Psalms for Turbulent Times - Psalm 69: Forgiveness is better than success

Psalm 69[1]

1    Save me, O God, for the waters have come up, even to my neck.
2    I sink in deep mire where there is no foothold; 
       I have come into deep waters and the flood sweeps over me.
3    I have grown weary with crying; my throat is raw; 
       my eyes have failed from looking so long for my God.
4    Those who hate me without any cause are more than the hairs of my head;
5    Those who would destroy me are mighty; 
       my enemies accuse me falsely: must I now give back what I never stole?
6    O God, you know my foolishness,  and my faults are not hidden from you.
7    Let not those who hope in you
      be put to shame through me, Lord God of hosts;
       let not those who seek you be disgraced because of me,
       O God of Israel.
8    For your sake have I suffered reproach; shame has covered my face.
9    I have become a stranger to my kindred, an alien to my mother’s children.
10  Zeal for your house has eaten me up;
        the scorn of those who scorn you has fallen upon me.
11  I humbled myself with fasting,  but that was turned to my reproach.
12  I put on sackcloth also and became a byword among them.
13  Those who sit at the gate murmur against me,  
        and the drunkards make songs about me.
13  But as for me, I make my prayer to you, O Lord; at an acceptable time, O God.
        Answer me, O God, in the abundance of your mercy
       and with your sure salvation.
14  Draw me out of the mire, that I sink not; 
        let me be rescued from those who hate me and out of the deep waters.
15  Let not the water flood drown me, neither the deep swallow me up; 
        let not the Pit shut its mouth upon me.
16  Answer me, Lord, for your loving-kindness is good; 
        turn to me in the multitude of your mercies.
17  Hide not your face from your servant; 
        be swift to answer me, for I am in trouble.
18  Draw near to my soul and redeem me; deliver me because of my enemies.
19  You know my reproach, my shame and my dishonour; 
        my adversaries are all in your sight.
20  Reproach has broken my heart; I am full of heaviness. 
        I looked for some to have pity, but there was no one,
        neither found I any to comfort me.
21  They gave me gall to eat, 
       and when I was thirsty, they gave me vinegar to drink.
22  Let the table before them be a trap and their sacred feasts a snare.
23  Let their eyes be darkened, that they cannot see, 
        and give them continual trembling in their loins.
24  Pour out your indignation upon them,  
        and let the heat of your anger overtake them.
25  Let their camp be desolate,  and let there be no one to dwell in their tents.
26  For they persecute the one whom you have stricken, 
        and increase the sorrows of him whom you have pierced.
27  Lay to their charge guilt upon guilt, 
        and let them not receive your vindication.
28  Let them be wiped out of the book of the living 
        and not be written among the righteous.
29  As for me, I am poor and in misery; your saving help, O God, will lift me up.
30  I will praise the name of God with a song; 
        I will proclaim his greatness with thanksgiving.
31  This will please the Lord more than an offering of oxen, 
        more than bulls with horns and hooves.
32  The humble shall see and be glad; you who seek God, your heart shall live.
33  For the Lord listens to the needy,  
         and his own who are imprisoned he does not despise.
34  Let the heavens and the earth praise him, the seas and all that moves in them;
35  For God will save Zion and rebuild the cities of Judah; 
        they shall live there and have it in possession.
36  The children of his servants shall inherit it, 
        and they that love his name shall dwell therein.

Here is another example of a psalm with a soul-felt cry to God of someone who feels up to their neck in a most distressing situation of alienation, sorrow, persecution, affliction and despair. A familiar theme in the psalter. This person seems admirably patient, willing to wait for God to move and act at an ‘acceptable time’ (vs13). Yet there is great urgency because they feel so overwhelmed in their stuck-fastness (as if trapped on deadly Morcambe Bay’s mudflats with tide rushing in) that they are sure they will drown. In verse 21 there is even a sense of identification with Christ of the Cross, as we hear this anonymous psalmist tell how they have been fed gall to eat and vinegar to drink by their enemies.

What is most revealing to me today is what this besieged and isolated person’s deepest desire is for their foe. It is for God to act in a way that leaves them unacquitted (NRSV) or with no vindication (this translation) as they are overwhelmed instead by guilt after guilt (vs27). The worst thing that can happen to anyone is that they are so trapped by guilt or shame that they cannot receive forgiveness. To the psalmist, this is the worst possible outcome for his foes – that they never know the forgiveness of God.

For fullness of life is not to be found in riches or success – this is the tradition of the psalms  as well as the Christian faith. It is to be found in how much one is forgiven. This is the measure of true human flourishing: to know how much we are forgiven and loved.

In a recent podcast[2] I listened to, the former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams – a notable theologian and thinker of our day – said much the same. As he reflected on the life of faith and the witness we offer to people in an age of pandemic, he said the following. He speaks first of the big picture of the age of modernity, where for the last 100 years or so, people have rejected the more ancient path of faith and sought out the quicker rewards (?) of individualism (in the West, at least). Then he goes on to critique institutional religion’s track record. Finally he paints a picture of a landscape of faith that helps people be more fully human and not less. We sense that the psalmist knew what it was to be more fully human and not less, despite his plight. Here is what Williams had to say:

‘There is nothing particularly  new about this situation. There has always been modernity with its shortfall of spiritual and imaginative resources. People have become more conscious they do not have a big picture in which to put things.

‘The individualist assumptions of the last century have not served us well. Traditional religion does not always look very credible either because it has been associated in people’s mind with repression or irrationality among many other things; it is associated really with being less rather than more human.

‘So we have a little bit of a job to demonstrate that that’s completely the wrong way round. So there’s that awareness that a big picture has been lacking. And a big picture does not mean some grand explanatory theory, it means a landscape to live in that’s worth living in that’s full of beautiful, challenging, unexpected perspectives that enlarge you. And that’s the world of faith as far as I can see. And in Christian faith, very particularly I’d say, one of the central things that we are told is that it is more important to be forgiven than to succeed.’

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[1] Common Worship: Services and Prayers for the Church of England, material from which is included here,
is copyright © The Archbishops' Council 2000 and published by Church House Publishing.

[2] Talking Theology (June 8^th 2020): https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/talking-theology/id1449756129?i=1000477230048