Psalm 37 is a justice Psalm.
It is not easy to categorize it within Walter Bruggemann’s famous and immensely schema of orientation, disorientation and reorientation. It seems at times to simplistically state (as orientation Psalms do) that God protects the righteous and judges the wicked. But it also acknowledges the present reality of injustice (like disorientation Psalms do). It also looks forward to a time of reorientation when ‘you will see’ with your own eyes the downfall of the wicked.
The Psalm comes from a seasoned David who has seen how justice and injustice play out. He says in verse 25, “I have been young, and now I am old.” Here is David who has learned the wisdom of the ages that simple retaliation and vengeance only does more harm. He packs this wisdom into two lines in verse 8:
Refrain from anger and turn from wrath;
do not fret—it leads only to evil.
We live in a season of human history where culture seems to be really keen on speaking out against oppression and injustice, rooting out aggression even at the microscopic level. This, as I’ve said countless times, flows from a good and godly impulse that rightly judges and wants to respond righteously to evil, oppression, aggression and anything that harms.
Elsewhere in the Psalter, David will join in this justice party. Heck, he has plenty to say about injustice in this Psalm. The wicked borrow and don’t repay, while the righteous give and lend from a posture of mercy. The wicked plot against the poor. Injustice is always economic.
But in this verse, he takes a different tone. People are sometimes concerned about ‘tone policing’. Don’t tell me to calm down. Don’t tell me I can’t be angry. But here David is policing his own tone. Or better yet, the wisdom that only comes from years of experience has affected his tone.
Embarrassingly, we see an aged David speaking as though to the hot-headed young social justice warriors, gently coaxing them to not get too upset about such upsetting things. “Yes all this injustice really is evil. But don’t be angry. Don’t fret. Don’t get tied up in knots about this. That will only lead to more injustice and evil. Their downfall is coming. Just you wait. Their own sword used to harm others will come back on themselves.”
This is holy week, and I preached last Sunday on the story of Judas. My theory is that Judas thought he was doing the righteous thing. He, like so many, wanted a military Messiah to make Israel great again. He would have been frustrated with a Jesus who rallied the people only to suggest that they would counter oppression by ensuring that they themselves didn’t participate in or mirror it.
And that’s the great tragedy of evil responses to evil. They are counter productive. Victims take vengeance against their oppressors and soon become oppressors themselves. Their own sword turns back to pierce their own hearts.
God’s way is different. He works in an un-timely manner, as far as we are concerned. He waits for evil to break itself. He waits for us to stop fighting and surrender to the reality that our swords, blogs, jabs, memes, pipe-bombs, or counter-strikes only make more evil.
The Scriptures tell us to wait on the Lord and for his justice.
Does this mean we do nothing? Just sit back and take oppression? Not at all. Jesus celebrates the persistent widow who pleads for justice against her adversary. But this woman had policed her own tone. It was passionate but not vengeful. It was persistent but not violent.
God save us from anger that makes things worse. Amen.
Recovering the Kingdom 