As a way of trying to attend to Black History Month, I read the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winning novel The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead. The story centers around Cora, a young slave woman who escapes from the brutal bonds of slavery in Georgia, via the underground railroad, to try and find a life of freedom in the north or west. Although fictional, Whitehead bases his novel on many of the historical events and narratives surrounding the victories and tragedies connected to those few brave men and women who tried to secretly usher people from slavery to freedom.
The book is haunting, disturbing, and difficult to put down. It is simultaneously beautiful and ugly, hopeful and tragic. Wrestling with the historical and brutal realities of slavery behind its narrative are deeply unsettling but hopefully transformative when honestly confronted.
Like many works that narrate the history of the African-American experience, beyond the obvious evil of slavery itself, what I find personally so disturbing is the role Christian faith too often played in validating the systemic wickedness of racial oppression and justifying the status quo. One of the reasons I believe Christians should read these kinds of works is to view the faith of the majority culture through the eyes of the oppressed.
This coming week I am launching a videocast and podcast called New Creation Conversations. The first conversation is with a good friend and great scholar, Dr. Brent Strawn. Brent is a professor of Old Testament Studies at Duke Divinity School. We talk about a number of important things related to the Old Testament. In part of our conversation Brent reflected on what are known as the imprecatory psalms. Imprecatory psalms are those prayers that ask God to bring judgment, wrath, and punishment upon the psalmist’s enemies. Two of the best-known imprecatory psalms are Psalm 69 and 109. There are nineteen other psalms that are usually counted as imprecatory also: 5, 6, 11, 12, 35, 37, 40, 52, 54, 56, 57, 58, 59, 79, 83, 94, 137, 139, and 143. Here is an example of what those psalms sound like from Psalm 69:
You know full well the insults I’ve received; you know my shame and my disgrace.
All my adversaries are right there in front of you.
Insults have broken my heart. I’m sick about it.
I hoped for sympathy, but there wasn’t any;
I hoped for comforters, but couldn’t find any.
They gave me poison for food.
To quench my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.
…Pour out your anger on them – let your burning fury catch them.
Let their camp be devastated; let no one dwell in their tents…
Let them be wiped out of the scroll of life!
Let them not be recorded along with the righteous! (Psalm 69:19-21, 24-25, 28)
I couldn’t help but think about the imprecatory psalms in certain passages of Whitehead’s novel. Many of those held in slavery in the book try to live out of imaginations shaped by the gospel. One of the most hopeful passages in the book envisions a community of the oppressed who attempt to form a community of care that has reflections of the new creation. However, there are passages that also reflect the imprecatory psalms. As an example, at one point Cora hears that her former wicked and violent owner has died. She reacts with a kind of imprecatory biblical imagination:
[Cora] envisioned her former master tangled in linens, purple tongue poking from his lips. Calling for help that never arrived. Melting to a gory pulp in his casket, and then torments in a hell out of Revelation. Cora believed in that part of the holy book, at least. It described the slave plantation in code. (p. 271-272)
In several passages, Whitehead narrates those in slavery having to believe in divine justice and wrath, because if God does not bring judgment upon those who oppress them, then there is no ability to keep faith in the existence, let alone the goodness, of God.
Often when we think about the reason such violent and wrath-filled imprecatory psalms were included in the canon of Scripture, we think about the need for our frustrations and cries for help to be named to God, even if God may or may not answer such seemingly brutal prayers as, “A blessing on the one who seizes [the Babylonian’s] children and smashes them against the rock!” (Ps. 137:9).
As helpful as it may be to express those feelings to God, and as comforting as it is to know that God hears our cries against those we think of as enemies, I would argue that part of the role the imprecatory psalms play is to remind us that in this moment, there may be people at the margins praying those kinds of prayers against us. When we are hurt, misused, and in places of weakness, we rightly hear these psalms as identifying with our pain. However, when we find ourselves in positions of power, can we hear these prayers as the prayers of others, perhaps against us?
- Who are those who are looking to us for sympathy, but find none?
- Who are those who cry to us for comfort, but can’t find any?
- Who are those who shout for help in their hunger and thirst, only to receive from us contaminated food and vinegar to drink?
When they came to a place called Golgotha, which means Skull Place, they gave Jesus wine mixed with vinegar to drink. But after tasting it, he didn’t want to drink it (Matthew 27:33-34).
Thanks for your thoughts and words. I too really enjoyed The Underground Railroad, but I never made this connection. Hope you're well.
Posted by: Alex Brouwer | February 20, 2021 at 11:24 AM