Singin’ the Blues: Psalms of Lament

What would be the soundtrack to your life? If you had to pin it down to a dozen songs? It’s interesting the way music accompanies life isn’t it? The songs emitting from our mouths and absorbed by our ears often keep time with the tune of our hearts. When we awake to a glorious sunny sky with a happy heart we don’t play The Smiths or Radiohead, at least not often. We don’t want to hear regretful lyrics sang in laboured tones. But there are times when we need a song like this. Morrissey (lead singer of the The Smiths) has sold & influenced millions for a reason. Songs that don’t celebrate the good times or always even direct us to the hope that lies beyond them, but laments how things are now. Sometimes life is like that. Sometimes this is our story.
Blues
This was the story for millions of African Americans for hundreds of years. Pulled from their lives in Africa and enslaved to capitalism in the West. This story has a soundtrack which has shaped much of the music we listen to today. Whether you’re a bit older and fell under the spell of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones or more recently Mr Sheeran, you can confidently trace much of it back to this story. R&B, Rhythm and Blues, Delta Blues. The blues, the soundtrack to oppression. ‘Songs from behind the mule’ as Muddy Waters put it. Songs from the heart about the circumstances of the time.
As seems so often to be the case, it is during the time of oppression community finds faith and expresses it. Gospel music emerged and it was often said that Gospel and the Blues were ‘two sides of the same coin’, outcomes of the same story, just slightly different manifestations. You would more likely sing blues with a cold beer on the edge of your porch on a Saturday night and sing Gospel at church on Sunday, but much of back story to the songs was the same. Blues songs were often soaked in spiritual fervour, where God was not so much joyfully praised (like at church) but bitterly pleaded with and distantly hoped in. Many of these are songs of real faith in God in the apparent absence of his blessing.
Chorus: steal away, steal away!
Steal away to Jesus?
Steal away, steal away home!
I ain’t got long to stay here!My Lord calls me!
He calls me by the thunder!
The trumpet sound it in my soul!
I ain’t got long to stay here!Wade in the Water. God’s gonna trouble the water.
Who are those children all dressed in Red?
God’s gonna trouble the water.
Must be the ones that Moses led.
God’s gonna trouble the water.
The blues, songs you sing when you know the certainty of good, but live in the reality of bad. Songs that don’t even dare to hope, but in their present agony seem to yearn for something more.
I don’t suppose living through this time that the beauty and depth of worship was always apparent to those singing. Maybe they knew how awesome their worship was, but we can clearly see it now.
Psalms of lament
We start a new series next week called ‘Singin’ the Blues’ where we will explore some of the songs in the book of Psalms, particularly those of lament, where the song seems to stay within the parameters of sadness despite their situ in God’s joyful story of rescue for humanity, the Bible. Psalms are basically the song book of the Hebrew people. Like us they turn to song to express the different circumstances of life. Often these songs provide a great framework for us of reasons to praise God. They are frequently beautiful celebratory songs from thankful hearts that describe the confidence gained through victory or a declaration of expectation that victory will soon come. But there are Psalms that don’t reach this point, some of the songs God’s people sang, though they know the reality of God and the certainty of his prevailing power, are laced with the knowledge that things are tough and sometimes stay that way. Yet by their very presence in the Bible, they remind us that even in these times, God is there.
The blues. Faithful songs of the persecuted. Praise without the certainty of prosperity.
Psalm 13
1 How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
2 How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?3 Look on me and answer, Lord my God.
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,
4 and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”
and my foes will rejoice when I fall.5 But I trust in your unfailing love;
my heart rejoices in your salvation.
6 I will sing the Lord’s praise,
for he has been good to me.
Join us over the next few weeks at Christchurch as we look at these Psalms or catch up with the talks online.
Ash Gibson, Assistant Pastor, Christchurch Xscape
