**5. Responses to the Reign of God**

In an intercultural worship setting, in which the colonized and the colonizer sing together, the book of Psalms creates a space for people who have different experiences with power to speak truth to God and to one another. The book of Psalms creates a space for people who are different to be honest and authentic about the history they carry with them into the worship space. Those, or their ancestors, who have experienced oppression can voice their pain, and those, or their ancestors, who have abused their power can repent. An intercultural worship that seeks decolonization ought to create a space for people to reflect on their cultural location with the hope that, through this embodiment, they may find healing and transformation as they encounter one another and as they encounter God. Proclaiming God's reign does not mean repressing voices of protest and lament; instead, it should be viewed as the foundation upon which the faith community has the courage to hope for a new reality in the midst of chaos. Celebrating God's reign in songs of praise does not mean that the faith community is oblivious to the damage that colonization has committed, nor is it complacent regarding how the other is often excluded or marginalized. Celebrating God's reign puts God at the center of a diverse faith community, and in doing so, it animates the hope that when humans fail, God is sovereign to save the oppressed and to judge the oppressors who persist in their wickedness.

#### **6. Psalms of Lament and the Agency of the Oppressed**

The book of Psalms is not oblivious to suffering, trauma, and violence. The book preserves a bold tradition of prayers of lament and protest, sometimes directed towards God and in other times directed towards other humans who have violated the well-being of the psalmist.<sup>14</sup> Psalms of lament make visible the wounds, disorientation, trauma, suffering, and hopelessness. They speak of narrow spaces of oppression (Ps. 3:1), emotional distress and physical illnesses (6:5–7), injustices (10:2), sorrow (13:2), enemies (22:12–13), mortality and estrangement (39:1–13), shame and defeat (44:9–16), persecution (55:3), rejection (60:1), being overwhelmed (69:1–4), the destruction of communal identity (74:1–9), loss and loneliness (88:8, 18). They also bring to the fore the longing for belonging, healing, justice, and liberation. They express a sense of trust in God's faithfulness to the covenant and they rely on God's steadfast love as the ultimate assurance that God will listen and deliver. Even though they raise questions about God's justice because of the harm that they have endured at the hands of their enemies, the fact that they still approach God in prayer is a sign of bold trust in God. In many of these psalms, and despite the chaos that the worshipping community experiences, proclaiming God's reign over creation and history is the foundation for their longing for justice. In Psalm 74:12, for example, the psalmist declares, "Yet God my King is from of old, working salvation in the earth".15

Psalms of lament have been marginalized in Christian worship for various reasons.<sup>16</sup> For some, complaint is usually confused with murmuring. Complaint, for them, reflects an ungrateful posture towards God. For others, complaint and lament are signs of a weak faith and a lack of trust in God. For some, the spirituality of giving thanks and praise in the midst of suffering and chaos is considered a sign of a stronger faith than the spirituality that allows for words of complaint and protest. For others, worship and spirituality are reduced to be only about joy, and they can simply achieve this state if they focus on God and leave behind their suffering. For others, God's sovereignty means that one should not question what God is doing. Some of those who have been deprived of their agency as a result of being subjugated to different forms of oppression find it hard to speak back to God as an authority figure. For some, who have lost all possibilities of help, God is their ultimate resort in the midst of suffering and complaint will not change the reality that they are experiencing. Whether for theological or sociopolitical reasons, prayers of lament have been marginalized in worship practices and spaces.17

Through prayers of lament, the vulnerable ones restore some of their agency as they raise a voice of protest to God concerning various manifestations of interpersonal or systemic oppression and alienation. This kind of discourse is crucial for individuals or communities that have experienced racism, colonialism, forced migration, or xenophobia. These oppressive systems have tried to deprive them of their dignity and humanity. An intercultural worship that is attentive to the diversity of the experiences that are present in the worship space ought to integrate psalms of lament into its public worship so that these individuals and communities see themselves in a new light, as partners with God in doing justice in the world. This practice reflects a theology of a dynamic and a relational God who responds to prayers and who freely chooses to work through human agents. Thus, prayers of lament are not about venting; the process itself is transformational because humans who have experienced marginalization start to claim a new identity as covenantal partners. Prayers of lament are formational.18 Lisa Allen explains the formational role of worship in the life of the black church when she writes, "Worship was not just an opportunity to come and shout or cry and then leave, content in whatever station in life one was. It was about knowing that there was a better life, not just somewhere in the sky, but in the here and now, and the Black church stood as a testament to God's faithfulness that we, as a people, could live into the fullness of our humanity." (Allen 2021, p. 12).

One of the contributions of Walter Brueggemann to the theology of the book of Psalms is the recovery of the validity of the language of lament as faithful discourse that is grounded in a covenantal relationship with God. Two losses, argues Brueggemann, occur when the language of lament is marginalized in the theology and practice of faith communities. The first loss focuses on the genuineness of the covenantal relationship, in which the human party is supposedly taken seriously by God. If humans are only allowed the language of praise, and they are not permitted to cry out in the midst of injustice, not only does this create a bad faith that is built on fear, guilt, or false self-righteousness, but it also turns humans into an object, not partners with God. The second loss suggests that the absence of the language of lament stifles the question of theodicy, which essentially has to do with the work of justice in the world. By recovering the language of lament and protest as a language of faith, the oppressed become a partner with God in the work of justice. Hence, Derek Suderman tried to recover the place of the faith community in the process of lament, a topic not addressed by Brueggemann. "In effect", writes Suderman, "raising one's voice in lament not only calls on God to act but also invites social discernment and the response of the social 'other' to the speaker's claim ... More than simply being '*addressed to God against neighbor*' or '*addressed to God against God*', laments are also *addressed to a social audience* and thus function rhetorically as warnings, threats, accusations, and appeals for empathy and support. Thus, in addition to providing an empowering voice and significant social critique, the function of lament requires the attentive, discerning ear of those who hear or hear about the pained cries." (Suderman 2012). Hearing these cries, then, calls onto the audience to respond, by way of doing justice for the oppressed or repenting for violence done to those who have been marginalized.19

Prayers of lament in an intercultural setting become the voice of the oppressed, and they create a space for not only an acknowledgement of wrongs done, but also a space for grief, which, as Sunder John Boopalan states, "engenders positive agency" that one hopes would lead to the transformation of identities (Boopalan 2017, p. 115). Boopalan notes, "In calling agents to take cues from the grief of those who suffer wrongs, the internal work of grief invites persons from privileged backgrounds to undertake the task of identitytransforming grief.". (Boopalan 2017, p. 118). Indeed, it has been noted that the psalmists in psalms of lament construct an identity in relation to God and in relation to an other who is hostile.20 "[T]he concept of shaming the enemies means to relate to them openly, in the public sphere. The honest voicing of negative attitudes towards the other is a more real and more genuine way of relating to them than not doing so. There is an authenticity about the voicing of a response to harmful actions of others, which bolsters relationship and paves the way for the impairment in relationship to be addressed restoratively. The voicing of a psalm can have a ritual aspect to it, which speaks of its efficacy in making real change possible. In the case of the psalmist's relationship to their enemy, a psalm of lament can reorient the perception of the pray-er (and potentially all those who hear it too). It turns the enemy from being a problem, a thing, to being a person to be addressed and brought into the ambit of the psalmist's relationship with God and with the wider community." (Stocks 2021, pp. 133–34). An intercultural worship that seeks decolonization, that seeks justice and mutuality, ought to allow for this authentic dialogue with God and the other. An intercultural worship that integrates prayers of lament does not shy away from confronting pain in the name of unity. Intercultural worship that seeks justice will be unsettling. Yet, it is through this courageous and dialogical, truth-telling worship that a diverse faith community may begin to experience healing and transformation.

#### **7. Psalms of Praise and the Relationality of God's Reign**

Songs of praise and adoration are common in intercultural worship practices. Short and simple songs are easier to translate into another language and they are easier to handle across cultural and theological difference. Sometimes, this gives the impression that songs of praise are shallow and are not as sophisticated theologically as other types of hymns or songs. In these manifestations of intercultural worship, it is assumed that praise and adoration are centered and focused on God's otherness. And this focus does not always connect with daily lives that are distraught with violence, chaos, and oppression. Worship in this sense becomes a vertical relationship between the worshipper and God. Praise is isolated from people's struggles; God is remote and can only be thought of as a transcendent God. In this kind of intercultural worship, although it sometimes celebrates ethnic and linguistic diversity, its articulation of praise of this awesome God is separated from God's liberating activity and justice-making on behalf of the powerless. Psalms of praise, however, challenge these reductionist assumptions. Indeed, they are a rich theological resource for intercultural worship that does not confuse diversity with justice, because, when God's reign puts things in the right, this means liberation for the oppressed, inclusion of the marginalized, and judgment on those who act unjustly.

It has been argued that psalms of praise are witnesses to God's incommensurability and God's incomparability. Praise is an invitation to be in awe and wonder. It calls onto the worshipping community to reflect on what it means to be a human being in relation to this wonderful, powerful, mysterious God. Brueggemann discusses an enigmatic tension that is present in the psalms. For him, there is a tension, a mystery, concerning how God's incommensurability relates to mutuality. He assigns God's incomparability to psalms of praise and hymns of thanksgiving, and when it comes to mutuality, he turns to psalms of lament in which the psalmist assumes the upper hand or at least a parity with God.21 Although Brueggemann acknowledges the relationality of the God worshipped in the book of Psalms, he dissects these two aspects of the theological witness of the psalms and houses each side in one particular genre. These two sides of the theological enigma, however, are present in both of these genres, lament and praise. God's celebrated power is what makes the psalmist petition to God to interfere and change reality, and the God who is praised is also a relational God who is connected to the powerless and to the righteous and who holds the wicked accountable for the oppression that they have imposed on the marginalized.

The final psalms of the psalter are psalms of praise that celebrate God's reign, which rescues the oppressed and that judges the oppressor. A psalmist declares, "The LORD will reign forever" (Psalm 146:10), and another one exhorts the children of Zion to "rejoice in their king" (149:2). The singer in Psalm 145 shouts, "I extol you, my God and King". God's everlasting reign is mentioned three times at the heart of the psalm: "the glory of your kingdom; the glorious splendor of your kingdom; your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom" (145:1, 11–13).22 These psalms emphasize God's otherness, to the point of saying that God's greatness is too great for human minds to examine it and human words to capture it (Psalm 145:3). Indeed, the psalmists overwhelm the worshippers with words such as splendor, majesty, wonder, and awesomeness. Yet, this same God is involved in the world by doing *tsedeqah—*"righteousness or justice". God's otherness never separates God from revealing Godself by putting things in the right. God reveals God's righteousness when God upholds all who are falling, and raises up all who are bowed down (Psalm 145:14) and when God "judges the wicked" (145:20).

In a similar way, Psalm 146 celebrates God's relational reign. God the creator, who brings order out of chaos in the vast non-human world, is also involved in the margins of society. Words of praise speak of a God "who executes justice for the oppressed; who gives food to the hungry. The LORD sets the prisoners free; the LORD opens the eyes of the blind. The LORD lifts up those who are bowed down; the LORD loves the righteous. The LORD watches over the strangers; he upholds the orphan and the widow" (Psalm 146:7–9).<sup>23</sup> God's reign is an ongoing jubilee year. God's reign liberates, feeds, lifts up, heals, repairs, and restores. At the center of God's activities are those who are not usually seen at the center of the concern of the empire. Yet they are the ones most affected by the hegemony of the empire. God's reign reshuffles the social and political arrangements.24

Worshipping this God is a political statement. Rolf Jacobson notes that "Israel's praise evokes a world in which the Lord alone reigns, biblical praise is always both praise of the true Lord and praise against all false lords—human and non-human—who seek to set themselves up in God's place." (Jacobson 2000, p. 383). Songs of praise that declare God's reign call on the worshipping community to decide if they will put their trust in the power of rulers and empires or if they will put their ultimate trust in this God who defends the oppressed. Such a call was declared early on in the psalter, in Psalm 2, and now here, towards the end of the psalter, the hymns of praise confront their audience with the fragility of human rulers and empires: "Do not put your trust in princes, in mortals, in whom there is no help. When their breath departs, they return to the earth; on that very day their plans perish" (Psalm 146:3–4). And in the following psalm, the singer reminds the worshippers that God's "delight is not in the strength of the horse, nor his pleasure in the speed of a runner" (Psalm 146:11; see Exodus 15:21).

Psalms of praise that speak of God's relational incomparability, that vindicate the oppressed, expose the fragility of the human oppressor. Indeed, God's righteous reign "lifts up the downtrodden, and brings the wicked to the ground" (Psalm 147:6). The oppressor is often called the wicked, the *resha'im*, in the book of Psalms. The wicked ones are the ones who abuse their power against the marginalized. "In arrogance the wicked persecute the poor—let them be caught in the schemes they have devised. For the wicked boast of the desires of their heart, those greedy for gain curse and renounce the LORD" (Psalm 10:2–3).<sup>25</sup> In contrast to doing justice on behalf of the righteous, the oppressed ones,26 whom God loves (Psalm 146:8), God destroys the wicked (145:20), brings to ruin the way of the wicked (146:9), and brings the wicked down to the ground (147:6). For the most part, God is the actor of this judgment that comes over the ones who oppress the poor. Yet, Psalm 149 speaks of the role that the *hasidism*, the faithful, will play in bringing about God's judgment over the kings and nobles, who will be removed from their thrones and halls of power and will be put to chains and tamed. With words and swords, they will execute vengeance, rebukes, and justice. That the psalm ends with an emphasis on vengeance, rebukes, and putting an end to the arrogance of these foreign rulers as a way of restoring the dignity and honor of the oppressed *hasidim* reflects the common motif in which the reign of God is an upside-down reality (e.g., 1 Sam 2:1–10; Luke 1:46–55). In this new order, those who were oppressed are restored to honor and dignity, and those who abused their power are tamed and receive justice.27

This image of the vengeance and justice that are brought over the kings and the nobles of the nations, which dominates Psalm 149, should be contrasted with another image from Psalm 148. These kings and rulers are not violently subjugated. Instead, they are called to participate in the worship of YHWH because YHWH is an exalted God. Obviously, these kings and nations might have their own Gods. So, one wonders if this language is that of inclusion or intrusion. It depends on what one compares it to. If it is compared to a theology that allows other peoples to preserve their religious traditions (e.g., Deuteronomy 32:8–9; Micah 4:5), then this text would seem intrusive. If one compares it to the vengeance of Psalm 149 or other exclusionary views in scriptures in which other nations are excluded from the worship of YHWH (e.g., Deuteronomy 7, 23), then calling onto these foreign kings to participate in this worship chorus is indeed an inclusive language. Interestingly, Psalm 148 calls onto all of God's creation to participate. It even includes the primoradial water and the dragons or monsters, the *tanninim*. <sup>28</sup> That is, the agents that disturb God's ordered creation, whether mythological creatures or historical figures (the nobles and the kings of Psalm 149), are included in the worship of YHWH, who reigns above Heaven and the Earth. This very language, which includes all nations and peoples, preserves a peculiar place for Israel and its relationship with YHWH. Thus, while the text is inclusive, it does not do this at the expense of peculiarity. Praise, here, then, is intercultural, as it brings people who are ethnically and linguistically different to worship God together, without a loss of those identities and their peculiarities. Praise is also decolonial, as it brings to the center not a particular culture, but God's reign, which liberates the oppressed, judges the wicked who persist in oppression, and restores even the enemies of God's creation, cosmological or historical, to a harmonious relationship with God and with others.

#### **8. Conclusions**

This paper suggested that intercultural worship becomes transformative when it becomes intentional about addressing people's experiences with power. In order to reach this goal, intercultural worship ought to engage in a decolonial mindset and practices that empower the marginalized and hold those who abuse their power accountable. This kind of work does not repress the voice of the oppressed in the name of unity, and it does not simply focus on diversity without doing the work of justice. An intercultural worship that seeks decolonization and liberation creates a space for honest and authentic encounters between diverse worshippers, God, and one another. As much as it is important in an intercultural worship to integrate different languages, diverse worship styles, and multiple theologies, it is crucial for the experiences of the members of the worshipping community to be visible and integrated. Through its diverse genres, the book of Psalms offers intercultural worshipping communities a model of speaking truth about their hurt and privilege. God's reign in prayers of lament and in songs of praise addresses these diverse worshipping communities. It gives hope for the oppressed and marginalized, and it holds accountable those who abuse their power. Being formed by this multiplicity of voices within the book of Psalms, which reached its final form in a colonial and imperil context, intercultural worship becomes decolonial when it gives a voice to the downtrodden, and when it celebrates God's reign, which longs for God's restoration of all God's creation, even those cosmological and historical outsiders, monsters, and the human other.

The work of Whitla offers practical wisdom on how to integrate decolonial reflections in forming a diverse and a just worshipping community. A self-reflective worship takes place on the institutional and on the individualistic levels. As much as the worshipping community seeks to live into God's reign, it should reflect on the forces that work against creating God's beloved community. Whitla writes, "At their peril, churches, in their eagerness to embrace a vision of what humanity is liberated *for*, often neglect this work, the work of liberating *from.*" (Whitla 2020, p. 230). Whitla argues that three things ought to happen in order to live into this reality more concretely: firstly, churches should produce their "autobiographical narrative". Building up God's community requires liberation and reconciliation. As churches confront their past, the next step of work "will entail unmasking and confronting coloniality in our liturgies." (Whitla 2020, p. 231). Public and private acknowledgement, confession, and repentance for the harm that colonialism has and continues to cause is a step forward in confronting its forms of oppression. Repentance calls for actions. Thus, worship contributes to the church's decolonial work "by creating spaces for the voices of the marginalized and excluded to sing and be heard." (Whitla 2020, p. 231).

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Data Availability Statement:** Not applicable.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.

## **Notes**

