Why Lament Lament in the Bible is a liturgical (think community, formal, expressed toward God) response to the reality of suffering and engages in the context of pain and trouble. The hope of lament is that God would respond to human suffering that is wholeheartedly communicated through lament…[Lament constitutes 40% of all psalms, but the majority of Psalms omitted from liturgical use are the laments]…The American church avoids lament. The power of lament is minimized and the underlying narrative of suffering that requires lament is lost. But absence doesn’t make the heart grow fonder. Absence makes the heart forget…We forget the reality of suffering and pain…American Christians that flourish under the existing system seek to maintain the existing dynamics of inequality and remain in the theology of celebration over and against the theology of suffering. Promoting one perspective over the other, however, diminishes our theological discourse. To only have a theology of celebration at the cost of the theology of suffering is incomplete. The intersection of the two threads provides the opportunity to engage in the fullness of the gospel message. Lament and praise must go hand in hand…We will seek to find contemporary application of the book of Lamentations within these current themes. --excerpted from “A Call to Lament” in Prophetic Lament by Soong-Chan Rah Introduction to the Book of Lamentations in the Old Testament Lamentations is a sequence of five lyric poems that lament the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 bce (see 2 Kings 25.8–21 ). The dense and highly charged poetry constitutes some of the Bible's most violent and brutal pieces of writing. Though mostly lacking traditional statements of hope, the poems do manifest a stubborn and tenacious hold on life. Several of the ancient versions (the Greek, Latin, and Aramaic translations) attribute the authorship of these poems to Jeremiah, which accounts for their placement after the book of Jeremiah in the Christian canon… The poems of Lamentations may be dated to the sixth century, probably between 586 and 520 bce, when the Temple was rebuilt. They were likely composed in Judah for the community that remained in the land after the catastrophe. In later Jewish tradition Lamentations was counted as one of the five festival scrolls (Megillot), together with Song of Songs, Ruth, Ecclesiastes, and Esther. Lamentations is read as part of the liturgy of the “Ninth of Ab,” the day that commemorates the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in 70 ce. In Christian tradition readings from Lamentations are part of the liturgies of Holy Week… The imagery of Lamentations evokes a sense of fragmentation and discontinuity, reflecting the suffering of the past. There is no narrative structure to give shape to the St. Chrysostom’s Church 2020 Lenten Study 1 raw emotions expressed, nor even a clear rhetorical movement from grief to hope, such as one often finds in laments in Psalms... In counterpoint to such a sense of fragmentation, however, the formal structures of the poetic form itself produce a strong sense of coherence. The first four chapters of Lamentations are each composed as an alphabetic acrostic, a formal scheme in which the initial word of each stanza begins with successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet, twenty‐two in all…The alphabetic acrostic functions as the material, physical container of this poetry, literally holding each poem's component verses together and conveying a strong sense of closure through its clear structure and fixed length. Yet the acrostic conveys meaning symbolically as well. The poet's whole attempt to render the chaos of his world into language, to contain his fragmented lyrics within the frame of the alphabetic acrostic, thus becomes an attempt to control and contain, and ultimately transform, the suffering and hurt that engulfed Jerusalem and its inhabitants. --excerpts from Introduction from the New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha, Third Edition St. Chrysostom’s Church 2020 Lenten Study 2 Week 1: Lament and Vulnerability The practice of lament is a practice in showing and sharing vulnerability. Society tells us that vulnerability is weakness, but Scripture reminds us that vulnerability can move us to strength, and that lament cannot be rushed. Prayer O God, you are our help and strength, Psalm 124:8 our refuge in the time of trouble. Psalm 37:39 In you our ancestors trusted; They trusted and you delivered them. Psalm 22:4 When we do not know how to pray as we ought, your very Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. Romans 8:26 We plead for the intercession now, Gracious One. For desolation and destruction are in our streets, Isaiah 59:7 and terror dances before us. Job 41:22 Our hearts faint; our knees tremble; our bodies quake; all faces grow pale. Nahum 2:10 Our eyes are spent from weeping and our stomachs churn. Lamentations 2:11 How long, O Lord, how long must we endure this devastation? Isaiah 6:11 How long will destruction lay waste at noonday? Psalm 91:6 Why does violence flourish while peace is taken prisoner? Rouse yourself! Do not cast us off in times of trouble. Psalm 44:23 Come to our help; redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love. Psalm 44:26 For you are a gracious God abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Exodus 34:6 By the power of the cross, 1 Corinthians 1:17 through which you redeemed the world, bring to an end hostility Ephesians 2:14 and establish justice in the gate. Amos 5:15 For you will gather together your people into that place where mourning and crying and pain will be no more, and tears will be wiped from every eye. Revelation 21:4 Hasten the day, O God for our salvation. Accomplish it quickly! Amen. Isaiah 60:22 From Let the Whole Church Say Amen !A Guide for Those Who Pray in Public by Laurence Hull Stookey, pp94-95 (Copyright 2001 by Abingdon Press) Reproduced by permission. The publisher hereby grants permission to local churches to reproduce this prayer, provided it is not sold or distributed beyond the church and provided the credit line noted above is used on each copy. St. Chrysostom’s Church 2020 Lenten Study 3 Passage from Prophetic Lament The fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians meant complete devastation to the city and her residents…The remnant of Jerusalem stood in utter dismay at the destruction of their once-great city. Jerusalem had measured herself through worldly standards of wealth and prosperity. Now that Jerusalem lay in ruins, those standards area out of reach…When this tragedy occurs, the people of God tumble to the depths of despair…On the one hand, God’s people were tempted to withdraw from the world. On the other, they were tempted to return to their idolatrous ways (32-33)…The exiles wanted to embrace the false prophets’ offer of a quick resolution to their suffering, but these claims were made using the idolatrous practices of the times; divination and magic…Divination reflects a desire to know and control the future by removing uncertainty. So Jeremiah confronts the work of those who attempt to foretell an optimistic future through idolatrous and magical means rather than speaking the words of YHWH (38). American culture tends to hide the stories of guilt and shame and seeks to elevate stories of success. American culture gravitates toward narratives of exceptionalism and triumphalism, which results in amnesia about a tainted history. The reality of a shameful history undermines the narrative of exceptionalism, so it must remain hidden….The church should become the place where the fullness of suffering is expressed in a safe environment. Liturgy, worship, leadership, small groups and other aspects of church life should provide the safe place where the fullness of suffering can be set free. Stories of suffering can never be buried when lament is an important and central aspect of the church’s worship life. Lamentations reminds us that the proper response to tragedy and suffering is lament…This shame may be isolating, but it is essential to the honesty that is required in lament. (57-59) The book of Lamentations expresses the deep pain and suffering of God’s people. Lament dominates this moment in Israel’s history. However, the primacy of lament in this book does not preclude the possibility of praise…”[In] the psalms the lament is consistently followed by a petition, i.e., a supplication for help.” Lament leads to petition which leads to praise for God’s response to the petition…Praise, therefore, should follow lament. However, in a cultural context that upholds triumph and victory but fails to engage with suffering, praise replaces lament. We skip the important step of lament and offer supplication in a contextual vacuum. Praise, therefore, can seem hollow when neither lament nor petition has been sufficiently offered. (64-66) Complementary Material: From On Being with Krista Tippet. Brene Brown: Strong Back, Soft Front, Wild Heart https://onbeing.org/programs/brene-brown-strong-back-soft-front-wild-heart/ Ms. Brene Brown: When people are in fear and uncertainty-and we live in a culture that has no capacity for the vulnerable conversations that have to come around that fear— St. Chrysostom’s Church 2020 Lenten Study 4 Ms. Krista Tippett: For actually facing the fear. Ms. Brown: For actually facing it- that’s right Ms Tippett: For actually letting the pain and the fear show themselves as pain and fear. Ms Brown: That’s right. Ms Tippett: that fear is sitting there, waiting to be spoken to, somehow Ms.