A very Troublesome Contradiction

AM Psalm 102 • PM Psalm 107:1-32
Isa. 65:17-25 • 1 Tim. 5:17-22(23-25) • Mark 12:28-34

A few months ago, after our Sunday evening service at the women’s prison near St. Paul’s, several of the residents and church folks were standing around visiting, when one of the incarcerated women asked us, “what’s your favorite Bible verse?” The priest who had presided that evening, and I, blurted out in unison: “O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever.” (Ps. 107:1)

That is my favorite verse, but more and more I find it paired in my mind with a much darker text, Psalm 102. Both are assigned for us to read and ponder today. Together, they speak to a troublesome contradiction, both in scripture and in our world. Psalm 102 carries this subtitle: “A prayer of the afflicted,” and it begins, “Hear my prayer, O Lord; let my cry come unto you….For my days pass away like smoke, and my bones burn like a furnace.”

What brings this contradiction sharply to mind is the gap between the comforting idea of a loving God and the reality of suffering and disaster that we see all around us. How can both be true? The easy answer is that both are the words of humans spoken to God under radically different circumstances, but I think that’s something of a copout. A quote from Frederick Buechner, reflecting on a passage from Job, brought me closer to an understanding: “God doesn’t reveal his grand design. He reveals himself. He doesn’t show why things are. He shows his face. And Job says, ‘I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes see thee.’”

Written by Bob McMath

A recent reflection of mine was based on another Psalm of lament (Ps. 35) and an angry prayer uttered by Elie Wiesel in Auschwitz. Buechner helps me understand that passage, as well as the conjunction of these two Psalms.