A Word from Pastor Lisa: Learning How to Curse
“Do not be silent, O God of my praise.
For wicked and deceitful mouths are opened against me,
speaking against me with lying tongues.
They beset me with words of hate,
and attack me without cause.
In return for my love they accuse me,
even while I make prayer for them.
So they reward me evil for good,
and hatred for my love.”
– Psalm 109:1-4 (NRSV)
Growing up, I only heard my parents swear a handful of times. We were allowed to say “shoot” and “gosh,” but the big curse words were reserved for special occasions, such as a hubcap falling off the car, dropping a glass jar of orange juice, and the confirmation of a certain Supreme Court Justice. We weren’t allowed to cuss at each other, and most certainly not at God. I didn’t realize until seminary that the Bible contained a slew of cursing Psalms directed at our enemies, and more surprisingly, even at God. Here are some to explore:
We ask God to blind our enemies, blot out their children, dash their babies’ heads against a rock, cut off their lips, and let death come to them. Most of us are not used to hearing things like this in church, and these Psalms rarely make our worship. Yet Psalms like these “hold our anger in good faith,” says scholar Ellen Davis in Getting Involved with God: Rediscovering the Old Testament. Healing for ourselves and our enemies requires that we not seek retribution or yield to their power over us. Rather, we must offer them, along with ourselves, for God’s transformation. The cursing Psalms give us guidance in how to do this in several ways:
1. They offer us words for our anger when we are so overwhelmed that we can’t find our own. What makes you blind with rage? The betrayal of someone you trusted? A broken relationship? A tragic loss? The continued politicization of this pandemic? The injustice of racism, sexism, poverty, or homophobia? Whether our enemy is a specific person or an entire institution, I invite us to use these psalms to yell at God without holding anything back. Perhaps we’ll discover, as Davis suggests, that the cursing Psalms force us to confront the idolatrous belief that God doesn’t care for our enemies either. When we pray these cursing psalms, we let go of our tendency to put God in a box that is an extension of our own wounded egos. As Anne Lamott says, “You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when God hates the same people you do.”
2. Vengeful anger is one way to access God. The cry for vengeance is a prayer to God who is just as outraged by those who wound, kill, destroy, oppress, and violate trust. When we curse our enemies in the Psalms, we entrust God with the tasks of judgment and mercy. The cursing Psalms also beckon us to the difficult prophetic task of naming and renouncing the spiritual forces of wickedness, as we promise to do in our baptismal vows.
3. The cry for vengeance is also an appeal for God to act. The cursing Psalms do not invite us to a place of seeking retribution ourselves by egging a house, spreading false rumors, lashing out, picking up a gun, or hiring one. These Psalms allow the punishment to be in God’s hands, not ours, thus limiting our retributive power over our enemies. We demand that our enemies be driven into God’s hands, and perhaps there they will find the grace and mercy they need for transformation. When we turn over to God our right for revenge, we begin the process of forgiveness and healing. When and if we’re ready, we might be able to start praying for the enemies who’ve hurt us.
This week in worship Pastor Teri will lead us into a deeper exploration of these cursing Psalms. In the meantime, let’s find the freedom to use them. We can rage about our enemies, get loud and angry before God, and trust that God is God and we are not.