Lament, what does it do?

Tim — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 08:45:28 +0000

Thought I’d take on the challenge of preaching the text in Lamentations 3:23-33 this Sunday. I came across a really helpful paper by Walter Brueggemann, The Costly Loss of Lament, which reflected on what we have lost in our modern culture, in losing the prayer or song of lament.

It is true that if you flick through hymn books, it is hard to find a lament. It is also true that people seem to love a good old sing when they come to church. But as Brueggemann explains, we have lost something fundamental to authentic covenant relationship with God by having lost such a song.

Without lament, genuine interaction with God is lost. We become voiceless, permitted only to praise. What kind of relationship is that? In physchological terms, the outcome is:

a false self, bad faith which is based on fear and guilt lived out as resentful or self deceptive works of righteousness.

A second consequence of the absence of lament is the stifling of any questioning of the status quo. Much lament in the Psalms comes out of the experience of injustice. In the face of injustice lament allows the speaker to appeal to the hesed of God.

A community of faith which negates lament soon conclucdes that the hard issues of justice are improper questions to pose at the throne.

Perhaps that is similar to what Marx said when he said that religion was the opium of the people.

Turning this all around, what lament gives is:

An assertion about God:that this dangerous, available God matters in every dimension of life

Only then can we turn to praise, as most laments in scripture do.

Bruegemann, W., The Costly Loss of Lament, JSOT 36 (1986) 57-71
photo from Jokke on sxc.

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Lament, what does it do?