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And Dash Them Against the Rocks with Pastor Ryan Braley

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Faith gets brittle when we pretend. This week we lean into a braver way: arguing with Scripture as an act of honor and bringing our full selves to God without a filter. We open the Psalms not as tidy theology, but as a school of prayer where the human heart learns to speak truth—joy, sorrow, rage, and all.

Together we walk through Psalm 137, set in the ashes of exile. Judah hangs up its harps by Babylon’s rivers, too devastated to sing, and the psalm breaks open with a line that makes modern readers recoil. We don’t sanitize it; we face the history and the horror. What happens when the oppressed name their suffering with gut-level honesty? How does a violent verse function as a cry for justice, not a command for revenge? We place that tension next to Jesus’ refusal of retaliation and his cry, “Father, forgive them,” and ask what it means to hand judgment back to God in a world full of fresh wounds.

This conversation is both pastoral and practical. We challenge the myth that “good Christians” hide anger, and we explore why the imprecatory psalms are preserved: so the powerless can pray without pretending and so anger doesn’t become action. You’ll hear the backstory of Babylon’s atrocities, why ending a generation meant ending an empire, and how the early church’s vision of mercy reshaped the value of life. Then we turn to practice: write a personal psalm, name your grief and your complicity, and bring it to the cross. Let God receive the truth you’ve been carrying and do what only God can do.

If this conversation stirred something in you, share it with a friend who needs permission to pray honestly. And if our work helps you wrestle well, subscribe, leave a review, and tell us: what would your psalm say today?

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SPEAKER_00:

Okay, moving on. We are in the middle of our sermon series called Reading in the Dark. And I want to just say one quick thing. What I want to do is help us to wrestle with these ancient texts. I got a friend of mine was like, Ryan, I'm a bit nervous when you kind of do this with these texts because I'm wondering, are you like trying to deconstruct these texts? I mean, like, look, sometimes God just said it, and that's how God did it, and it's fine with me. Oh, yeah, fair enough. And so, you know, there's this very modern kind of saying, like, God said it, I believe it, and that settles it. And that's totally fine. It's a very modern sentiment. Uh, the rabbis or the ancient Jews, and even some modern Jews, the ones that I know, would say something more like this the Bible says it, I believe it. Now let's argue about it. And the point is, that's how the ancient people would honor the text. We're not trying to deconstruct it or unravel, or like, I'm not trying to shake your faith foundations at all. I'm trying to strengthen them because there are a lot of folks that have problems with these texts. Maybe yourselves. I've heard from many of you, like this has really, you know, helped me. Uh also there are atheists or the neo, they call them neo-atheists or new atheists who point to these texts as reasons they don't believe in God. So, like, I don't know, let's talk about them, let's wrestle with it, let's argue about it, and let's try to like figure out what we think about these texts. So, uh if you're the kind of person who's like, don't shake my faith, or like, you know, these ain't God said it, I believe that's okay. Fair enough. Then just hang on till the end. That's when kind of the more of the meat will be for you. Um, and that's totally fine. Uh, but if if you're here, like I need to wrestle with this, and then this is a safe place for that. I hope you know that. And you can wrestle, ask questions, you can dialogue, you can come grab me after the service, totally fine. And uh, my job as the pastor is to help you wrestle with these things. Does that make sense? Okay, this morning uh the sermon is called uh and dash them against the rocks. The psalmist writes, happy is the one who takes their infants, their babies, and dashes them against the rocks. It's a wild text. Uh before I get to that though, I want to just say, you know, I I don't know if you've had this experience, but I've had this experience recently, actually a lot, where I'll be talking with somebody, we'll be like halfway through a conversation, and they'll say, Hey, can I be honest with you for a second? And I'm like, uh, of course, but also like, what were you being right before this moment? Like, are you not being honest? What were we doing a moment ago? You know, like they'll be like, hey, just honestly, like, oh, now you're being honest? What were you being before? I always tell young people, like when you're writing a paper, like an academic paper, never write, to be honest, and then you know, because you're indicating everything I said before that was not honest. I was lying, I guess, you know. Yeah, can I be honest? Yeah, of course, be honest. Like, always be honest with me. Well, there's good news if you're a person who likes honesty. I read this report, this study, that says that most of us, most of the time, are actually pretty honest. You know, there was like this urban legend that was going on. They're like, everybody lies all the time, or you think that because you know some sketchy people. Meh, fair enough. But most of us, uh, most of the time tell the truth. There was a uh stat I read like 75% of people, so about three-fourths of people, lie, but only like once, maybe twice a day, which I know maybe is too much for many of you. I get it. You're so spiritual, you never lie, and good for you. Uh, but like most normal people lie, and they're mostly white lies. If there is such a thing as a white lie, it's for you to debate. But I'm just telling you, they call them white lies, like small lies, and they lie maybe once, maybe twice just to not hurt someone's feelings. And and I get that. But like most of us, most of the time, tell the truth, which is good. It's good for our relationships because if you can't be honest in any relationship, you cannot have a real authentic relationship. Did you know this? If you're in any relationship, a friendship, uh a spousal, you know, marriage, uh familial relationship, like father's, son, daughter's, cousin, whatever, if you can't be honest, then you'll never have an authentic relationship. It'll never be real and genuine. Because there'll always be things you can't say, which like limits what that relationship can be. And I mean like more of the bigger stuff, because there's always the small things trying to avoid hurting feelings. Like you know this, right? Like most men know this. When the woman comes out and says something like, Hey, does this dress make me look too fill in the blank? And you're like, you just try to tiptoe out of that room and you're like, I don't know. Well, here's a tip, fellas, if that ever happens to you, here's what you say. It's what I always say to Katie. I say, Katie, babe. Some people think that the dress makes the woman. No, no, no, no. The woman makes the dress. You look great, babe. And I wink at her and I walk out of the room. Works every time. Until now, going forward, though, because it actually knows my secret, you know. Or maybe, ladies, you have this too. Like maybe your your man or your boyfriend, your husband, or your son or your brother came and was like, hey, be honest. Am I annoying? Like, that's our version of it. It's a stress. Here's what, ladies, here's how you respond. Just walk close to him and say, hey, listen. You know, you put your arm gently on his this region of his arm, you put your hand there. And then without skipping a beat, just say, Oh my gosh, have you been working out more? Trust me, he already forgot his question. He's on, yes, I have, thank you. I have okay, but beyond those moments, like we've got to be honest with each other. That's how you have genuine relationships. If you can't say to your friend or your spouse or your kids, hey, when you did that, that hurt my feelings. If you can't say that, man, you're missing out on some vibrant, robust part of that relationship. If you can't say, hey, I felt ignored in that conversation. I felt totally ignored. Like, I don't think you heard me. And tell them. If you can't say, hey, I would love it if you would just hold my hand some more. If you can't say those things, if you can't have honest conversation, then you'll you'll lack a depth of your relationship. By the way, if you want your partner to hold your hand more, just ask them. It might just work. Yeah. Maybe that's not their thing, is like the physical touch. Like maybe just, hey, uh, uh, would you mind holding my hand and see what happens? I don't know, just ask them. But unless we're gonna have these open and honest conversations, we'll never have these real deep relationships. This is why sometimes you just gotta go in there. You know what I'm saying? You gotta, you gotta like air out all the dirty laundry and have the big blow up, hopefully not violent or but like fight, like have it out, and like go dig up the dead bodies in the backyard and talk about it or like get into the closet and get all those skeletons out of there. Because you'll you'll always lack something if you don't have this honesty in your relationships. Are you with me so far? Okay, good. The half you are. The psalms are kind of like this. There's this book in the Bible, there are these songs and poems that are visceral, deep, honest conversations with God. It's a prayer book, it's the prayer book of the ancient Jews. The psalms were this ancient book of prayers used by the Jews daily and even weekly, and even modern Jews, and for us Christians as well, Catholics, Protestants, we all use the Psalms. The Psalms are everywhere. You go to your local Hobby Lobby and find a thousand boards with a psalm on it. Are you with me? You know what I'm talking about. Or go to Walmart, Hallmark, they're all over the place. You might even find psalms on your local truck delivery, uh, delivery truck. Who knows? But they're all over the place if you look closely enough. They're they're like New Testament Bibles that people give away. They just slap the Psalms in there as well. It's kind of like, hey, here's the New Testament and the Psalms. Don't forget the Psalms. They're ubiquitous, they're everywhere. How about this? He's my rock. Hey, oh, get it? And my salvation. They're all over, even in garden furniture. Is that called gardening furniture? What do you call this? Lawn furniture, whatever you call it. Uh, again, even your local homework. Uh, the New Testament quotes the Psalms about 68, maybe 79 times, a lot of times, in the New Testament. So it's one, it's the most quoted book out of the Old Testament that's quoted in the New Testament. They're all over. It's the prayer book of ancient and modern Jews and modern Christians alike. They're used all the time. And they're prayers, open, honest, visceral, gut-wrenching prayers that are used. They're not so much theological speeches or essays about God as much as a speech directed directly to God. That's what the Psalms are. I love it. The Psalms in this way then structure our way of talking to God. We learn a lot, just even just sort of by osmosis, how to pray, how to talk to God through the Psalms. They model for us, they structure us how we can talk about God. I love it. One of the great writers, Ellen F. Davis, uh, says the Psalms are the single best guide to the spiritual life currently in print. I love it. Yeah, they're the single best guide for spiritual life currently in print. Yeah, the psalms really are a guide for us how to pray. Here's how you pray, here's what you say, here's how you have to talk to God. They're also a corrective for many of our own misconceptions about religion and God. Misconceptions like this. Like maybe you think, oh, God doesn't have any use for my anger. So I'm not gonna bring it into the presence of God because God doesn't know how to handle that. God can't use my anger in any way. Well, I don't know. Uh read the Psalms. You might learn that's not really how it works. How about this misconception? There's no place for despair or fear in the Christian life. Maybe not. Maybe read the Psalms. The Psalms would offer a totally different perspective on this. This is a common misconception. How about this one? Yeah, you must never, ever, ever be angry or mad at God. You shouldn't do that. This is church. Don't get mad at God, right? But here's the problem: these are all honest responses to life and being a human. And if you can't be honest and honest with God, you can never have a deep, authentic, strong, real relationship with God. That's the problem with these misconceptions, is they limit your capacity to have a real relationship with God. Here's what LMF Davis also says that the Psalms are not rhapsodies of praise only, proclaiming that God is enthroned in heaven and all is right with the world. She says, No, many of the psalms suggest that in fact there's a great deal wrong with the world and the demand that God should do something about it. We've had another terrible week this week. And I wrestled a lot. What do I say on Sunday? What does anybody need me to say? What do they want me to say? What should I say? What would be the wisest thing to say? I don't know if you guys are looking for me for guidance or for how to interpret the events of this week. Horrible. Had a shooting uh yesterday. It was yesterday? Friday? Yesterday. Someone else died. Horrible. I'm so tired of this stuff, you guys. I'm so sick of it. All of this breaks God's heart, my heart, I'm sure your heart. Like, what do we make of these things? What do we do with this stuff? How do we interpret it? What should we do with this stuff? This morning, I'm not gonna so much wax philosophic on all these ideas, but what I want to do is I want to give you an opportunity to write your own psalm. To deal with your own deep emotions of grief and sorrow and loss. When you came in, you should have gotten a piece of paper. Everyone got a slip of paper. If you didn't, would you raise your hand? And we'll get you a slip of paper. We need a paper up here. Hi to your crawl. Yeah, keep your hand raised if you need a piece of paper. Uh I was asked earlier this morning by some fellas, hey, is this my honeydo list for today that my wife will give? Yeah, it's empty. You notice that, right? No, I'm gonna have you write your own psalm on there in an honest way. So keep your hand raised so you get one. Yeah, because many of the psalms suggest that there is, in fact, a great deal wrong with the world. And there's a demand in there that God do something about it. Yeah, the Psalms allow us to speak our minds openly, honestly before God. That's why the Psalms are incredibly beautiful and profound. They're not theological essays about God, they're speech directed to God, and it's honest speech. So hang on to that. Now, here's the sticking point, though. Uh, when you're honest like this, it can get messy. Because let's be honest, being a human is kind of messy. Are you with me? I mean, guys, let's be honest. We have we let's be honest, yeah. I wasn't honest with people, let's be honest. We have an entire genre of entertainment called reality TV show in which we sit and watch other people being people. And it's entertaining because they're so crazy, you know what I'm saying? Like, how that's crazy, people are messing. I mean, we all know, like everybody you meet, regardless of how spiritual or holy they are, everybody has three people that they're just quietly angry at, right at the present moment, you know what I'm saying? I mean, we can land on the moon, but we cannot figure out a way to manage conflict at the local youth sports field, you know what I'm saying? What is wrong with we are messy human beings, and it's wildly messy being a human being. So when you come to God, there just might be room for things like exaltation and praise and adoration and gratitude. But also, maybe there's room for despair and anger and rage and loneliness. And maybe these things aren't things we should deny, because if we deny them, we're denying what it means to be a human. That's what it means to be a human and to be alive, is to have all those emotions. So you can't deny it, you're denying your own humanity. Fair enough, but it gets extremely messy. And here's how I know that there's a whole section of psalms that's a genre within the Psalms called the Imprecatory Psalms, which is the fancy$5 theological word for they call them the cursing psalms. I love it. I wonder what curse word that is. I don't know. Just kidding. Don't answer, I'm just kidding. Uh, they're not cursing as in cuss words. Like these psalms, like the psalmist will call down curses on his enemies. Hey, destroy them, ravage them, blot them out. It's wild. These like cursing imprecatory psalms are like the psalmist in the Bible to God cries out for vengeance on his enemies in extremely violent ways. I mean, this is like the equivalent of like, let's say you're driving around in traffic, and we recorded your brain as you're in this bumper traffic, you're a half an hour late, and some idiot cuts you off. And we could record your thoughts. That's the imprecatory psalms. My son told me, like, oh, my son uh he had his girlfriend break up with him, and he's like, Dad, I'm going to the gym. I'm gonna go rage lifting. What is rage lifting? I'm gonna go to the gym, I'm gonna put my music, it's gonna lift weights. I'm so angry. All right, good, go go get him, young man. If I could record his thoughts, that's the imprecatory psalms. Whatever is going on in his mind. Now, ladies, you do this too. I was told that you do like rage cleaning, like so angry. I I know, I know that men clean too sometimes. I know I know that women lift weights. I get it. I'm just I'm just saying, you get the idea. Yeah, it's like uh taking a baseball bat to an ex-lover's car with your words to God. That's that's what the psalm, these imprecatory psalms are like. They're wild. Here's an example of one. I love it. So here's an example, and they're all over. Psalm 109, you can look it up. Uh, they say, the psalmist writes, appoint a wicked man against him. Let an accuser stand on his right, this evil man. Let an accuser Okay, fair enough, that's not bad. But the psalmist keeps going, so buckle up. The psalmist goes on and says, Hey, when he is tried, this evil man, let him be found guilty. Okay, all right, fair. I'm with you. Let his prayer be counted as sin. Okay, all right, okay. He keeps going though. Hey, may his days be few. Well, okay, settle down now, psalmist. Settle down. What are you trying to say? May another seize his position. Now here's where things go off the rails. May his children be orphans and his wife a widow. What? Hey, man, this is church. Relax, relax. Love our neighbors. Keeps going though. May his children wander about and beg. May they be driven out of the ruins that they inhabit. Dang, brother, what are you what's wrong? This is crazy. Yeah. May his children be orphans and his wife be able to may he be may he be dead. That's what he said. These are wild psalms. What do we do with them? Open your Bibles, if you would, to page 502. It's the black Bible in front of you. Page 502, it's Psalm 137. The one you heard this morning. I'm gonna just say a few things about the verses. I'm gonna tie things up at the end, and then we're gonna write your own psalm. As you're going, any emotions that you feel come bubbling up out of you, write that emotion down. Are you angry? Are you full of rage? Are you full of jealousy? Are you full of despair? Write it down. You'll write your psalm at the end about these emotions. Because there's maybe there's space in God's presence for us to offer these things to God. So, Psalm 137, here's what that psalmist writes. Um what's the verse 1 say? Perfect. Here it is. By the Rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, and there we wept and remembered Zion. Now, this verse ends by saying, Yeah, happy is one who takes his babies and smashes them on the rocks. Here's how it opens. By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and we wept. Remember Zion. Well, who's writing this? This psalm is probably written during the Babylonian exile. Here's the backstory quickly. So the people of God, the people of Israel, they were God's chosen people. God rescues them out of slavery. They were enslaved in Egypt for 400 years. God delivers them with Moses. Remember the Prince of Egypt movie? Moses? Uh Ten Commandments, that right? And they come into this land flowing with milk and honey, a beautiful land. It's a recreation of the Eden story. So they're back in Eden, this beautiful land. God says, I'll be your God, you be my people. We're gonna live in this beautiful relationship. It's gonna be fine. This is the kingdom of God on earth. The problem is the people of God can't get out of their own way. They keep sinning, like many of us in this room do. Don't raise your hand. But that's what happens, right? Because we're humans, it's messy. So eventually, after warning after warning after warning, God's like, fine, if you want it your own way, I'll let you have your way. And Babylon, the original evil empire, like Babylon was like, these dudes were they were bad. Babylon rolls into town and destroys everything. Basically kidnaps the Israelites. This is Judah at this point, so it's the lower kingdom, the Jews, Judah, and drags them into captivity again, a foreign land under a foreign rule, away from everything. And they write this psalm. There we sat by the rivers of Babylon and we wept because we remembered Zion. Now, when Babylon did this, they didn't do it in a nice way. I'll just say they were atrocious. They committed a number of atrocities against Judah. So, for example, they repeatedly sieged their cities, their towns, Jerusalem as well, from 597 to about 586 BC. Just laid siege to all of them. Then the king, the Jewish king, his sons were exiled. Executed right in front of him. So they drag out his sons and they execute his own sons right in front of him. Then they blind him and they drag him away to captivity. This is the king of the Jews. He's a God's chosen king. And they slaughter his sons right in front of him. They also then burn Jerusalem to the ground. And the temple, the house of God, the dwelling place of the divine, where only once a year one guy could go into that space because it was so holy and sacred and important. They burned it to the ground because they didn't care. Destroyed it. The whole city. They ravaged and razed the whole city. And by the way, Jerusalem was the holy city. It was Zion, that was their holy city of David, the city of God, where God dwelt. And they destroyed it. They didn't care. Also, the Babylonians, they forced them into exile, they dragged them away to a foreign land. They kidnapped a bunch of them and took them into captivity. It was widespread destruction. Towns all around just destroyed. Their people, who they were, ripped from them. And there was a collapse of political, religious life, social, economic, familial life. It was all gone. Gone. Who they were as a people, gone. God's chosen ones, gone. God's land, gone. God's dwelling place, gone. The Torah, the law, gone. And they're slaves again. So they sit down by the rivers of Babylon and they weep. They weep. They were devastated. Here's what happened. Verse 2. Says this, verse 2. On the willows, there we hung up our harps. Harps were instruments used in the temple for worship. And they're so broken and devastated. They can't even worship God. They can't bring themselves to praise God. I can't. I can't even do it. They're not just sad, they're like, they're broken. So they hang their harps in the willow trees. By the way, this is why many people think they call them weeping willows. Because those are the trees above the rivers of Babylon. They sat there and they wept. By the willows, they hung their harps. Verse 3 then goes on to say this: For there our captors, the Babylonians, asked us for songs, our tormentors, the devastators. They asked us, they demanded songs of joy. And they said, Sing us one of your songs, the songs of Zion. Babylonians do this all the time. They would take their captors or their captives, the people they conquered, and they would drag them out in front of their people, and they would force them to sing religious songs for their own entertainment. Can you imagine? Sing about Zion. Zion was the Holy City they just destroyed. Yeah, hey, that city that we just ransacked and razed to the ground. Yeah, sing about that one. That would be awesome. Entertain me. Dance. Can you imagine? The slow or quick boiling rage and despair in the people of God. Then verse 4 says, How can we sing songs of salvation in a foreign land? We're far from home. We've been ripped from our land. It's all been taken from us. Then he says, If I forget you, O Jerusalem, and he's not just saying, it's not just about nostalgia. If I forget you means like if I'm cut off from who I am, this is a statement about identity. If I'm no longer who I thought I was, if I lost my own self, my own identity, if I forget that then, Jerusalem, then let my right hand wither, the hand that plays the lyre or the harp and worship, let my hand wither. I don't need it any longer. I can't sing. Let my tongue cling to my mouth. I can't sing at all. I can't use my tongue. Let me wither. Let me be dead. I don't even care anymore. I can't do this any longer. Then he writes this about the Edomites. Remember, oh God, against the Edomites. The Edomites were their neighbor, were their uh distant relatives. Remember the old story? Uh Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Remember, Father Abraham had many sons. That guy was the father of the people of Israel. He had a son named Isaac, who remember he was supposed to slaughter him. Go back three weeks ago to our sermon series. Abraham and Isaac, Isaac had a son named Jacob. What was Jacob's brother's name? Do you remember? Esau. Esau is the same word for Edom. So Jacob becomes the tribe of Israel. Esau becomes the tribe of Edom. So they're like they're old brothers. And they never stop warring. And the Edomites, their relatives, are watching them be destroyed and they're mocking them. Yeah, get them. Yeah, tear it down. Tear it down with foundations. It's like your relatives like mocking your destruction and egging them on, cheering for their destruction. It's horrible. And this is when the psalmist then writes Hey, daughter of Babylon, you've devastated what you I know you did to us. I know who you are. Happy shall be they who pay you back for what you did to us. You deserve that and more. Happy shall be they who take your babies and smash them on the rocks. Can you see why he would say that? I might say that. He's crying up measure for measure. Yeah, what you did to us, I hope it's done to you too. That's how we are as humans. Like, you did that to me? I'm gonna give it back to you. The Babylonians undoubtedly did this. There's plenty of evidence that they did this. The Assyrians, Babylonians, they were torturous in their in their conquering. No doubt they smashed their babies against rocks, and the Jews watched it happen. By the way, to make it worse, that word dash in the Hebrew means to shatter into pieces. Over the rocks. Yeah, measure for measure. What you did to us and everybody else may it happen to you. May you know what it's like to lose your babies against rocks. I can't believe you guys. How many times do we cry out for measure for measure of retaliation? Yeah, often. One more thing about this verse, too, is if you end the lives of the babies, you end the whole regime. Pharaoh knew this. That's why he kills all the babies of the Jews, because he knows if they get too big in number, they'll take over. Herod knew this because if you kill the babies, they can't amass an army and take over. So the Psalm's like, hey, may your empire, may it end with you. May you not have any more kids. May we destroy your babies so that your empire, your oppression, your violence, may it be done with. That's how you end a population. It's how you end the regime, is you kill all the babies. This is why, in a positive way, we want kids in church. And kids are welcome in here. They're the future. They're the next generation. Let's pour into them. Let them be around. Love on them. High-five them. Smile at them. Pretend it's your grandkid or kid, you know? We love having kids around here. Also, they're not just the future, they're also the present. They are the church now. But the psalm's like, hey, may their reign and regime end. But I'll say this, and then I'll say a couple of things. This verse ought to make us sick. It ought to make us recoil. When we read this as a modern audience, we ought to be like, golly, what do you what? It should. That's part of the point, I think. And also remember, this is written around the bronze, the end of the Bronze Age. And I'm just telling you, uh, read Tom Holland's book, Dominion, but this idea of the value for human life, it really comes out of a modern sort of, well, not modern, it comes out of, I would argue, the Christian movement. Because it wasn't until Christianity that people began to really value life, human life, and babies' lives. Before that, it was very rare to have anybody human uh value human life. So this verse to our modern Christian ears should make us recoil. But here's what I'll say is some of the good news. This is not a command of God, it's a cry from a broken, devastated psalmist who's sitting by the rivers of Babylon, weeping, crying out to God. Help me do something, God. It's not God commanding you to smash babies against rocks. Thank God. In fact, it's in some ways it's exposing that kind of behavior. No, this is a cry of the psalmist, God, do something. It's an honest confession. Because the psalms honor our deepest human experiences. All of them. Rage, anger, loneliness, brokenness, humiliation, joy, exaltation, and gratitude. There's room for all of it. And the psalms honor these things, even our anger and rage. He's not saying, hey, suppress your rage. Bring your rage as an offering to God. As a prayer to God. Yeah. And ask God to do something about it. Yeah, do something. The Psalms give words when we don't have words for all these emotions. And allows space for us to offer these things to God. And let God sort it out. It's an appeal to God. And God, I'm just telling you, friends, God can bear your unfiltered grief. And your unfiltered rage. He can handle it. He can bear it. He's God. He knows about it anyway. And also notice the psalmist doesn't go out and then do this. It's not quite a personal vendetta. He doesn't do it. He instead gives it over to God. He brings it to God, puts it in God's hands, and lets God do the punishing. Yeah, God, you take it. You do something with this. You punish them. Or sometimes God shows mercy. What? They don't deserve mercy. Thank God I'm not God. It will be measure for measure. But I don't know. Sometimes God does that. That's what God does. Sometimes God shows mercy. And also when I'm in my room alone, I thank God that God shows mercy. You know what I'm saying? I wouldn't be here if God didn't show mercy. Yeah, God, you deal with it. You handle it. You be the judge. These cries for vengeance are vengeance cries to God. Paul writes, Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. This is maybe why Jesus on the cross, when they're jeering him, mocking him, crying for his blood, he's an innocent man. Totally. He could do anything. He could like call down legions of angels, the text says. But he doesn't measure for measure at all. He says, Father, forgive them. I give it to you. You deal with it. They don't know what they're doing. I want you to write your own psalm. And be honest. Maybe you're sick and tired of all this stuff, too. And Brindley being kidnapped is just gut-wrenching, heart-wrenching, and all the crap she'll have to deal with, forget my language, she'll have to deal with growing up. That was her whole life. That's horrible. And the shooting downtown, another shooting. Somebody else is dead. For God's sake, stop. What are we doing? All of us. Stop. As Christians, we can call for an end to the violence. Let's stop. I talked to my friend last night. He's involved in politics, state politics. And I said, Is there anybody, is there any adult in the room asking for people to stop? He said, That's what I'm asking, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Stop. I mean, God's sakes. In your psalmist, you write, express all this. Maybe you're like, I'm just so fat. Maybe you have other things you're angry about, or you're lonely, your despair, your brokenness. You're sitting by the river is just weeping. Write it down on that piece of paper. Write it down. And be honest. I'm gonna have you bring them forward. I'm not gonna read them. No one's gonna read them. I'm gonna drag the cross. I'm not gonna drag it. I'm gonna lift the cross over here and put it here. And you can bring during the song, you can bring your psalm forward, your prayer, your open and honest visceral prayer. I don't care if you swear in there, whatever you want to say whatever you want to say in there. God knows already. Anyway, it doesn't matter. God knows. You might as well tell him. Because without honesty, you can't have a real relationship with him. So tell him. Now, maybe that's not you. Maybe this is you. Because you can also read this verse, you can spin it 180 degrees, and you can ask this is there anybody in life that might be praying this prayer about me? Have I been the oppressor, the abuser, the one doing violence? Have I done that? Have I hurt people? Have my actions, my behaviors, my ways of being, the company I run, the things I do, has that hurt people? Are they praying this about me? Maybe you want to write a confession in there and ask God to forgive you for the ways in which you've contributed to the brokenness in the world around you. So we're gonna sing a song, and this whenever you're ready, write it down. It can be one sentence or a whole, I don't care. You don't have to bring it forward, you can keep it if you want to. Nobody will read them. I'm gonna burn them as an offering to God later on. That's how they would do it in the in the in the temple. They would burn it and their incense would go up as prayers to God. Because maybe these can be like intercessory prayers for our enemies in some weird way. God, you deal with them. It's a prayer to God. So I'll light them on fire later on. Central, may you know that unless you're honest with God, there will always be a barrier between you and him in this real, authentic, strong relationship. So be honest. Air it out. Let's go. May you, in the spirit of the Psalms, give words to your deepest anxieties and anger and rage and loneliness or joy and exaltation. Give word to all of it. And use the psalms as an example. And may you this morning write a psalm. Amen.

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Ryan Braley

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