More than meets the eye: reading the Psalms with young people

As I prepare to teach the Psalms again this semester at Youthworks College, I have just learned of the recent passing of Walter Brueggeman—one of the most influential writers on the Psalms in recent decades. His work first published in 1984, The message of the Psalms, introduced the categories of orientation, disorientation, and reorientation that have now become commonplace in discussions of the Psalms. These classifications refer to the way that the Psalms reflect different spiritual seasons. The Psalms teach us how to pray when all is as it should be (psalms of orientation), when life is hard (psalms of disorientation), and when we find ourselves on the other side of trouble (psalms of reorientation). Brueggemann’s key insight is that the Psalms invite us to speak to God wherever we find ourselves. His invitation to pray the Psalms is both refreshing and countercultural:

“The Psalms thus propose to speak about human experience in an honest, freeing way. This is in contrast to much human speech and conduct which is in fact a cover-up. In most arenas where people live, we are expected and required to speak the language of safe orientation and equilibrium, either to find it so or to pretend we find it so. For normal, conventional functioning of public life, the raw edges of disorientation and reorientation must be denied or suppressed for purposes of public equilibrium...

...As a result, our speech is dulled and mundane. Our passion has been stilled and is without imagination… The agenda and intention of the Psalms is considerably at odds with the normal speech of most people, the normal speech of a stable, functioning, self-deceptive culture in which everything must be kept running young and smooth.” (Brueggemann, 2007, p. 7).

Brueggemann’s work has been readily embraced in youth ministry circles, with its obvious relevance for the young Christian living the “storm and stress” of adolescence. But as I have taught the Psalms to young people and adults working with young people, I have become convinced that Brueggemann’s insights are just the tip of the iceberg. The Psalms are so much more than an invitation for us to speak honestly to God.

More than giving expression to our feelings

Anyone who tries to pray through the whole Psalter (all 150 psalms) quickly finds themselves praying words that don’t match their spiritual season. The happy, contented Christian squirms as they read words of despair or calls for the destruction of God’s enemies (Ps 69:22-28). The sufferer is forced to declare God’s praises (Ps 69:30-33). The person with a guilty conscience struggles to utter the confessions of innocence (Ps 17:3-5).

The diligent reader of the Psalms finds that they do far more than give expression to our feelings. In fact, the Psalms refuse to leave us where we are: they prompt us to think of the wider suffering of God’s people, they prod us with reminders of God’s goodness even in our sorrow, and they confront us with the need for repentance where our righteousness falls short of the psalmist. The “patron saint of Youthworks College”, Dietrich Bonhoeffer comments that:

“If we are to pray aright, perhaps it is quite necessary that we pray contrary to our own heart. Not what we want to pray is important, but what God wants us to pray. If we were dependent entirely on ourselves, we would probably pray only the fourth petition of the Lord’s Prayer [give us today our daily bread]. But God wants it otherwise. The richness of the Word of God ought to determine our prayer, not the poverty of our heart.” (Bonhoeffer, 1970, pp. 14-15)

We ought to pray the Psalms, and model our prayers after the Psalms, with children and teenagers. This will invite them to speak honestly with God, but also bring them into a transforming encounter with God’s word. There is value in trying to find Psalms that ‘match’ the season of a child or a group of young people. But it is also important to wrestle with Psalms that at first seem uncomfortable or unnatural.

More than words to God

The Psalms are indeed human words to God, which we are invited to make our own. But they are also words from God. Like all of God’s word the Psalms teach us about God, but they do so in a remarkably comprehensive way. As Martin Luther says of the Psalter:

“It could well be called a ‘little Bible’ since it contains, set out in the briefest and most beautiful form, all that’s to be found in the whole Bible, a book of good examples from among the whole of Christendom and from among the saints, in order that those who could not read the whole Bible through would have almost the whole of it in summary form.” (Luther, Preface to the Psalms)

Luther wasn’t talking specifically about ministry to children and young people here, but he might as well be. The children’s or youth ministry that regularly makes use of the Psalms will find it teaching its young people the whole counsel of God, teaching of God as creator and redeemer, his character of justice and steadfast love, the nature and extent of sin, the reality of suffering, the word of God, and so much more. More useful still for the young reader is the way that the Psalms teach us about God—with visual and emotive metaphors. Rather than speaking about God in abstract theological terms, the Psalms give “pictures” of God as king, shepherd, shield, refuge, rock, warrior, and so on. A suggestion I often make for the use of the Psalms in children’s ministry is to structure a teaching program around such metaphors for God from the Psalms.

More than the prayers and songs of God’s people

The person who reads themselves into the Psalms (as Brueggemann invites) will find themselves speaking very presumptuously to God. For example,

“Awake, Lord! Why do you sleep? Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever. Why do you hide your face and forget our misery and oppression?” (Psalm 44:23–24, NIV)  

This raises the question: “on what basis can we speak to God like this?” Part of the reason for the boldness of the Psalms is that many of them are the prayers of David, the great anointed king of Israel. In fact, the Davidic origin of many of the Psalms and their pervasive royal themes presents the whole Psalter as the prayerbook of the king of Israel. It is for this reason that the most common use of the Psalms by writers of the New Testament is to understand the person and work of Christ, with Psalms 2, 22, and 110 each quoted multiple times.

More than the prayers and songs of God’s people, these are the prayers of the Messiah and teach us about his enemies, his suffering, his obedience, his deliverance, his exaltation, and his rule over the nations. The reader of the Psalms, then, finds themselves caught up in a bigger story than their own—the story of God’s plan of salvation, in which he brings salvation to the world through the suffering and victory of his chosen king. It is only as they take refuge in God’s king—or in theological terms “united with Christ”—that they can rightly take on the words of the Psalms as their own and speak to God with the same boldness and intimacy as his Son. To use the language of the Psalter itself, Christ is the song leader, and we join in his song as the choir (Ash, 2017, pp. 58-61).

Brueggemann was right. The Psalms invite us to speak with boldness and raw honesty to God. This is something that children and young people need to discover. But to speak to God in this way is not to “boldly go where no man has gone before”. It is an inheritance that is rightfully theirs as the people of the Messiah.

References:

Ash, C. (2017). Teaching Psalms: From text to message. Fearn: Christian Focus.

Bonhoeffer, D. (1970). Psalms: The prayer book of the Bible. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg.

Brueggemann, W. (1984). The message of the Psalms: A theological commentary. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg.

Brueggemann, W. (2007). Praying the Psalms: Engaging scripture and the life of the Spirit (2nd ed.). Eugene, OR: Cascade Books.

Luther, M. (1960). Preface to the Psalter (1528). In Theordore Bachman (Ed.), Luther’s Works (Vol 35, pp. 253-257). St Louis: Concordia.