Lament As Faithful Ministry
The world watched in anguished horror as nature unleashed catastrophic terror on the Gulf Coast of the United States. Scenes of destruction, desperation, and death overwhelmed us for days. Stories of cities and neighborhoods reduced to rubble and thousands of people left without shelter and life’s basic necessities stunned us. Images from the New Orleans Superdome and Convention Center smacked of hell on earth.
As people often do in desperate times, I searched for hope and comfort. And as a pastor, the last thing I wanted to do was feel I must offer comfort and hope to anyone else when I had none. The reassuring words from our scriptures failed to touch the depths of my own grief and anguish. Pious praise and sanctimonious speech offered me no consolation in the presence of grotesque destruction and excruciating distress. Anger, frustration, desolation, and despair robbed me of any immediate inclination to praise God.
Quite honestly, I was more in the mood to shake my fist and shout at God. Where is God in all this havoc? I was angry with God for creating a world in which nature could visit such terror upon people, especially those who already have the greatest need. I was enraged that the idolatrous policies and practices by governments, institutions, and individuals can leave the poor and most defenseless among us so vulnerable to crashing winds and tumultuous waves. It just doesn’t seem fair.
But I am not left alone with my ranting, cursing, and shaking fists. The Bible provides tools we can all use to confront and express our full range of feelings. They are called “laments.” They demonstrate that we don’t have to put on artificial happy faces and force songs of praise. The Psalmists, prophets, and even Jesus show us that God is able to absorb our anger and frustration. God enters our desperation and despair to redeem it and make it the prelude to renewal and authentic praise.
I turned to Lamentations and read these words: “How lonely sits the city that once was full of people! How like a widow she has become, she that was great among the nations! She that was a princess among the provinces has become a vassal. She weeps bitterly in the night with tears on her cheeks; among all her lovers she has no one to comfort her; all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they have become her enemies.” (1:1-2) And further, “All her people groan as they search for bread; they trade their treasures for food to revive their strength. Look, O Lord, and see how worthless I have become” (1:11).
Job’s lament occasioned by his own suffering gave voice to our feelings as we watched the helpless masses in New Orleans, “Surely one does not turn against the needy, when in disaster they cry for help. Did I not weep for those whose day was hard? Was not my soul grieved for the poor? But when I looked for good, evil came; when I waited for light, darkness came. I go about in sunless gloom; I stand up in the assembly and cry for help” (30:24-28).
We cry out with Job, “O that I knew where I might find him, that I might come even to his dwelling … If I go forward, he is not there; or backward, I cannot perceive him; on the left he hides, and I cannot behold him; I turn to the right, but I cannot see him” (Job 23:3, 8-9); “I cry to you and you do not answer me; I stand, and you merely look at me” (30:20).
And with the Psalmist we exclaim, “But I, O Lord, cry out to you; in the morning my prayer comes before you. O Lord, why do you cast me off?” (88:13-14). We demand to know, “Will the Lord spurn forever, and never again be favorable? Has his steadfast love ceased forever? Are his promises at an end for all time? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his compassion?” (76:7-9)
Jesus in his darkest suffering on the cross cried out in the words of Psalm 22, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” In so doing, he claimed even our despair and deepest lament as acceptable in the presence and love of God.
The Psalms that call for vengeance and retribution are the shadow side of praise for God. They are human pleas for damnation of all that thwarts justice and peace. They are desperate prayers for restoration of order in a disordered world. These prayerful cries to God are alternatives to violence and destruction as surely as blindly reciting familiar phrases of comfort or giving premature reassurance.
Laments can pave the way for repentance, renewal, and restoration. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the levee breaches, perhaps our most pastoral response is to help people lament by removing the shame and honoring the holiness of such thoughts and utterance. Pastors will find the Bible’s laments as resources for dealing with their own strong feelings; and in so doing, they will model for congregations honesty before God that heals and restores. Providing opportunities for congregations to voice lament is as essential as pastors providing words of comfort, peace, and hope.
Laments pave the way for repentance, renewal, and restoration. As the Psalmists consistently show, the honest cries of dereliction when God seems absent and silent finally give way to more profound praise. Jesus’ anguished cry from the cross are the opening words of Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest” (22:1-2).
But the tormented cry of the Psalmist finally gave way to praise, “From you comes my praise in the great congregation; my vows I will pay before those who fear him. The poor shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the Lord. May your hearts live for ever”(22:25-26). As the triumphant Alleluia of Easter is preceded by the tormented lament of Good Friday, so are our exalted praises often forged on the anvil of lament.
Kenneth L. Carder is director of Pulpit & Pew: The Duke Center for Excellence in Ministry and professor of the practice of pastoral formation at Duke Divinity School. He was bishop of the Mississippi Area of the United Methodist Church from 2000 to 2004 and the Nashville Area of the UMC from 1992 to 2000.
