Today’s readings from Lamentations are Good News. Really.
You may ask: Where’s the good news in laments such as: How lonely sits the city that once was full of people? Or the thought of my affliction and my homelessness is wormwood and gall?
You see, the Good News of our faith isn’t always bright and cheery. A whole lot of scripture involves mourning, lamenting and grief.
And that’s ok, because Holy Scripture provides a road map back in time, showing us that the human condition has been the same for generations. Human beings, whether in exile after the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BCE, which is the setting for the Book of Lamentations, or whether a 21st century people in a rust belt city trying to maneuver their way through this modern world; worry bemoan grieve and cry.
We, because of our hard-wired need for companionship, for community, because of our ability to love, experience loss. Relationships end, people leave us---they die, they divorce they move out they move on. We lose things too---jobs, homes, security, hopes and dreams. And when we lose these people and these things, we often become sad. Or mad. Or both. And when mad, when sad, we complain, we yell, we cry, we lament.
So, where’s the Good News in that?
The Good News is that God loves us in all sorts and conditions---God wants to be with us in all the things, at all times. Even the times when we are really really ticked off at God. Even when the pain we feel seems so unbearable we can’t stand it.
As you know, last weekend we hosted a group of jr high students from across the diocese. We got into a discussion of how they explain their faith to their friends.
One young woman, I’ll call her Emma, mentioned that you can’t really explain God, that you must experience God.
When Emma was 8 years old, her mother died of cancer. It was a quick death—some 8 weeks between diagnosis and death. Emma said, that when people would try and comfort her by saying, “now dear don’t cry, your mom is with God now,” she would feel worse. How dare God taker her mommy from her!
Finally a wise adult urged Emma to express how mad she was at God.
By having these self -described temper tantrums at God, Emma began to experience God, she got to know God.
By experiencing God, instead of trying to understand God, Emma came to a place in her grief which, although still incredibly painful and sad, became bearable. Manageable. God bless the adult who sat down with Emma and let her lament, let her rail against God and let her express her pain. For in doing that Emma showed an incredible faith. She let God have it without fear that God would abandon her. By letting God have it, Emma was able to welcome God back into her life. Because she was honest, because she showed God exactly who she was, she became more sure in her faith. At 8 years of age.
When my father died, my nephew John was not quite 14. Now many of you met John when he visited for my installation. Now 31 years old, John has severe cerebral palsy and as a result, cannot speak. In the middle of the memorial Eucharist for my father, John began to cry…not just the quite flow of tears so many of us were crying that day, but he let out a wail which ripped my heart out. It was an honest and real lament of a young boy who had lost his grandpa, his father figure, his confidante and his pal. To this day people remember John’s wail as emblematic of the pain we all felt. On that day, John let God and everyone else within earshot, know of his sorrow.
Lamenting is good for us. By expressing our sorrow, our worries, our anger, our grief and our sadness. By letting God have it, as it were, we’re doing exactly what Christ has asked us to do…. we’re giving ourselves---all of who we are---to God.
And that’s what God wants. God wants us just as we are, even if just as we are in any moment in time is angry, hopeless and despairing. That’s having faith. Faith that God accepts us in all the varied conditions we find ourselves in.
Suffering is a huge, unavoidable element in the human condition. To be human is to, at one time or another, suffer. No one gets an exemption from this suffering. the Book of Lamentations gives dignity to this suffering by insisting that God enters our suffering and is our companion in it.[1]
God is a companion in our suffering, God is a partner in our lament---now that’s good news.
Faith isn’t just what we have when things are going well. Faith isn’t just what we have when things are not going well and we reach out to God in calm and measured tones. Faith is also what we show when we love God enough—and trust God enough—to moan, bewail, cry and lament at God.
Faith is how we tap into the immense power of God in our lives. Faith is the invitation we give God, at any particular moment in time, to lead us. Faith is when we stop trying to be in charge and let God be in charge.
Lamenting is an act of faith---by railing at God, by screaming out to God, by quietly weeping in a sorrow so intense and so deep we cannot see anything else around us, we are laying ourselves bare before God.
And that’s just what God wants us to do.
For when we allow ourselves to be completely honest---and a lament is nothing if not honest----we’ve opened our hearts and our minds and our souls to God.
So don’t worry if your faith some days is the size of a mustard seed, don’t worry if some days you have only sadness and anger to give to God. For in sadness and anger, in loss and despair, in lamentations and exhortations we are presenting ourselves to God just as we are, just as God created us to be.
And that is, indeed, Good News.
Amen.
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