Rediscovering lament

It's all about me

The Christian journey is sometimes excessively characterised as a joy-filled existence, where struggles are overcome, and life is lived victoriously. There certainly are precious moments of astounding joy, wellbeing or peace. These are the moments we wish would last forever. Yet the next day they are a memory. I have had those sensations out in the surf, or even just driving with the windows down, my favorite music pumping, on a balmy summer's night.

The reality of life is hard work, a slog, or just plain mundane. In Ecclesiastes the writer acknowledges that while we work, eat and play, in the end everything seems meaningless. This book, attributed to Solomon, shows that even a man who appears to have absolutely everything, including the presence of God with him, finds everything a bit of a grind after a while.

Worse than being a drag, life can be hard, painful. Unfair. Traumatic. Sometimes it seems there is a real discrepancy between what we think the Christian life ought to be, and how we actually experience it. That leads many to feel that they are not getting it right, because they are not “living in the victory”.

Perhaps part of the problem lies in the cultural aspiration for the model life, where everything works out and dreams are achieved. The job is perfect, the right car is garaged in the perfect house. The annual summer holiday is booked. Relationships are sizzling with success. Life is reduced to getting our needs met, being happy, secure, successful.

As Christians we may attempt to reject this line of thinking. However, as enslaved to it as the next person, we couch it in Christian terms. We talk about seeking God's blessings on us, we strive to live victoriously, finding our potential. I saw an advert for a self esteem course put on by a large church, and it talked about moving from "I deserve this thinking", to I deserve more than this". This is a message that goes back to “me” at the centre, and striving for a life that is perfect, in God of course.

Misunderstanding of lament

Christians seem to have lost permission to lament. Lament can be interpreted as evidence of insufficient faith or trust. The book of Job highlights the total inability of this line of reasoning to comfort the sufferer. Of course, life isn’t always so bad, and we may feel that we have nothing to be sad about. However, feeling that way is unabashedly made possible by having “me” at the centre. What if we were to lament for the sufferings of someone else? A friend, a group of people? How about our indigenous people? The poor? The homeless?

Tim Hughes, a well known song writer of Christian worship songs wrote

"There has to be a place for pain in our Church. We need a bigger picture of what worship is. Questioning God doesn’t mean we are disobeying Him. Expressing doubt doesn’t mean we are lacking faith. In our everyday living, the people that we are most likely to share our deepest fears and questions with are those we most love and trust. It’s an intimate thing to be so honest and raw with someone. It’s actually something that draws you closer to a friend."

He cites Dan Allender:

"Lament cuts through insincerity, strips pretense, and reveals the raw nerve of trust that angrily approaches the throne of grace and then kneels in awed, robust wonder."

Biblical examples of lament

Now the idea of angrily approaching the "throne of grace" sounds like something that we as good Christians ought not do. But there are great biblical examples of exactly this - notably in the book of Psalms, and in the words of Job. There is little modelling of lament in the new Testament, other than in the words of Jesus himself. Consider the agonising moments in the garden of Gethsemene, and the anguish from the cross. The book of Psalms contains 57 psalms of lament - more than a third! Mostly for personal situations, and some on behalf of the people of Israel. The psalms provide us with a model for going through the hard times, granting permission to "complain" to God.

We must express and feel pain, and allow others to do likewise. If we don't, we end up being like Job’s friends who quote platitudes and Bible verses when maybe we should be silent. Creating space for lament does not mean living as faithless "defeated" Christians. It enables spiritual authenticity and honesty - with each other, and with God. Like David, we can express our anger, hurt, disappointment, alongside our belief in his goodness, his love, his deliverance, his power. These are not mutually exclusive.

Looking beyond ourselves

Glaringly absent from our expression of lament in church is our crying out to God for those who are hurting around the world. When did we last cry out for the casualties of wars? Or the poor of India or Africa? I don't mean a "gee yeah that's pretty sad and God please bless them" mention just before our own shopping list prayer is mentioned. I think the process of lamenting costs something. Crying out to God and actually meaning what is said is probably a very exhausting and emotionally consuming process. I say probably, because if I am really honest, it is not often that I pray with single-minded strength and passion for others.

I am convinced that part of the way forward for the church to genuinely take up the call to care for the needy and oppressed is to feel deeply for them. Not just a glib acknowledgment of their plight, but an expression of powerful lament, that stirs up complacency. Caring deeply is an important ingredient for instigating change.

According to Walter Brueggermann, the loss of lament leads to the “the stifling of the question of theodicy”. What he means by this is not theoretical questions of God and evil, but the capacity to raise legitimate questions of justice with God. I think here of Psalm 89 where in the first half of the psalm the psalmist rehearses and celebrates God’s promises to David (vv. 1-37), only to throw God’s promises in his face in the second half (vv. 38-51):

No matter how virulent the psalmist becomes — at least the psalmist knew where to direct complaints! He or she had the inward conviction that God was there. There was no question in the psalmist’s mind that God was there listening to the prayer, with the capacity to change circumstances for the better. Lament psalms are not resigned lamentation; they do more than just focus on current hardships. They are fundamentally appeals or petitions to God to do something. What characterizes these psalms with few exceptions is the confidence that the situation can be changed if God wills to intervene.