rage on others.
Seeking Justice
Learning to pray in lament and imprecation do not absolve us of our need to pursue justice. We don’t pray in order to release the gift of anger and return to a state of quiet disengagement. We pray to transform destructive and indiscriminate rage into purposeful action.
I write these words during a week of protests and unrest following the death of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery. A coalition of churches in my city have come together to pray, march, and act. They are stewarding the gift of anger in hope. It’s a community committed to the work of justice that can embody a prayer like Psalm 58.
“Is this any way to run a country?
Is there an honest politician in the house?
Behind the scenes you (politicians and leaders) brew cauldrons of evil,
behind closed doors you make deals with demons.” (Psalm 58:1-2, The Message)