God is big enough to handle our laments

When we think about prayers of lament in the bible that are personal, we find that most of them have similar elements. The structure of these psalms includes: an invocation of God, the complaint, the request for help, an expression of certainty that God will hear and answer the prayer.

Let's start with where we are - if you were going to write a Lament as an individual worshipper crying out to God in time of need, what would you say? What do you weep over? What's your complaint? Your request for help? Do you believe that God will hear and answer your prayer? Psalm 38 is a personal lament prayer:

1-2 Take a deep breath, God; calm down—don’t be so hasty with your punishing rod. Your sharp-pointed arrows of rebuke draw blood; my backside stings from your discipline. 3-4 I’ve lost twenty pounds in two months because of your accusation. My bones are brittle as dry sticks because of my sin. I’m swamped by my bad behavior, collapsed under an avalanche of guilt. 5-8 The cuts in my flesh stink and grow maggots because I’ve lived so badly. And now I’m flat on my face feeling sorry for myself morning to night. All my insides are on fire, my body is a wreck. I’m on my last legs; I’ve had it—my life is a vomit of groans. 9-16 Lord, my longings are sitting in plain sight, my groans an old story to you. My heart’s about to break; I’m a burned-out case. Cataracts blind me to God and good; old friends avoid me like the plague. My cousins never visit, my neighbors stab me in the back. My competitors blacken my name, devoutly they pray for my ruin. But I’m deaf and mute to it all, ears shut, mouth shut. I don’t hear a word they say, don’t speak a word in response. What I do, God, is wait for you, wait for my Lord, my God—you will answer! I wait and pray so they won’t laugh me off, won’t smugly strut off when I stumble. 17-20 I’m on the edge of losing it—the pain in my gut keeps burning. I’m ready to tell my story of failure, I’m no longer smug in my sin. My enemies are alive and in action, a lynch mob after my neck. I give out good and get back evil from God-haters who can’t stand a God-lover. 21-22 Don’t dump me, God; my God, don’t stand me up. Hurry and help me; I want some wide-open space in my life!

~Psalm 38, The Message

When we read this lament, one deemed worthy of consideration seeing as how it is in the scriptures - it is kind of a hot mess. The psalmist suggests that perhaps God needs to calm down - maybe he's gone too far in his discipline? He admits he has behaved badly (but where are the specifics!) and acknowledges that guilt is eating him alive but then he throws out the victim card - his friends don't do enough nice things for him, his cousins don't visit, others betray him. Then he says what we all say, I suspect, when we are in trouble - God, I'm waiting on you! Help me! Almost ready to spill the beans on his own failures, he hesitates as he remembers that he has enemies and even a lynch mob after him. He reports how much good he gives out and what evil he receives in return from God-haters. Surely, God, this must mean we are on the same team!! And then...he asks God to not abandon him, but to help him. Why? He wants some wide-open space in his life. This, my friends, would not pass muster with a sponsor working with someone on their fourth step. (Fourth Step of AA: We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.) But nevertheless this - it is a lament. It is a crying out. Conflicted, inadequate, confused, ambivalent on so many levels - but a lament all the same.

A pastor in Indiana came before his congregation with a confession last week that struck me as more lament than fourth step. He wanted to express his sorrow over his adultery. He asked for forgiveness. He explained to the congregation how the church by-laws were being followed on the chance he might be restored from that (really old) sin that only happened once (I promise. Trust me.) He admitted that he was really naughty for not confessing this 20 years ago when it happened. The response? The congregation roared their approval. He got a standing O. Those present seemed to find it satisfying, gratifying even, that their pastor - although very human - was coming forth and making things right. They showed him their support. But here's the thing - it was a super messy lament. How do I know? Because another person also came forward - a young woman whose lament was not pre-approved of by the board of deacons. She was unscripted. And she was about to reveal how truly incomplete his apology was.

She and her husband walk forward in a clearly unplanned move and take the mic that Pastor John Lowe II.

Then this happened (very loose translation...but you can google and watch the video yourself if you want the details). The woman said, in essence, "It was 28 years ago, not 20. It was not adultery, you groomed me starting at 14 and did things to my body that no one should have done to them at age 16 on the carpet of a pastor's study. And this went on for years, until I met my husband and he helped me see that I was not bad, but that you were a predator." The crowd hushed. The deacons crept forward on tiny little feet as if to snatch the microphone from her hand. She told of another instance where an associate pastor had been sent off to a different church after abuse allegations were raised. More creeping forward by the deacons. Some in the congregation began to question the pastor, 'Is this true?" The clapping stopped. The young woman looked at her pastor and said, "You are not a victim here." Her husband continued, "I want to return this necklace to the church that was given my wife - I wonder if more of you have a necklace (I am assuming he's NOT buying that this was a 'one time' deal). And I want to return this purity ring - given to her by this pastor while he was having sex with her..."

All of this is recorded on video. Afterwards, the deacons surround their pastor in support. The woman and her husband walk down the aisle alone, with an occasional hand of support reaching out to them. Who knows how the church will respond to both laments.

But most important of all is this true thing - we have a God who hears our laments, even the messy ones.

Here is what Cole Arthur Riley in her book This Here Flesh has to say about how we the people of the church handle lament: "Too often I have heard people's pain met with a Christian consolation which essentially communicates that the person in pain should learn to cling to hope, to trust in God. More often than not, I've found this unhelpful, and at worst a form of spiritual abuse that uses language of hope to manipulate the hurting into a feigned happiness."

No one categorized the confessions of pastor and parishoner a formal lament. But I hope it was - because only God can truly hold the suffering, the complaint, the confession AND the desperate need for help on both a personal and community basis laid bare before this congregation. It was individual, but it was also part of the issue related to belonging too, I think. So I want to say this about personal laments. They may be personal but they are never really private. When one of us suffers, it affects others - sometimes when we don't even know how or why. And those of us who are hearing the laments must stop turning them into object lessons or misguided attempts to confuse a moral inventory with an opportunity to offer forgiveness to show what great Christians we are. Forgiveness and object lessons are not on the table when one laments. Lamenting is a passionate expression of grief or sorrow - and it must be acknowledged without rush to clean it up as a way to avoid deeply seeing the suffering that must be comforted and addressing the wrongs that caused the suffering and must be righted - so that this particular suffering does not happen again on our watch.

I lament over this story. It is such a common story in churches today. I lament for all the ways we keep getting it wrong. I lament that the denomination where I began my faith journey - Southern Baptist - has chosen time and time again to support guys like John Lowe II in a show of blatant preference for helping other sexual abusers stay in their role in the church all the while shaming, ignoring, denigrating, slandering, judging...and more oh so much more...the young, the at-risk, the powerless within their grasp who they abuse. What a disservice we have done to both the abusers - who have had their opportunity to lament stolen from them (because who needs it when you are never held accountable) - and the victims - whose lament has gone unheeded by those who purport to represent God.

More of Cole to help us sort all this out..."Lament is not anti-hope. It's not even a stepping-stone to hope. Lament itself is a form of hope. It's an innate awareness that what is should not be. As if something is written on our hearts that tells us exactly what we are meant for, and whenever confronted with something contrary to this, we experience a crumbling. And in the rubble, we say, God, you promised. We ask, Why? and how could we experience such a devastation if we were not on some mysterious plane, hoping for something different. Our hope can be only as deep as our lament is. And our lament is as deep as our hope. There is a distinction to be made between true lament and the more sinister form of sadness we know as despair. Despair is lament emptied of hope. It is a shell that invites the whole of your soul to swell in its void. Many of us will visit this shell, but despair depends upon our staying. With no framework for healthy lament, I was a prisoner to sadness. "

Where do we go from here? Just a couple thoughts. Consider that virtue and holiness is engraved in our mind, heart, body and soul. That when we lament, when we crumble, it is because part of us knows that GOD PROMISED and that there are things that should not be. People should not be abused anywhere - including the church. No one should be treated with disrespect - including in the church. The world and its inhabitants are worthy of care and attention because they are inherently good, made by God in his image. And we must lament when we see that what God has promised is not yet here. And when things are as they should not be...we must lament. So let us lament - over violence, abuse, neglect, racism, the under-served in our community who need treatment for mental health challenges, poverty, hunger, wars and more. So Much more.

There is more to do - more to consider - but for today, let us lament. Let us ask God to save us, even though we are messy and confused and even a little bit in denial about our limitations...let us lament together.