The Church of St.
Paul and Incarnation, Jersey City NJ
October 6, 2019
Year C, Proper 22:
The Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost
Lamentations 1:1-6
Lamentations 3:19-26
2 Timothy 1:1-14
Luke 17:5-10
The Power of Lament
The
other day a parishioner said to me that it feels like there’s a lot of sadness
in the air these days.
And,
I think she’s right about that.
Life
always brings a mix of joy and sorrow, but lately, at least for me, more of my
time seems to be occupied by sadness.
I
feel sad about the state of our world as we seem unable to take the action
necessary to prevent catastrophic damage to our planet, as more and more people
feel they have no choice but to flee their homes and everything they’ve ever
known, as brutal leaders believe, probably rightly, that they can get away with
deceit, massacres, torture, and concentration camps.
I
feel sad about the state of our country, where once again we are consumed by
bitter political battles and inspiring leadership – or even just competent
leadership - is in such short supply, where Republicans and Democrats can attend
the same meetings and somehow draw exact opposite conclusions, where so much
energy is devoted to politics and so little to actually solving our many
problems.
And,
I feel sad about our own community here where so many people are suffering –
illness and injury, relationship problems and family squabbles, unemployment
and underemployment, unsafe neighborhoods and crumbling schools, a sense of
despair and the sinking feeling that there’s no way out.
So,
yes, there’s a lot of sadness in the air.
But,
you know, we Americans are not so great at expressing this sadness, not so good
at… lamenting.
Instead,
from an early age, we’re taught to project a sunny optimism – to hold on
desperately to the belief that somehow everything will work out just the way we
want it to – and, please, whatever you do, do not burden anyone else with your
problems.
(If
I had a dollar for every time a parishioner has been in the hospital or has
gone through some other hard time and not let me know - and then afterward said
to me something like, “I didn’t want to bother you because I know you are
busy…”)
And,
this isn’t just an American thing.
It’s
also a Christian thing.
In
today’s gospel lesson the disciples say to Jesus, “Increase our faith!”
And,
don’t we all ask for the same gift, especially when times are tough?
But,
often we get the mistaken idea that expressing sorrow or fear or even anger
somehow means that we lack faith – that our sorrow, fear, or anger mean that we
no longer believe in God.
And,
sometimes this American and Christian reluctance to face our sorrow gets mixed
together.
Some
of you may remember Norman Vincent Peale who led Marble Collegiate Church in
Manhattan for forty years – where, by the way, he was pastor of a young Donald
Trump.
Today, Peale is remembered
mostly as the author of a bestselling book called, The Power of Positive Thinking.
In
his book he encourages the reader to imagine succeeding, using positive thought
to drown out negative thought, to minimize obstacles, to develop a strong
self-respect, and to believe that you receive power from God.
That
sounds like a lot of today’s televangelists and new age gurus, doesn’t it?
Now,
obviously, I’m not saying that this is all wrong or that positive thinking is
not important.
But,
I am saying that, generally, we Americans and we Christians are not so good at
honestly expressing our sorrow, not so good at simply sitting for a while with
our sadness and grief.
It’s
like what most of us do during Holy Week: we skip over the pain of Good Friday
and rush on to the joy of Easter, avoiding the cross to get to the flowers and
chocolate.
And
this is too bad, because we miss what I’ll call, with all due respect to Norman
Vincent Peale, “the power of lament.”
We
may be not so good at lamenting the sad parts of life, but the Jews, our elder
sisters and brothers in faith, have a long history of openly and honestly
grieving loss.
Today
we heard two passages from the Book of Lamentations.
In
the year 586 B.C., the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem (including Solomon’s
Temple) and took many of the people into exile in Babylon, where they desperately
tried to hold on to their identity as God’s people, while surrounded by people
who worshiped other gods.
Meanwhile,
other Jewish people were back home living among the ruins, wondering if they
had a future without their Temple, hoping that God had not abandoned them
forever, and, most of all, lamenting all that had been lost.
And
that deep sadness gave birth to the Book of Lamentations and listening to its
words today we can still really feel the great sadness of long ago.
The
author of Lamentations personifies Jerusalem as a woman weeping bitterly in the
night, abandoned by those who loved her, friends have turned against her.
Even
the roads in and out of the city mourn, because people no longer come to the
ruined city for the great festivals.
By
now, all of this focus on loss and sorrow may have you wishing that you had slept
in or gone to brunch or got a head start on the food shopping, but if you had
done those things you would have missed the key message:
The
power of lament is that it makes us recognize our complete dependence on God.
Positive
thinking and all the rest of it has its value but the danger is it gives us the
false hope that, on our own, we can work our way out of whatever mess we are
in.
Just
be positive, keep smiling, and everything will work out.
Lament,
on the other hand, means we acknowledge that everything’s a mess and there’s
only so much we can do on our own, but we trust that God is with us even
in, especially in, the worst times.
And
so, even in the midst of great sorrow and destruction, and recognizing that
what has been broken can never be put back together exactly as it was before, the
author of Lamentations declares, “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,
his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your
faithfulness.”
The
power of lament.
In
today’s gospel lesson, Jesus tells the disciples who have asked for an increase
of faith that if they had faith the size of a tiny mustard seed they could do
truly amazing things.
And,
as bad as the news has been this past week, there was at least one story that
suggests that Jesus really knew what he was talking about.
I’m
sure most of you have heard the story of the tragic killing of Botham Jean, a
black man, born in St. Lucia, an accountant, loved by his family and respected
by his colleagues, who was killed in his own home by an off-duty Dallas police
officer, a white woman named Amber Guyger.
Guyger
claimed that she had entered his apartment by mistake, thinking it was her own
place, and shot Jean thinking that he was a burglar.
Considering
the continued racism of American society and especially the racism that infects
the justice system, many were surprised that Guyger was convicted, though she
received a relatively light sentence of ten years.
(Let’s
be honest, if the roles were reversed, it’s safe to assume that a black man
would be looking at much longer time and maybe even the death penalty.)
What
got everybody’s attention was what happened during the sentencing.
Botham’s
brother, Brandt, said he forgave Guyger for killing his brother and, not only
that, he hugged her, right there in the court room.
Now,
I don’t know what it took to get to that point but I imagine that for more than
the past year Brandt Jean along with the rest of his family have done a whole
lot of lamenting, lamenting the senseless loss of Botham, this bright and
much-liked man, full of promise.
No
amount of positive thinking was going to fix this situation.
Their
family and their lives could never and will never be put back together exactly
as they were before.
But,
it seems to me, this grieving family knows their total dependence on God, and
that faith – that increased faith – gave one man the power to do something far
greater than hurling a mountain into the sea.
That
is the power of lament.
Amen.
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