I helped lead worship but also gave a two-part talk on beginning to acknowledge and deal with the baggage we've been carrying. As I said in my talk, digging a rock from a backpack full of shattered glass and other reminders of past brokenness, that rock was once so heavy I could hardly move. It's smaller now. But still not gone.
Lament is part of the process of healing and freedom. In my talk I read from Psalm 6: Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am faint. Heal me, Lord, for my bone are in agony. My soul is in deep anguish. How long, Lord, how long?
Lent starts with the ashes of Ash Wednesday –a symbol of grief and lament. In our modern liturgical traditions, we dot the ashes on the forehead and wash them off at the end of the day. In ancient Hebrew tradition, the practice of lament went far deeper and lasted longer: mourners sat in ashes, or poured them on their heads, ripped clothes, wore sackcloth. This practice of shiva, of extended grief, was expected in most cases to last a week, sometimes longer.
We hurry through lament, often to our loss: Suck it up, walk it off, let it go, move on. We hurry toward “closure” without doing the hard work of grieving.
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| Hope, George Frederick Watts, England, 1886 |
As a young teen, learning to play the guitar, I was drawn to songs in minor keys. I was given my first guitar just months after I left the home I’d lived in most of my life. I was sharing a narrow attic room with my grandmother in a small house with people I didn’t know, struggling to find my way in a large new school where I didn’t feel welcome, not sure how long I’d be there, or what would come next.
I remember an elder in our church, a family friend, stopping me in the middle of a song I was practicing: “Christians don’t sing in minor key.” I’ve remembered his words – although I’ve never agreed.
A third of the Psalms are written in minor key – songs of grief, of anger, of confusion:
I am poured out like water,
and all my bones are out of joint.
My heart has turned to wax;
it has melted away within me.
My strength is dried up like a potsherd,
my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth;
you lay me in the dust of death. (Psalm 22)
I am like a desert owl,Some of the lament psalms are very personal. Others are corporate – an acknowledgement that things aren’t right, not just for the individual writing the psalm, but for his people, sometimes for the earth itself.
like an owl among the ruins.
I lie awake; I have become like a bird alone on a roof. (Psalm 102)
Do you rulers indeed speak justly? Do you judge uprightly among men?
No, in your heart you devise injustice,
and your hands mete out violence on the earth. (Psalm 58)
How long will the wicked, O Lord, how long will the wicked be jubilant?That refrain of "how long" has been echoing in my mind and heart, a song of both lament and hope, a reminder of how far we are from a world of shalom, but also a promise that God is at work. And an invitation to be his agents of reconciliation.
They pour out arrogant words; all the evildoers are full of boasting.
They crush your people, O Lord; they oppress your inheritance.
They slay the widow and the alien; they murder the fatherless.
They say, The Lord does not see; the God of Jacob pays no heed. (Psalm 94)
For Christmas my son gave me two CDs to carry me through long road trips over Pennsylvania mountains in my aging Honda Fit. Both are products of a sacred arts collective, The Porters Gate, founded in 2017 to be a "porter" for the Christian church: "one who looks beyond the church door for guests to welcome."
I love the vision and love the music the collective has created. One song has become a refrain for my travels, a word of promise in a time when truth is often trampled and evil seems victorious:
When will the truth come out?
When will Your justice roll down?
When will Your kingdom come
And evil be undone?
When will the wicked kneel
And the abused be healed?
When will our sisters speak
With no more shame or fear?
How long? How long?
When will the daughters of Zion rejoice
In the house of the Lord?
If you have time, listen to the song, but also the prayer at the end.
As I listen, I find myself grieving:
Attitudes that undermine the joy of others; that divide, rather than unite.
Systems and structures that stand in the way of justice, that protect the strong rather than provide mercy to the weak.
Ways that churches have silenced voices we most need to hear.
Ways the door has been shut on those most hungry for welcome.
Yet, I'm reminded: the psalms that start in lament often end in confident praise. So I start this Lenten season in lament and repentance, singing a refrain of hope: How long?
