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Last week, Fuller Theological Seminary released a video to encourage the reading of the Psalms, which featured a conversation between U2's lead singer and songwriter Bono and the author of a contemporary language rendering of the Bible called The Message, Eugene Peterson. The documentary, just under 22 minutes long, is available on YouTube (see link below), is worth your time, and has an important message. But what brought these two men from very different worlds together is also a compelling story.
Peterson, who outside of Christian circles is less well known than Bono, was a founding pastor in 1962 of Christ Our King Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) in Bel Air, Maryland, where he served for 29 years before retiring in 1991. He then worked as Professor of Spiritual Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia, until retiring in 2006.
In 2002, when Peterson was nearing the end of his work on The Message, and parts of it had already been released, Bono, who was raised attending the Church of Ireland and sometimes uses scriptural wordings and metaphors in his music, found Peterson's rendition of the Bible to be the one that "speaks to me in my own language," He contacted Peterson and asked if they could meet.
Peterson, who had never heard of Bono and was working to meet a deadline for his translation of Isaiah, felt he didn't have time for the meeting and so politely declined. He later learned about Bono when one of his students showed him a Rolling Stone interview with the singer in which Bono mentioned Peterson's writing.
In an interview a few years later, journalist Dean Nelson asked Peterson about saying no to U2's lead singer. "It's Bono, for crying out loud," Nelson said. Peterson responded, "Dean, it was Isaiah."
The two men did meet in 2009, when the rock star invited the preacher to a U2 concert in Dallas and to a three-hour lunch. During their conversation, Peterson recognized Bono as "a companion in the faith."
This year, Fuller Seminary arranged another face-to-face meeting between the pair, this time at Peterson's home in Montana to talk about the Psalms, and the documentary is the result.
In the video, Peterson said that when first encountering the Psalms at age 12 and thinking that everything was meant literally, he was puzzled by references such as those that called God a "rock." He didn't know what "metaphor" was at the time, but he began to realize that "imagination was a way to get inside the truth," he said.
Bono spoke about how approaching God is represented in art and music. "The only way we can approach God is if we're honest through metaphor, through symbol," the U2 frontman said. "So art has become essential, not decorative."
The singer and the preacher also discussed how the Psalms are brutally honest. "Praying isn't being nice before God," Peterson said. "The Psalms are not pretty; they're not nice … not smooth … but [they're] honest, which is very, very hard in our culture."
Bono agreed that the Psalms have a "rawness," and that God wants the truth from us. He said he is suspicious of Christians when they demonstrate a "lack of realism." He said that contemporary Christian music could benefit from more realism.
The pair also talked about violence in our culture, and Peterson said, "We need some way to tell God how mad we are. We need a way to cuss without cussing." He went on to say that the imprecatory psalms (those that invoke judgment, calamity, or curses upon one's enemies) do that. (For example, read Psalm 5:8-10.)
The documentary mentioned that U2 ended its North American tour by playing the song "40," which has lyrics adapted from Psalm 40.
"I think it is one of [Bono's] best songs," Peterson said. "He sings it a lot. It is one of the Psalms that reaches into the hurt and disappointment and difficulty of being a human being. It acknowledges that in a language that is recognizable and reaches into the heart of the person, the stuff we all feel but many of us don't talk about."
More on this story can be found at these links:
The Psalms. Bono & Eugene Peterson (video)
U2's Bono Teams Up With Pastor Eugene Peterson to Release Documentary on the Psalms. Christian Post
Bono's Advice to Christian Musicians: Get Real. The Washington Post
Beyond Bono and Eugene Peterson: The Most Searched and Shared Psalms. Christianity Today
U2's Bono Teams Up With Pastor Eugene Peterson to Release Documentary on the Psalms. Christian Post
Bono's Advice to Christian Musicians: Get Real. The Washington Post
Beyond Bono and Eugene Peterson: The Most Searched and Shared Psalms. Christianity Today
Applying the News Story
In his introduction to the book of Psalms in The Message, Peterson writes that the stimulus to paraphrase the Psalms came from his work as a pastor in teaching people to pray, "and to do it both honestly and thoroughly." He said that it was not as easy as he'd expected, in part because many people felt inadequate to do it. He usually responded by pointing the person to the Psalms and saying, "Go home and pray these. You've got wrong ideas about prayer; the praying you find in these Psalms will dispel the wrong ideas and introduce you to the real thing."
He says that as people did that, they were often surprised to find such gritty language in the Bible. Peterson goes on to say:
Untutored, we tend to think that prayer is what good people do when they are doing their best. It is not. Inexperienced, we suppose that there must be an "insider" language that must be acquired before God takes us seriously in our prayer. There is not. Prayer is elemental, not advanced, language. It is the means by which our language becomes honest, true, and personal in response to God. It is the means by which we get everything in our lives out in the open before God.
Peterson says that English translations make the psalms often sound too polished. He adds, "The Psalms in Hebrew are earthy and rough. They are not genteel. They are not prayers of nice people, couched in cultured language." Thus, in The Message, Peterson worked to capture that quality.
He concludes, "I [am] convinced that only as we develop raw honesty and detailed thoroughness in our praying do we become whole, truly human in Jesus Christ, who also prayed the Psalms."
Our aim in this TWW lesson is to second Peterson's conclusion, in which Bono joins him.
(Read Peterson's full introduction to the Psalms here.)
The Big Questions
1. To what degree should your prayers be about how things are at the moment with you? Why? When you have brought the depth of your pain, anger and sin to God in prayer, what happened?
2. How do you share your authentic experiences with God and with others? Do you edit so that thing always look and sound good and hopeful, or do you show vulnerability and distress also as part of the path?
3. If you are angry with God, should you tell him so? Why or why not?
4. Do you agree that the tone of the imprecatory psalms (Psalms 5, 10, 17, 35, 58, 59, 69, 70, 79, 83, 109, 129, 137, 140) have a place in prayer? Why or why not?
5. In the documentary, noting that psalms are also songs, Bono commented that contemporary Christian music should include songs that are very real, because the audience included people who are "vulnerable, porous, open." As examples, Bono suggested songs about one's bad marriage, or about how one is angry at the government. Do you agree? Do songs that give voice to our pain have a place in public worship? Why or why not?
6. Is it important to you to make your prayer formal with "thees" and "thous"? Does this make you feel more distant from God? closer to God?
Confronting the News With Scripture and Hope
Here are some Bible verses to guide your discussion. For this lesson, we are quoting all the verses from Peterson's version, The Message, rather than our usual Bible version:
Here are some Bible verses to guide your discussion. For this lesson, we are quoting all the verses from Peterson's version, The Message, rather than our usual Bible version:
Luke 18:13-14
Meanwhile the tax man, slumped in the shadows, his face in his hands, not daring to look up, said, "God, give mercy. Forgive me, a sinner." Jesus commented, "This tax man, not the other, went home made right with God. If you walk around with your nose in the air, you're going to end up flat on your face, but if you're content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself." (For context, read 18:9-14.)
Meanwhile the tax man, slumped in the shadows, his face in his hands, not daring to look up, said, "God, give mercy. Forgive me, a sinner." Jesus commented, "This tax man, not the other, went home made right with God. If you walk around with your nose in the air, you're going to end up flat on your face, but if you're content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself." (For context, read 18:9-14.)
This is from Jesus' parable of the Pharisee and Tax Collector, and it raises the manner in which we approach God. The proud claim of the Pharisee is contrasted with the humble and honest prayer of the tax collector. And as the text above says, "This tax man, not the other, went home made right with God."
Ironically, the Pharisee is just the sort of person we might want in our church. After all, he tithes, is able to pray aloud in public, is respectable, and probably takes part in the leadership of the church both in worship and in committees. And we might be suspicious that the tax collector's prayer sounds a lot like a "jailhouse conversion," and we might not believe him. Good thing God can see what's in our hearts.
Questions: To what degree is this parable helpful regarding your own prayers? Why?
Praying the Psalms: While most of us would have no difficulty praying in the spirit of Psalm 8, Psalm 23, Psalm 100 or Psalm 150, there are some other prayers from the Psalms we may wonder about. But Peterson says the wordings of the Psalms in The Message are as close to the intent of the original Hebrew as he could make them. As a group, consider each of the following prayers from the Psalms and talk about how they might or might not be helpful in your own prayer life.
Psalm 3:1-2, 7
God! Look! Enemies past counting!
Enemies sprouting like mushrooms,
Mobs of them all around me, roaring their mockery:
"Hah! No help for him from God!" ...
Up, God! My God, help me!
Slap their faces,
First this cheek, then the other,
Your fist hard in their teeth!
(For context, read 3:1-8.)
God! Look! Enemies past counting!
Enemies sprouting like mushrooms,
Mobs of them all around me, roaring their mockery:
"Hah! No help for him from God!" ...
Up, God! My God, help me!
Slap their faces,
First this cheek, then the other,
Your fist hard in their teeth!
(For context, read 3:1-8.)
Psalm 22:1-3
God, God . . . my God!
Why did you dump me
miles from nowhere?
Doubled up with pain, I call to God
all the day long. No answer. Nothing.
I keep at it all night, tossing and turning.
And you! Are you indifferent, above it all …?
(For context, read 22:1-31.)
God, God . . . my God!
Why did you dump me
miles from nowhere?
Doubled up with pain, I call to God
all the day long. No answer. Nothing.
I keep at it all night, tossing and turning.
And you! Are you indifferent, above it all …?
(For context, read 22:1-31.)
Note that Jesus, on the cross, prayed the opening words of this very psalm (see Matthew 27:46).
Psalm 25:3
I've thrown in my lot with you;
You won't embarrass me, will you?
Or let my enemies get the best of me?
Don't embarrass any of us
Who went out on a limb for you.
It's the traitors who should be humiliated.
(For context, read 25:1-22.)
I've thrown in my lot with you;
You won't embarrass me, will you?
Or let my enemies get the best of me?
Don't embarrass any of us
Who went out on a limb for you.
It's the traitors who should be humiliated.
(For context, read 25:1-22.)
Psalm 30:6-10
When things were going great
I crowed, "I've got it made.
I'm God's favorite.
He made me king of the mountain."
Then you looked the other way
and I fell to pieces.
I called out to you, God;
I laid my case before you:
"Can you sell me for a profit when I'm dead?
auction me off at a cemetery yard sale?
When I'm 'dust to dust' my songs
and stories of you won't sell.
So listen! and be kind!
Help me out of this!"
(For context, read 30:1-12.)
When things were going great
I crowed, "I've got it made.
I'm God's favorite.
He made me king of the mountain."
Then you looked the other way
and I fell to pieces.
I called out to you, God;
I laid my case before you:
"Can you sell me for a profit when I'm dead?
auction me off at a cemetery yard sale?
When I'm 'dust to dust' my songs
and stories of you won't sell.
So listen! and be kind!
Help me out of this!"
(For context, read 30:1-12.)
Psalm 51:1-6
Generous in love -- God, give grace!
Huge in mercy -- wipe out my bad record.
Scrub away my guilt,
soak out my sins in your laundry.
I know how bad I've been;
my sins are staring me down.
You're the One I've violated, and you've seen
it all, seen the full extent of my evil.
You have all the facts before you;
whatever you decide about me is fair.
I've been out of step with you for a long time,
in the wrong since before I was born.
What you're after is truth from the inside out.
Enter me, then; conceive a new, true life.
(For context, read 51:1-19.)
Generous in love -- God, give grace!
Huge in mercy -- wipe out my bad record.
Scrub away my guilt,
soak out my sins in your laundry.
I know how bad I've been;
my sins are staring me down.
You're the One I've violated, and you've seen
it all, seen the full extent of my evil.
You have all the facts before you;
whatever you decide about me is fair.
I've been out of step with you for a long time,
in the wrong since before I was born.
What you're after is truth from the inside out.
Enter me, then; conceive a new, true life.
(For context, read 51:1-19.)
Psalm 102:1-2
God, listen! Listen to my prayer,
listen to the pain in my cries.
Don't turn your back on me
just when I need you so desperately.
Pay attention! This is a cry for help!
And hurry -- this can't wait!
(For context, read 102:1-28.)
God, listen! Listen to my prayer,
listen to the pain in my cries.
Don't turn your back on me
just when I need you so desperately.
Pay attention! This is a cry for help!
And hurry -- this can't wait!
(For context, read 102:1-28.)
Psalm 137:1-4, 7-9
Alongside Babylon's rivers
we sat on the banks; we cried and cried,
remembering the good old days in Zion.
Alongside the quaking aspens
we stacked our unplayed harps;
That's where our captors demanded songs,
sarcastic and mocking:
"Sing us a happy Zion song!"
Oh, how could we ever sing God's song
in this wasteland? ...
God, remember those Edomites,
and remember the ruin of Jerusalem,
That day they yelled out,
"Wreck it, smash it to bits!"
And you, Babylonians -- ravagers!
A reward to whoever gets back at you
for all you've done to us;
Yes, a reward to the one who grabs your babies
and smashes their heads on the rocks!
(For context, read 137:1-9.)
Alongside Babylon's rivers
we sat on the banks; we cried and cried,
remembering the good old days in Zion.
Alongside the quaking aspens
we stacked our unplayed harps;
That's where our captors demanded songs,
sarcastic and mocking:
"Sing us a happy Zion song!"
Oh, how could we ever sing God's song
in this wasteland? ...
God, remember those Edomites,
and remember the ruin of Jerusalem,
That day they yelled out,
"Wreck it, smash it to bits!"
And you, Babylonians -- ravagers!
A reward to whoever gets back at you
for all you've done to us;
Yes, a reward to the one who grabs your babies
and smashes their heads on the rocks!
(For context, read 137:1-9.)
Regarding this psalm, TWW team member Frank Ramirez says that one Sunday in a previous church, he picked a hymn in the then new hymnal based on Psalm 137 (the hymn was "Babylon Streams Received Our Tears"; text by Calvin Seerveld, 1982). It was meant as an entree to the whole of the Psalms, the laments, the complaints, the despair. But after the service, some members of that congregation told him not to use that hymn again, because it was too sad.
Psalm 138:7-8
When I walk into the thick of trouble,
keep me alive in the angry turmoil.
With one hand
strike my foes,
With your other hand
save me.
Finish what you started in me, God.
Your love is eternal -- don't quit on me now.
(For context, read 138:1-8.)
When I walk into the thick of trouble,
keep me alive in the angry turmoil.
With one hand
strike my foes,
With your other hand
save me.
Finish what you started in me, God.
Your love is eternal -- don't quit on me now.
(For context, read 138:1-8.)
Psalm 142:1, 3-7
I cry out loudly to God ...
"As I sink in despair, my spirit ebbing away,
you know how I'm feeling,
Know the danger I'm in,
the traps hidden in my path.
Look right, look left --
there's not a soul who cares what happens!
I'm up against it, with no exit --
bereft, left alone.
I cry out, God, call out:
'You're my last chance, my only hope for life!'
Oh listen, please listen;
I've never been this low.
Rescue me from those who are hunting me down;
I'm no match for them.
Get me out of this dungeon
so I can thank you in public.
Your people will form a circle around me
and you'll bring me showers of blessing!"
(For context read 142:1-7.)
I cry out loudly to God ...
"As I sink in despair, my spirit ebbing away,
you know how I'm feeling,
Know the danger I'm in,
the traps hidden in my path.
Look right, look left --
there's not a soul who cares what happens!
I'm up against it, with no exit --
bereft, left alone.
I cry out, God, call out:
'You're my last chance, my only hope for life!'
Oh listen, please listen;
I've never been this low.
Rescue me from those who are hunting me down;
I'm no match for them.
Get me out of this dungeon
so I can thank you in public.
Your people will form a circle around me
and you'll bring me showers of blessing!"
(For context read 142:1-7.)
For Further Discussion
1. Respond to this, from professor of chemistry Michelle Francl-Donnay, writing in Give Us This Day magazine (May 2016):, "My son Chris recently wrote a paper for a college philosophy class framed around his prenatal exposure to my thrice-weekly lectures on quantum mechanics: Was he formed as a scientist, even in the womb? I teased Chris that if anything formed him in those early days, it was the Psalms, a thousand recitations before he was born. A thousand more whispered aloud as I nursed him to sleep at night, breviary and baby juggled in my lap.
"'You knit me together in my mother's womb, where I was fashioned in secret, molded in the depths.' These lines of Psalm 139 were particularly poignant when I was pregnant with Chris and his brother Mike. We were intimately connected. I could feel their joyous tumblings within my depths, sense them test the limits of their increasingly cramped quarters. The sounds of my breath, my heart, and my voice, murmuring mysteries of physics and metaphysics, attended them at every hour of the day and night. There was no escaping it for either of us -- we were never alone. …
"The Psalms are wedges, using our lived experiences to push open the door between God and his people. They are bridges, letting us pray beyond ourselves, bringing us to rejoice with those flying on the wings of dawn and to shiver with those engulfed by darkness."
"'You knit me together in my mother's womb, where I was fashioned in secret, molded in the depths.' These lines of Psalm 139 were particularly poignant when I was pregnant with Chris and his brother Mike. We were intimately connected. I could feel their joyous tumblings within my depths, sense them test the limits of their increasingly cramped quarters. The sounds of my breath, my heart, and my voice, murmuring mysteries of physics and metaphysics, attended them at every hour of the day and night. There was no escaping it for either of us -- we were never alone. …
"The Psalms are wedges, using our lived experiences to push open the door between God and his people. They are bridges, letting us pray beyond ourselves, bringing us to rejoice with those flying on the wings of dawn and to shiver with those engulfed by darkness."
2. Comment on this from TWW team member Mary Sells: Getting real with God, to me means admitting sometimes things are really good, yet everything is not always all right or fulfilling; however, we will love and worship the Lord anyway and trust that his will is done for us and through us. Our relationship with God, as with a trusted friend, means we can talk about all the good and all the bad and keep growing together by shared honesty."
3. Honesty and authenticity before God is a good thing, but should such honesty be limited to private prayer? TWW team member Micah Holland comments, "I have served in congregations where the prayer time is an open space where people can share their prayers with the congregation. Invariably, we have people who go on and on and on with what seems like too much information, getting into medical details that are kind of embarrassing. But how much is really too much? I see authenticity as a desire, honest and forthright with God, because God can understand it. With people, however, there seems to need to be a balance."
Should there be a difference between how detailed we are with God in private and how detailed we are with God in public? Why? Should embarrassment be a standard by which we measure public prayer?
Should there be a difference between how detailed we are with God in private and how detailed we are with God in public? Why? Should embarrassment be a standard by which we measure public prayer?
4. Discuss this, from author Kathleen Norris in her book, Cloister Walk: "You come to the Bible's great 'book of praises' [Psalms] through all the moods and conditions of life, and while you may feel like the pits, you sing anyway. To your surprise, you find that the Psalms do not deny your true feelings but allow you to reflect on them, right in front of God and everyone.
"The world the Psalms depict is not that different from our own. ... The Psalms make us uncomfortable because they don't let us deny -- either the depth of our pain or the possibility of its transformation into praise. … The Psalms are unrelenting in their realism. They ask us to consider our true situation and to pray over it. They ask us to be honest about ourselves."
"The world the Psalms depict is not that different from our own. ... The Psalms make us uncomfortable because they don't let us deny -- either the depth of our pain or the possibility of its transformation into praise. … The Psalms are unrelenting in their realism. They ask us to consider our true situation and to pray over it. They ask us to be honest about ourselves."
5. Comment on this, from Experiencing the Psalms by Stephen P. McCutchan: "There is every evidence to believe that Jesus prayed the psalms as prayers. When Jesus was particularly frustrated by the attacks of some of the religious leaders, he may well have prayed: 'For there is no truth in their mouths; their hearts are destruction, their throats are open graves; they flatter with their tongues. Make them bear their guilt, O God; let them fall by their own counsels; because of their many transgressions cast them out, for they have rebelled against you' (Psalm 5:9-10).
"When we think of Jesus' praying this psalm, we are faced with three choices.
"Our first choice is to believe that Jesus censored the psalms and prayed only those verses that were appropriate to his forgiving nature. Therefore, as disciples of Christ, we are invited to join him in the censorship of certain psalms as inappropriate. ...
"Our second choice is to believe that Jesus used these denunciatory prayers during his lifetime but later, from the perspective of the cross, offered a new viewpoint. The one who prayed 'Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing' (Luke 23:34) revealed to us that such harsh denunciations were inappropriate in light of God's forgiving love. ...
"Our third choice is to believe that Jesus, indeed, experienced the fullness of humanity, including some very negative feelings. It assumes that Jesus recognized not only the reality of opposition forces, but also had negative feelings toward them. Mark suggested this real possibility when he described Jesus' response in one incident by saying, 'He looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart' (Mark 3:5a). ...
"With these strong feelings, is it not possible that Jesus prayed words such as those in Psalm 5 quoted above? Is it not likely that Jesus included in his prayers the negative feelings he had toward those whom he perceived as being in opposition to God? By allowing prayer to bring his negative feelings about those who threatened the reign of God into the realm of God, was not Jesus trusting that God could reign over those feelings? ...
"For ordinary Christians who experience opposition and negative feelings, we are invited to bring the full breadth of these experiences into the realm of God." (See full article here.)
"When we think of Jesus' praying this psalm, we are faced with three choices.
"Our first choice is to believe that Jesus censored the psalms and prayed only those verses that were appropriate to his forgiving nature. Therefore, as disciples of Christ, we are invited to join him in the censorship of certain psalms as inappropriate. ...
"Our second choice is to believe that Jesus used these denunciatory prayers during his lifetime but later, from the perspective of the cross, offered a new viewpoint. The one who prayed 'Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing' (Luke 23:34) revealed to us that such harsh denunciations were inappropriate in light of God's forgiving love. ...
"Our third choice is to believe that Jesus, indeed, experienced the fullness of humanity, including some very negative feelings. It assumes that Jesus recognized not only the reality of opposition forces, but also had negative feelings toward them. Mark suggested this real possibility when he described Jesus' response in one incident by saying, 'He looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart' (Mark 3:5a). ...
"With these strong feelings, is it not possible that Jesus prayed words such as those in Psalm 5 quoted above? Is it not likely that Jesus included in his prayers the negative feelings he had toward those whom he perceived as being in opposition to God? By allowing prayer to bring his negative feelings about those who threatened the reign of God into the realm of God, was not Jesus trusting that God could reign over those feelings? ...
"For ordinary Christians who experience opposition and negative feelings, we are invited to bring the full breadth of these experiences into the realm of God." (See full article here.)
Responding to the News
Consider committing yourself to using the first 30 psalms, in order, as the basis for your prayer life for the next 30 days, and then see how your prayers have changed.
Prayer (Psalm 139:23-24, The Message)
Investigate my life, O God,
find out everything about me;
Cross-examine and test me,
get a clear picture of what I'm about;
See for yourself whether I've done anything wrong --
then guide me on the road to eternal life.
find out everything about me;
Cross-examine and test me,
get a clear picture of what I'm about;
See for yourself whether I've done anything wrong --
then guide me on the road to eternal life.
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