A couple of weeks ago, my dog gave me a bit of a black eye. I was able to make it less noticeable with makeup, but one day, after an exercise class, I realized that I had sweat the makeup off. I was riding the subway home, and a stranger pointed to my eye and asked, “Are you okay? Are you in danger?”
She was asking if I suffered from domestic violence. It’s not an unusual question. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1 in 3 women in the United States experience some form of physical violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime. Domestic violence is truly an epidemic in our country and around the globe.
I responded to this concerned stranger, “No, my dog did this. She was a little too excited to see me. I told her, ‘Love shouldn’t hurt,’ but I’m not sure she understood.”
Love shouldn’t hurt. I immediately felt bad for making a joke about something so serious as domestic violence. The woman gave me a wry smile. “Okay. Just checking.”
The conversation got me thinking about Psalm 137, which recently came up in the Sunday readings – on Sunday, October 5, to be exact. Psalm 137 was written during, or right after, 597 BC, when Babylon destroyed Jerusalem and started exiling Judeans.
The psalmist writes from the perspective of what it’s like to be defeated, shoved out of your home to a foreign land, humiliated and lost. It ends with an intense curse: “O daughter Babylon, you devastator! Happy shall they be who pay you back what you have done to us! Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!” (Ps. 137:8-9).
I know what you’re thinking. “Whoa! That’s in the Bible?! Such hatred. Such violence. Children should not be dashed against rocks no matter what.”
This is true. But the psalmist is not actually advocating for such behavior. According to renowned theologian Walter Brueggemann, psalms of cursing actually function as restraint rather than violence. The psalmist is surrendering their right to vengeance and asking God to be in charge. I might, and we might together, rant and rave about our enemies. And we might petition God to wipe them off the face of the earth. But such rants are psalms of submission. They are a way to process our grief and outrage as a matter of sustaining our lives.
I recently heard about a domestic violence survivor who lent credence to this view by comparing her experience to Psalm 137. She said as part of recovering her humanity, she needed to stand up and yell and kick and make some noise. She needed to watch herself harm her violator in her own mind. “That’s what this psalm is about,” she said. “You say it, so you don’t do it.” You load your psychological trauma into words and demonstrations, and you make a scene to enact the scale of your pain so, at best, you don’t continue violence.
Do you need to rant against your enemies? Against your life circumstances? Against all the ways this world is messed up? Go ahead, and let your anger be a prayer. Let it be a psalm of trust in God’s justice that can release you from the desire to turn your anger into sin.
And then dare to ask God if there is anyone who might have that kind of anger toward you. You might even pray the reverse of Psalm 137, found in Psalm 7:3-5. “O Lord my God, if I have done this, if there is wrong in my hands, if I have repaid my ally with harm or plundered my foe without cause, then let the enemy pursue and overtake me, trample my life to the ground, and lay my soul in the dust.”
Once again, the psalmist’s words are extreme. But we get the point. Give God all your anger, all your sorrow, all your repentance, so what we’re left with is love and peace.
Adrian+
If you or someone you know is in an abusive relationship, please reach out to me. Or for 24 hour assistance, call the New York State Domestic and Sexual Violence Hotline: 800-942-6906. “You are God’s holy temple and God’s Spirit dwells within you.” (1 Cor. 3:16)