When last did you lament out loud?

Anyone who knows me even just a medium amount will know, when they saw that cover pic verse, that there was a huge and loud BUT on the way.

We love happy endings, hope-filled verses and to quote the promises of God to each other [even when we quote them out of context like Jeremiah 29.11 – i dare you to read the whole chapter and even just the verses around that one!] because we want to feel good and we want life to be easy.

But life is not easy. Well, not for me. And not for a very many people that i know [many who have it a lot worse than me in so many ways].

And while i love quoting my favourite psalm verse to people to remind them that God is there when it sucks:

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted, and saves those who are crushed in spirit. [34.18]

The verse doesn’t say anywhere that God will instantly whip them out of their brokenheartedness or bandage up their shattered spirit. It just says He gets it and He will be there. But it will more than likely still be ridiculously painful and hard.

A TIME TO LAMENT

Psalm 22 begins with this horrific spirit scream which we see David write and which Jesus Himself cries from the cross where He is dying an excruciating death:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning?

O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,

by night, and am not silent.

Ah, but don’t worry Dave. God has a plan for you – plans to prosper and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future…

That is unhelpful. And unkind. And disingenuous. And maybe just bad timing.

After all, whoever said that lamenting was a bad thing?

STOP TRYING TO RUSH PEOPLE TO HAPPY

When people are grieving or sad or deeply wrestling with something or struggling with doubt, too often i find that people [and i sadly include myself in that – i’m an old school Disney kind of guy] want to rush them through it, because it makes us uncomfortable. If you think of it that way, that can be quite a selfish thing. We want other people to get to happy so that we don’t feel uncomfortable or awkward or confused or at risk of doubt… STOPPIT! 

i heard a really helpful sermon on Lament on Sunday at St Johns where Keith said, “We’ve lost the art of lament” and mentioned a number of things including “broken relationships, forgotten dreams, unemployment, sadness, pain and loss.”

He reminded us that 40% of the psalms are lament and so if we refuse to give time to lament we are ignoring 40% of the psalms. We see it in the prophets as well, and in fact all throughout the story of the Bible. There seems to be a very real and necessary time for lament.

GOD BLESS AFRICA, HELP US LAMENT OUR NATION

i don’t know that i have too much more to say about this, except that it’s an area more of us need to explore… especially in the context of South Africa we find ourselves in. Oh wait, i guess i do have one more thing to say.

Because that is pretty much the exact same thing we [speaking as a white person] do to people of colour when we say stupid and unhelpful things like, ‘Apartheid is over – can’t we all just move on?’ We are trying to rush the narrative on to a happy and bubbly ending, and perhaps missing the serious amount of lamenting that our country in many ways never got to do.

We would not do that to someone who lost a parent or a child. Oh, really sorry your person died, but it’s a new day so let’s just move on then.

And yet for many they lost a lot more than one parent or one child. There was a system aimed at complete dehumanisation and so a loss of dignity, for many of location, for most the theft of hope and dreams, of choices of what to do with their lives, of sporting and academic and vocational opportunities. And there was a lot of death and abuse and injury and heavy scarring.

We as South Africans need time to lament. Not just those of colour, as when violence of any type is committed there is always a loss on both sides. One thing we need to learn to do is to create spaces [and i feel the artists have much to teach us here and maybe we should be ushering them to the front – using word and picture and play and song] where we an do that together and maybe learn from each other different ways and styles of lamenting. i feel like this is an area where i as a white person can learn so much from friends of all other races as white people tend to try and get death over with as quickly as possible whereas other cultures often create spaces to really hold it well and celebrate the person and express the mourning and more.

i would love to hear some thoughts from other people on lament. What does it mean to you?