Delivered May 18, 2008
by Pastor Marilyn Henderson
The Roman Jews were in turmoil. It seems that the Pope, under pressure from all the Cardinals, decided that all the Jews had to leave Rome. Naturally there was a big uproar from the Jewish community. So the Pope made a deal. He would have a religious debate with a member of the Jewish community. If the Jew won, the Jews could stay. If the Pope won, the Jews would leave.
The Jews realized that they had no choice. So the elders of the people picked a respected Rabbi to represent them. The Rabbi was rather flamboyant in his expression, so they asked for one addition to the debate. To make it more interesting, and safer, neither side would be allowed to talk. The Pope agreed.
The day of the great debate came. The Rabbi and the Pope sat opposite each other for a full minute before the Pope raised his hand and showed three fingers. The Rabbi looked back at him and raised one finger.
The Pope waved his fingers in a circle around his head. The Rabbi energetically pointed to the ground.
The Pope pulled out a loaf of bread and a glass of wine and he broke the bread and ate, then sipped the wine. The Rabbi pulled out an apple and took a bite from it.
The Pope then stood up and said, "I give up. This man is too good. The Jews can stay in Rome as long as they want."
An hour later, the cardinals were all around the Pope asking him what had happened.
The Pope said, "First I held up three fingers to represent the Trinity. He responded by holding up one finger to remind me that there was still one God common to both our religions. Then I waved my finger around me to show him that God was all around us and is Lord over the church. He responded by pointing to the ground and reminding me that God may be all around, but God was also right here with us and is God of the Jews as well as of the church. I broke bread and drank wine to show that God absolves us from our sins. The rabbi ate of the apple to remind me of original sin and how it still affects us. He had an answer for everything. What could I do?"
Meanwhile, the Jewish community had crowded around the Rabbi. "What happened?" they asked.
"Well," said the Rabbi, "First he said to me that the Jews had three days to get out of here. I told him that not one of us was leaving. Then he told me that this whole city would be cleared of Jews. I let him know that we were staying right here."
"And then?" asked a woman.
"I don't know," said Moishe, "He took out his lunch and I took out mine - and now we can stay as long as want."
The Jews in this story were in a difficult situation. If true, they probably had time to lament their situation, commiserating together about their difficult lives, complaining to God about how they were continually mistreated. Thankfully, their situation was completely transformed and they were allowed to stay in their homes in the city of Rome.
Today is the third Sunday we are spending in the Psalms, the song and prayer book of ancient Israel as well as the Christian church. And we are focusing on the Psalm category of lament. What is a lament? Anyone?
Lament is a prayer to God about a situation that can be transformed if God so chooses. A lament essentially expresses confidence that if it is for the best, God can and will intervene and transform a difficult situation. Lament conveys a sense of hope and often ends with a vow of praise and thanksgiving for what God will do. The story about the Pope and the Rabbi illustrates a situation around which a lament could be formed.
We need to make a distinction between lament and lamentation. Lamentation expresses one's feelings about a "calamity" which has no possibility of change or reversal the death of a loved one, for example. A dirge is an appropriate expression of lamentation.
Of all the Psalm categories, lament is the largest. There are two types of lament. There are community laments which were written and possibly used in worship when a calamity was imminent for the nation of Israel famine, drought or war. Individual laments were written by those mourning difficult circumstances, who were ill or injured or in some way physically suffering or who were grieving sinful acts. As you may guess, there are more individual laments than community laments.
According to Bernhard W. Anderson, "The psalmists raise a cry out of the depths in the confidence that God has the power to lift a person out of the miry bog' and to set one's feet upon a rock (Ps. 40.1-3). Hence the laments are really expressions of praise, offered in a minor key in the confidence that YHWH is faithful and in anticipation of a new lease on life" (Out of the Depths, 60). So lament arose out of faith that God is and that God will act.
So, now that you know what a lament is, do we use the lament in some form today? Absolutely we do. Remember the last time you rushed to get the family dinner so you all could be ready to go to something special? Maybe it went quite smoothly. And maybe it didn't.
I remember a long time ago when our oldest son, Nathan, was in kindergarten in Iowa. I was getting the younger two boys ready to leave at noon so we could eventually travel to Indiana for the funeral of Eric's grandmother. Then we were traveling further east to Ohio to attend the wedding of Eric's youngest brother. Eric was working that morning and Nathan was at school, so I was packing clothes and food, packing the car, bathing and dressing the younger two boys in readiness to take them to where they were going to stay while Eric, Nathan and I travelled east.
I came in from packing the car and was feeling pretty good about how things were going. When I got inside the kitchen, I heard Ethan and Joel laughing in the living room. Not a good sign. I was horrified to find them digging dirt out of my plants and throwing it up in the air, laughing when it landed on them. Because we were leaving for four days, I had watered the plants that morning and the dirt was wet. It was all over what had been a clean living room on top of the piano and in between the piano keys, stains on the white curtains, all over the couch. It was down their clothes and in their hair. And the only thing I could do was strip them and stick them in the tub.
Unfortunately, I didn't see anything funny in the situation at the time although now I do.
Somehow during the trip, in talking to Eric and probably to others in the places we went to, I was able to work through my frustration. I lamented the trials of a parent of pre-school boys who were 18 months apart. I got to the point where I could let go of my feelings of frustration with the boys and see the humour in it all. It also probably helped that they weren't along for the greater part of the trip! While the situation wasn't, in itself, transformed, how I felt about it was.
Lament is not only about expressing how one feels. Lament is also about trusting God to change either the situation or ourselves it is about hope. Hope God implies that we are willing to place ourselves in God's hands. That means we let go of our desire or need to be in control (I can't control three- and four-year-olds, obviously!) and exercise our hope and trust in God's presence and action in our lives. Bill Hybels once said that, "People who face their feelings and express them freely begin the journey toward hope. On the front of our bulletin is a tree and under the tree is part of a verse from Psalm 1. A more complete thought, taken from vs. 1-3, is the following: "Happy are those who delight in the Lord They are like trees planted by streams of water " The image here is of strong, healthy, growing trees. Trees, no matter how strong and healthy they appear, are stressed by wind and weather.
In her book First We Quit Our Jobs, Marilyn J. Abraham writes: "We signed up for a hike with a ranger, who told us a remarkable thing: when a tree's life is threatened, stressed by the elements of fire, drought, or other calamity, it twists beneath its bark to reinforce and make itself stronger. On the surface, this new inner strength may not be visible, for the bark often continues to give the same vertical appearance. Only when the exterior is stripped away, or when the tree is felled, are its inner struggles revealed."
Like those trees Marilyn Abraham wrote about, we are formed by our life experiences. Sometimes those struggles and "twists" are revealed in our bodies and sometimes not, but we all suffer the twists and stresses of life. We either grow or become bitter. The ancient Hebrews and the early Christians and many others have used lament as a way to manage the "twists" of their lives, to ask the big question, "Why?"
David, the writer of Psalm 39, seems to be struggling with his inability to manage life without sinning. The psalm is not written in the classic form of lament, but reveals a tremendous inner struggle to maintain God's perspective on life. We find that perspective in vs. 7: "And now, O Lord, what do I wait for? My hope is in You."
David asked God for deliverance from himself, from others and from his guilt. David knew that God is. David wrote all that he felt, all that he experienced, all that he wanted, all that he needed. He laid it all out: "Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear to my cry "
The lament is one way God's people have shown their trust and hope in God. By being honest with God about how they feel about their lives, about others and about God, people are able to move from despair to hope. I myself have had some experience with lament in the last few months, as you know, with our family situation and with my health. I know that some of you have had reasons to lament in the recent past.
Your bulletin insert has a worksheet for writing a lament. I'd like to take a few minutes to look through this together and then give you time to write your own lament. Some of you may not need to write a lament. You're invited to write a "song of praise," if you like. Wherever you find yourself this morning, let's take a few minutes to address God in the language of the Psalms.
Bulletin Insert:
s Lament
O Lord, I am
I don't understand
But , in spite of it all, I will
I know You hear me
I will give you
O Lord, Hear My Prayer
O Lord, hear my prayer
O Lord, hear my prayer.
When I call answer me.
O Lord, Hear my prayer
O Lord, hear my prayer.
Come and listen to me.
Petitcodiac Mennonite Church