Second Sunday in Lent, Year C
March 13, 2022
Luke 13:31-35
Here is an understatement for you. We are living in dark times.
Here at Christ Church, outreach… music… liturgy during Covid… our community=homeless; food insecurity… this is all over the country… COVID=every time we feel we are reaching the end, another variant; guidelines that don’t make sense (restaurants) and keep changing; schools open then closed then open; inflation, even before gas prices skyrocketed… Ukraine…
Yes, we are in dark times.
And, where is God? Where the heck is God? I want to scream. In fact, I think I will.
God, I don’t understand. There is suffering all over. In Ukraine, hospitals, schools, and entire communities are bombed into non-existence. People in this country are hungry, living without shelter or safety. Jobs are scarce. Prices for essentials are out of reach for so many. Everywhere I go, I see pain, struggle. I want those responsible to suffer; to pay a penalty for what they are inflicting on others. I am so small. My church, long a place for solace, is also struggling. What am I to do? Why aren’t you here?
How did that feel? How about this:
Yet you have rejected us and abased us, and have not gone out with our armies.
You have made us like sheep for slaughter, and have scattered us among the nations.
You have sold your people for a trifle, demanding no high price for them.
You have made us the taunt of our neighbors, the derision and scorn of those around us.
All day long my disgrace is before me, and shame has covered my face
at the words of the taunters and revilers, at the sight of the enemy and the avenger.
All this has come upon us, yet we have not forgotten you, or been false to your covenant.
Our heart has not turned back, nor have our steps departed from your way,
yet you have broken us in the haunt of jackals, and covered us with deep darkness.
Because of you we are being killed all day long, and accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
Did that feel wrong? It isn’t. It is called lament. The second one is from Psalm 44. The first one is my own.
The bible is full of laments. Moses, Micah, all of the prophets, the entire Book of Job, and of course the Book of Lamentations, to name just some. Of course, the prime examples of biblical laments are the Psalms. So many of them are laments, partially or fully. Probably 1/3 or more. The Psalmists use strong, raw language, addressing YHWH directly and accusingly. Based on the prevalence of lament throughout the OT, this was an integral part of Israel’s relationship with YHWH.
Jesus also laments. On the cross, he cried out the lament from Psalm 22: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” In our Gospel story today, Jesus laments, but at Jerusalem. Perhaps Jesus sees this as a failure of his life’s mission because he couldn’t turn Jerusalem from her impulses. “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you.” Jesus wants so badly to protect her, to teach her as a mother does her children. But they don’t listen, they don’t want to learn, to change. His despair is evident. This is Jesus’ lament.
We lament partly because we feel powerless. Horrible things are happening all around us, and there is nothing we can do. Listen to this from Rev Canon Malcolm Rogers, the Chaplain of St. Andrew’s Anglican Church in Moscow. “St Andrew’s Anglican Church in Moscow is situated only 10 minutes walk from the Kremlin. We are in the center of power and yet we are powerless. Conflict was predicted and we were helpless, unable to do anything to prevent it. Now that special military operations, as they are called here, have begun, there is nothing that we can do to stop them.” Lament.
In 2020, we had a deacon’s retreat during which we learned about lament. We learned that a lament is a passionate expression of deep grief or sorrow. Frances Klopper, in her Lament, A Language of our Time, calls it “an existential wail as primal as a child’s need to cry.” We also learned that the psalms, and all of the other laments in the Bible, give us permission to do the same. To do what I did earlier. To accuse and question God.
God can take it. He wants our full selves. That includes our dark feelings. I honor, worship, Him when I acknowledge that He can handle all of me, even my darkness and ugliness. And that I know He will hold me even when I lash out and accuse Him. Especially then, perhaps. And I find that as I lay my darkness at His feet, my burden is lightened as He takes it from me.
Because here is the flip side of lament. Hope. We are safe to express our despair, because we have a hope that things will change; that light will come from our darkness. We ask for God’s help because we know it will be provided. Here is the end of Psalm 44; the psalmist asks for help from the very God they are railing against…
Rouse yourself! Why do you sleep, O Lord? Awake, do not cast us off forever!
Why do you hide your face? Why do you forget our affliction and oppression?
For we sink down to the dust; our bodies cling to the ground.
Rise up, come to our help. Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love.
Back to the Chaplain from St. Andrew’s. Perhaps his words can help us here at CC. “But it is precisely our powerlessness which means that there are things that we can do. We are gospel people, who serve a crucified but risen Lord. We are the nobodies of 1 Corinthians 1, and it is our very powerlessness and insignificance and foolishness that can also be our strength, if it is handed to God. First of all, we are simply here. We are a community of very messed up people, but as we gather together to hear the Word of God and to receive bread and wine, a community of Russians and foreigners gathered together, centered on and receiving from Jesus Christ, our simple presence can be a witness of what the world can be like, of the future kingdom. Secondly, in our powerlessness, we can worship and pray. We pray for peace. That is far more than just praying for the absence of war. Thirdly, we can still speak truth. There are some things that we cannot say in Moscow, but we can still preach Jesus Christ crucified and risen and reigning. And fourthly we can love and serve our neighbor. We can make a difference where we are, and love the actual physical neighbors who God has given us. In our hubris we think that we are somebodies who can save the world – and we end up paralyzed. But it is when we realize our powerlessness, that in the worlds eyes we are nobodies, that we can begin to see the neighbor who God has given us and learn to serve them.”
We need to live into a better tomorrow. As we pray for that tomorrow, we live as if it has already happened.
For us, will we learn more ways of doing Outreach, more participatory perhaps. What will our future music program look like? Will we put in place more permanent solutions to chronic homelessness; learn to understand the root causes rather than just treat the symptom? What about COVID? We developed vaccines and treatments lightening fast, and solved massive manufacturing and distribution issues for both vaccines and tests. With Ukraine, we are seeing how Poles and Romanians and others are receiving refugees; can we use that as a model for compassionate care?
So, lament away. Give this all to God. Shout, accuse. Then look for hope. And live into that hope.