A Time for Lament

 Sermon shared with online worshiping community of Ascension Lutheran Church - May 10, 2020. 

We are all experiencing this time in different ways. Some of us are safe at home. Others have jobs or responsibilities that mean they have to be out there in the world. Some have the ministry of caring for the sick. Others have conditions that make us especially vulnerable and require us to be extremely cautious. 

A couple weeks ago I wrote a blog about my grief that some of you may have read. I was doing okay. When this first happened, my adrenaline kicked in and I was figuring out how to pastor a congregation without leaving my house. In the beginning, I wondered if this would last until Easter. And then it became clear that this was going to last a lot longer than that. For a year or more, we could be wearing masks and keeping our distance from one another.

The implications of all this for public worship are hard to fathom. When we’re finally able to worship together, it’s going to be with so many restrictions that it’s not going to feel much like worship at all, for those of us who are even able to attend.

What put me over the top was learning that it will probably be a very long time before we’ll be able to sing together when we’re finally able to gather in person because singing projects germs into the air.

The tears had been building, and that’s when they started to flow. I couldn’t hold them back. I started crying, and I couldn’t stop for days. Even now, it doesn’t take much for me to well up with tears.

I don’t know if you’re a crier like I am, but I would almost bet that at some point over the past month or two, you’ve hit a wall.

When the reality of the losses we’re experiencing in a surreal world just smacks us upside the head and it’s more than we can bear.

There are losses for all of us during this time. Birthdays when we can’t be together. Prom. Graduation. Weddings. Funerals. Opening Day at Camden Yards. Our Delaware-Maryland Synod Assembly. Symphony concerts. Vacation plans. Employment. Final days with a loved one. Hugs from family members.

What have you lost? It’s good to name it.

Because we need to grieve. Grieving has always been important for people of faith. When we experience loss, we grieve before God. We don’t pretend that everything’s just fine, when it’s not.

There’s a whole lot of this going on with people of faith we read about in the scriptures. The Biblical word for this is lament. The Psalms, in particular, are filled with laments. Like Psalm 13, “How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart?”

There is an entire book of the Bible devoted to this. It’s called, Lamentations. I invite you to spend some time with it this week and see if it resonates with you right now. Here’s how it begins… 

How deserted lies the city,
    once so full of people!
How like a widow is she,
    who once was great among the nations!
She who was queen among the provinces
    has now become a slave.

² Bitterly she weeps at night,
    tears are on her cheeks.
Among all her lovers
    there is no one to comfort her.
All her friends have betrayed her;
    they have become her enemies.

³ After affliction and harsh labor,
    Judah has gone into exile.
She dwells among the nations;
    she finds no resting place.
All who pursue her have overtaken her
    in the midst of her distress.

⁴ The roads to Zion mourn,
    for no one comes to her appointed festivals.
All her gateways are desolate,
    her priests groan,
her young women grieve,
    and she is in bitter anguish. 

The book of Lamentations is a collection of five poems that mourn the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in the summer of 586 BCE. Do you know that story?

The Babylonian army entered Jerusalem and slaughtered many of its people. They burned God’s Temple to the ground. Jerusalem’s king watched as his sons were put to death, and then his eyes were gouged out so that the death of his sons was the last thing he ever saw. Then he and many of the people of Judah were led on a march to a place hundreds of miles away, and forced to live in exile. For 70 years, they longed to return to Jerusalem. When they finally did, the Jerusalem they remembered was gone, and it would never be the same.

For the first time in my life, I can begin to understand their grief.

The parallel between the time of the Babylonian exile and this time we’re living in was pointed out to me by Bishop Tim Smith, from the North Carolina Synod. After he read my blog where I was grieving the loss of all kinds of stuff, but singing in worship, in particular, he left a comment. Here’s what he wrote:

“I hear you, Pastor Nancy. God's deep peace be with you. I grieve with you and for you. I think of the exiled Israelites when they were taunted by their Babylonian captors, ‘Sing us a song of Zion!’ (Oh wait, Zion is destroyed.) ‘By the rivers of Babylon, we lay down our harps and wept when we remembered Zion.’ After a number of years, they did return, but it was nothing like what they had remembered. Like you, I fear and am fairly sure that is what we are facing for the pre-vaccine future. Laying down our harps, and weeping when we remember Zion.”

Here’s the Psalm he was referring to, Psalm 137. Like the Book of Lamentations, it was written during the time of the Babylonian Exile. 

By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept
    when we remembered Zion.
² There on the poplars
    we hung our harps,
³ for there our captors asked us for songs,
    our tormentors demanded songs of joy;
    they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

⁴ How can we sing the songs of the Lord
    while in a foreign land?
⁵ If I forget you, Jerusalem,
    may my right hand forget its skill.
⁶ May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
    if I do not remember you,
if I do not consider Jerusalem
    my highest joy. 

I want to assure you that if you’re finding yourself in a funk these days, you’re in good company. People of faith have been in a similar place throughout history. Whether lamentation comes to you through tears, or whining, or an overall state of crankiness, it’s okay. It’s not a lack of faith that you need to fight and “smile though your heart is breaking.” An honest lament before God is a faithful response to great loss. Jesus himself lamented from the cross, when he prayed with words from Psalm 22, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

But I also want to remind us that there’s another layer to lamentation for people of faith. Even as the writer of Lamentations writes, “Gone is my glory, and all that I had hoped from the Lord,” the next words are these, “But this I call to mind, and therefore, I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end.”

In other words, even when the world seems to be going down the tubes, we can count always on the steadfast love of God. It never fails us.

For people of faith, lament isn’t despair. Because, through faith, we know that in those times when we may least expect God to show up – in suffering, pain, disaster, global pandemic – and the cross – in those times, God is most clearly present.

That doesn’t take away our need to grieve, but it makes our grief bearable. And it brings us hope that our grief will not last forever. 

My life flows on in endless song; above earth’s lamentation, 

I catch the sweet, though far-off hymn that hails a new creation.

No storm can shake my in-most calm 

while to that Rock I'm clinging.

Since Christ is Lord of heaven and earth, 

how can I keep from singing?