The text: Psalm 58 – NRSV
Today we lift up another psalm that you will not likely find lifted up often, and almost never during a polite worship service. Like Psalm 109, this psalm is imprecatory, a lament so passionately felt that the language to our ears may burn with anger and violence. From the beginning it wails against the work of little, worldly “gods” that bring violence and empower the wicked. The psalmist cries out to God, not so that the psalmist can enact vengeance, but so that God will act to bring justice to the earth. As I read this psalm now in this early part of Holy Week, and contemplate the events only a few days away, the words seem not shocking but highly appropriate and to the point. Can we understand the injustice and corruption that the psalmist lifts up? Absolutely. We will see it in abundance this Friday. Do we live in a similarly corrupt world? Absolutely. Watch the news, if you dare. What makes this psalm not merely angry words but something profound is that it is a statement of faith. It assumes—no, proclaims— that God’s justice is real, that God’s intended reality is this just reality, and is bold enough to insist this is true even in the darkest of hours. This psalm may not be found in a polite church service, but it is the one you want with you on Good Friday. This psalmist knows that whatever happens, in the end people will say, “Surely there is a reward for the righteous; surely there is a God who judges on earth.” And on that darkest of days, a centurion, of all people, will say, surely this man was the Son of God!
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