Psalm 79
Psalm 79 is a communal lament demanding God for justice. In the face of unspeakable evil and violent bloodshed, the people in Psalm 79 refuse to retreat to happy thoughts or hide in the light. Instead, their prayers that protest injustice serve as a bold way to stand up to evil.
As a communal prayer and call to action, Psalm 79 serves as a model for the church to carefully listen to those who experience distress from situations like war, violence, and displacement while also crying out and working alongside them to seek God’s justice and peace. In this sermon, I look at the historic violence the people in Psalm 79 experienced; connect the historic devastation to the kinds of violent crises we continue to face today; and share a story from the Philippines during the Martial Law period to give an example of what Psalm 79 can look like in action.
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Sermon Excerpt:
During Martial Law in the Philippines, a group of nine church people – who became known as the Negros 9 – were accused of murder and imprisoned because of their church work and collective laments against the Marcos dictatorship. These church people included three priests -- Father Niall O’Brien from Ireland, Father Brian Gore from Australia, and Filipino priest Father Vincente Dangan. Together with 6 lay workers, the priests served a community in Negros that was experiencing famine – with children dying or having permanent brain damage from malnutrition, farmers having the land stolen from under their feet, and the military and police using their power to abuse rather than protect the most vulnerable. In this context, the church leaders could have chosen to focus on providing people spiritual encouragement alone to get them through this difficult time - with Psalms of praise and thanksgiving, for instance.
But these priests and church members refused to provide only spiritual food when the people were dying of literal hunger. Instead, they responded to the situation with laments – in the form of protests and actions – that called God, the landowners, the military, and the government to account for the suffering of the people. Those in power – especially the landowners and military – felt the impact of these collective laments and felt very threatened by the church members’ actions. Because of this, they branded the Negros 9 as “communist rebels” and accused them of murdering a local mayor, for which the group was held in prison for 14 months.
The case drew international attention, especially amongst English-speaking church communities, and the situation became an embarrassment to the Marcos regime as his injustice and brutality were exposed on the global stage. As a result of this international pressure – which included television interviews from the priests’ jail cells and protests at the US embassy in Ireland - the Negros 9 were set free demonstrating the power of lament to demand accountability for those in power.
While the international attention helped to set the Negros 9 free from wrongful imprisonment, there were many others who did not receive justice. And the sad reality is that many of the same kinds of violent actions continue in the Philippines today with Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the son of the late dictator, recently coming to power in the Philippines. Our prayers of lament and acts of solidarity are needed again to join in people’s ongoing cry for justice.
The full church service and sermon transcript are also available.
This sermon and updates about the 50th Anniversary of Martial Law protests in Hong Kong first appeared in my newsletter. Subscribe for my latest updates: Impermanent Residence
Impermanent Residence is a newsletter about the transnational activism of migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong, documentary filmmaking, and theologies of migration, lament, and the Filipino diaspora.
