I have been hearing a lot of (mild) complaints this week – most of them have been to do with the suffering we have just experienced of living through a small localised heatwave. Complaining is something of a natural reaction to suffering and struggle – but it is interestingly not what Christians are called to do. We by contrast are called to ‘Lament’.
And as we have journeyed through this series exploring what kind of Church that God wants us to be we have reached the challenging but ultimately rewarding topic of lament. Churches like any other organisations are full of things that don’t go well. Someone we love leaves our fellowship, someone else in church says the wrong thing to us, or nothing at all. Others are let down by unkind or incompetent leaders. I fail, you fail, we all fail…
If our future vision for our Church has any connection to reality it must have Lament as part of what we are. Lament is our ability to give to God those things that combine to give us our failures, mistakes and indifferences. It needs a certain honesty about what we are really troubled with and it needs a willingness to bring that to God. Like other aspects of church life it is deeply concerned with how we feel so this week I will borrow some words from the great Joni Eareckson Tada whose Christian witness through trial and suffering is both gloriously honest but deeply faithful:
“When a broken neck ambushed my life and left me a quadriplegic, I felt as though God had smashed me underfoot like a cigarette. At night, I would thrash my head on the pillow, hoping to break my neck at a higher level and thereby end my misery. After I left the hospital, I refused to get out of bed; I told my sister, “Just close the drapes, turn out the light, and shut the door.” My paralysis was permanent, and inside, I died.
You don’t have to be in a wheelchair to identify. You already know that sad situations sometimes don’t get better. Problems don’t always get solved. Conflicts don’t get fixed. Children die, couples divorce, and untimely deaths rock our world and shake our faith.
We try to manage, like jugglers spinning plates on long sticks. When we feel utterly overwhelmed, we try soaking in the tub, sweating on the treadmill, splurging on a new dress, or heading to the mountains for the weekend. We smile and say we are trusting God, but down deep we know it’s a lie. We’re only trusting that he doesn’t load us up with more plates.
That’s how I felt. But after weeks in bed, I got tired of being depressed, and I finally cried out, “God, if I can’t die, please show me how to live.” It was just the prayer God was waiting for.
From then on, I would ask my sister to get me up and park me in my wheelchair in front of my Bible. Holding a mouth stick, I would flip this way and that, looking for answers—any answer. I sought the help of a Christian counselor-friend who took me directly to the book of Lamentations. He showed me the third chapter:
I am the man who has seen affliction . . . surely against me [God] turns his hand again and again the whole day long. (Lam. 3:1, 3)
I marvelled, thinking, that’s me!
I was amazed to learn that God welcomes our laments. I would eventually learn—mainly through Lamentations and Psalms—that nothing is more freeing than knowing God understands. When we are in pain, God feels the sting in his chest. Our frustrations and questions do not fluster him. He knows all about them. He wrote the book on them. More astoundingly, he invites us to come and air our grievances before him.”
So come along tomorrow and find out more – how to lament without grumbling, how to be truthful without being hurtful and how to begin to deal with negative things without getting bitter or resentful – and together may it be a turning point for us as we ask what it would be like to be part of a church that laments well. The storms of life will come – how can we seek God in the storms.
Peace and Blessing
Andy
Brislington Community News 