The text: Psalm 55 – NRSV
Often we hear it said, “All politics is local.” Perhaps that is also true of personal relationships, especially when a relationship is broken by betrayal. It is one thing to cry out in response to a social injustice, a tragedy, or even an illness, but the pain is often more wrenching when its source is one of our closest friends. Such is the situation in this psalm of lament. At first it reads like many other laments, lifting up complaints against the “enemy”, and maybe we begin to see armies or oppressors in our mind’s eye. Then comes v. 12-13, and the boom falls. It is not an enemy that afflicts the psalmist, but my equal, my companion, my familiar friend. The psalm then moves into a statement of faith before again returning in v. 20-21 to friend that has betrayed him. The emotions are raw here, and few psalms are so intimately personal. But in that intimacy is the psalm’s great gift, giving words to much needed prayers. For what are our lives but a network of personal relationships, so many of which are more broken than whole?
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