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. The absence of lament in the liturgy of the American church results in the loss of memory. We forget the necessity of lamenting over suffering and pain. We forget the reality of suffering and pain.
In his book Peace, Walter Brueggemann writes about this contrast between a theology of the “have-nots” versus a theology of the “haves.” The “have-nots” develop a theology of suffering and survival. The “haves” develop a theology of celebration. Those who live under suffering live “their lives aware of the acute precariousness of their situation.” Worship that arises out of suffering cries out for deliverance. “Their notion of themselves is that of a dependent people crying out for a vision of survival and salvation.” Lament is the language of suffering.
Those who live in celebration “are concerned with questions of proper management and joyous celebration.” Instead of deliverance, they seek constancy and sustainability. “The well-off do not expect their faith to begin in a cry, but rather, in a song. They do not expect or need intrusion, but they rejoice in stability [and the] durability of a world and social order that have been beneficial to them.” Praise is the language of celebration.
Christian communities arising from celebration do not want their lives changed, because their lives are in a good place. Tax rates should remain low. Home prices and stocks should continue to rise unabated, while interest rates should remain low to borrow more money to feed a lifestyle to which they have become accustomed.
Lament recognizes the struggles of life and cries out for justice against existing injustices. The status quo is not to be celebrated but instead must be challenged. If tax rates favor the rich, they should be challenged. Redistribution of wealth would not be a catastrophe but instead it would be a blessing in contrast to the existing state of economic inequality. The balance in Scripture between praise and lament is lost in the ethos and worldview of American evangelical Christianity with its dominant language of praise. Any theological reflection that emerges from the suffering “have nots” can be minimized in the onslaught of the triumphalism of the “haves.”
What do we lose as a result of this imbalance? 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.
Walter Brueggemann asks the question: “What happens when appreciation of the lament as a form of speech and faith is lost, as I think it is largely lost in contemporary usage? What happens when the speech forms that redress power distribution have been silenced and eliminated? The answer, I believe, is that a theological monopoly is reinforced, docility and submissiveness are engendered, and the outcome in terms of social practice is to reinforce and consolidate the political-economic monopoly of the status quo.” For American evangelicals riding the fumes of a previous generation’s assumptions, a triumphalistic theology of celebration and privilege rooted in a praise-only narrative is perpetuated by the absence of lament and the underlying narrative of suffering that informs lament.
The loss of lament in the American church reflects a serious theological deficiency. This work attempts to remedy that imbalance by providing commentary on a neglected book of the Bible. The suffering endured by God’s people resulting from the fall of Jerusalem provides the backdrop for the poetic struggle offered in Lamentations. Lamentations provides the Biblical text and the theological lens through which we examine the themes of urban ministry, justice and racial reconciliation. We will seek to find contemporary application of the book of Lamentations within these current themes. . . .
Despite its age, Lamentations offers us a prophetic critique of what passes for gospel witness in our time. This critique offers fresh insight into our ecclesiology, or more precisely, how the North American Christian community should respond to a broken world. The major themes—the importance of lament, the necessity of engaging with suffering, the power of encountering the other—should lead us to a theology of lament that corrects the triumphalism of Christianity in the West. Lamentations may serve as the prophetic corrective necessary to embrace the next phase of Christianity.
—Adapted from the Introduction to Prophetic Lament
This post is part of our October theme Living Into the Shalom of God, and was sponsored by InterVarsity Press.
If you’re serious about working toward healing and reconciliation in your family, neighborhood, organization, or larger community, In Roadmap to Reconciliation: Moving Communities into Unity, Wholeness, and Justice is a must-read. If you’ve ever been frustrated trying to unfold and re-fold one of those big paper maps, this roadmap will be a pleasant surprise. With clear, easily accessible directions, Brenda Salter McNeil lays out the different way-stations along the road as well as the places folks most often get lost or stuck.
Reconciliation is an ongoing spiritual process involving forgiveness, repentance and justice that restores broken relationships and systems to reflect God’s original intention for all creation to flourish. p.22
Each chapter contains inspiring stories, and probing questions, and a very helpful “Getting Practical” wrap-up for working through each stage on the pathway toward reconciliation. Salter McNeil not only provides a map, she helps you understand how to read it and apply it in your unique situation. I found this extremely useful as I explored my own history of reconciliation and thought about issues I currently face.
For example, and this seems so obvious to me now, there has to be an initial “catalytic event” that breaks one out of their (my) isolated views even to recognize the need for reconciliation. I can recall many times of working at bringing people together, only to be frustrated by folks who were too comfortable with the way things were and saw no need to change. Without some kind of personal event to shake up the status quo, any discussion of reconciliation was moot; there was no obvious issue to reconcile! While there are times when just opening the discussion can become that needed catalytic event, many times we have to just recognize that, for this person or organization the time is not now.
This is one of the reasons movements like Black Lives Matter (BLM) and the Standing Rock Dakota Access Pipeline Opposition are so important; many of the accepted norms of society continue to go on unquestioned until something big shakes up the status quo. While these protests may first appear in opposition to reconciliation, they actually provide that essential first step for people to move out of their comfort zones and hear stories from an injured party. These kinds of protests can become that catalytic event for many, which opens the way toward dialogue about the need for healing and reconciliation.
[The identification phase] …is a process of deconstructing our limited definitions of ourselves and reconstructing a new identity together, based on who God says we are – fearfully and wonderfully made, ambassadors of Christ, ministers of reconciliation and one new community through Jesus Christ. 78
The section “Planning for Action” was an aha moment for me. Salter McNeil pointed out that, “I usually get fired when people or groups enter into this, the preparation phase”. The reason isn’t what you might expect; at this point people are feeling comfortable with each other. It appears the crisis has been solved and reconciliation is complete. I think this is also where many of us from the dominant culture who have mentally traveled the road to reconciliation think to ourselves, “Well, I get it now. I’ve sent in my check and written those petitions, it’s time to move on. Whew, I’m glad that’s over.”
I know for me the problem comes when I’ve intellectually worked through a problem and figure that since “I get it” now, the work is done. The reality, as Salter McNeil points out, is that now the real work begins. Now it’s time to rebuild systems and structures together so that we don’t easily slip back into the broken way things were. She refers to this “second-order change” as “deciding to do things significantly or fundamentally different from how they have been done before.” 85.
Those who truly desire real and lasting change can’t simply change the physical make-up of a group, (transactional change). Instead, the underlying assumptions must be changed (transformational change). She continues:
Once you cross that line from transactional to transformational change, you begin to more fully understand that this is going to cost you something! It’s what the preparation phase is all about – successfully making that transition from short-term connections to building a long-term community of reconciliation.
This book is short, a mere 130 pages, but it’s packed with critical insights and logical steps to move intentionally from division to lasting change. If you want to begin the truly transformative process of reconciliation, this book’s for you!
This post is part of our October Living Into the Shalom of God series.
by Lynne Baab
from Pixabay, by Mark Filter. Click on photo for original.
It was Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. My husband Dave was sitting in his office at Tel Aviv University where he was acting chair for one of the departments in the dental school. An adjunct lecturer, who did not have an office in the building, came into Dave’s office and asked to use the phone.
The conversation was in Hebrew, so Dave couldn’t understand what was said. After hanging up, the man explained to Dave “It’s Yom Kippur today, a day of reflection and repentance for Jews. I wanted to make sure I have a clean slate. So I called a friend to say I was sorry for something I did a couple of months ago.”
Dave was halfway through his 18 month contract at the university so he knew this man fairly well. Like the majority of the lecturers in the department this man described himself as a secular Jew. Yet, despite his assessment that he wasn’t a religious Jew, he had held onto this long-standing tradition of making amends. He saw the value of enough self-reflection, at least one day a year, to identify wrongs he had committed and ask for forgiveness.
Yom Kippur comes a week after Rosh Hashanah the Jewish New Year. Christians often set resolutions at the New Year, but do we look back on the previous year and ask forgiveness for wrongs we have committed?
I was raised in the Episcopal/Anglican tradition. Every Sunday I sat through the liturgy from the Book of Common Prayer, which included a prayer of confession and words of absolution (assurance of pardon) by the minister. A couple of lines from the prayer of confession were quite meaningful: “We have erred and strayed from your ways like lost sheep . . . We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; and we have done those things which we ought not to have done.” As a child and young teen, I liked the metaphor of seeing myself as a straying sheep. And I liked the idea that sin includes not only things we’ve done wrong, but also things we should have done, but didn’t do. As we recited those words week after week, year after year, I saw some of the patterns of my life.
For most of my adult life I attended or served congregations where weekly worship always included a prayer of confession and assurance of pardon. In the past dozen years, since I left my position as an associate pastor at a church in Seattle, I have attended worship services in somewhere between 60 and 80 different congregations, representing a variety of denominations, in the United States, New Zealand, Australia, Germany, France and the UK. Well over half of those dozens of worship services did not have a prayer of confession.
A weekly prayer of confession in a worship service does not guarantee that people will actually confess their sins, but it does model the importance of confession, and even if worshippers actually do confess their sins during a corporate prayer of confession there’s no guarantee they will ask forgiveness from the people they have wronged.
I am concerned that the new confession-less worship pattern leaves behind long-standing Jewish and Christian traditions of self-examination, confession and asking forgiveness. We also miss the joy of receiving an assurance of pardon. Important aspects of living into the Shalom of God are lost without self-reflection, confession of sin to God and to the person wronged, and receiving forgiveness.
For someone who attends worship services without a prayer of confession, the penitential psalms can be a lovely resource. Pray them, memorize them, sing them. My favorite band these days is the Sons of Korah, an Australia-based group that sings the psalms. Here are three penitential psalms they have recorded: Psalm 32, Psalm 51 and Psalm 130.
Psalm 32
Psalm 51
Psalm 130
This post is part of our October series Living Into the Shalom of God.
from freeimages.com by Andrzej Pobiedzinski. Click photo for original.
“When you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’ If someone who promotes peace is there, your peace will rest on them; if not, it will return to you.”
— Luke 10:5-6 (NIV)
I once met a man who, despite appearances that differed, was an incredible person of peace. He wasn’t just laid back and calm. He actually sought to live in harmony in the moments he had with everyone, much to the extent that he would serve someone like me in the integrity of love, and yet he owed me absolutely nothing. He owed nobody anything. He seemed unafraid, and to be without agenda. He never had a grievance. The man was a mystery.
Even as I share I’m sure you have a picture in your mind of a certain someone who reminds you of this man. He is not that unusual. I may have painted him in lines of perfection. He clearly was very flawed, but his character was congruent with abiding peace.
We’ve all encountered the person of peace — the soul who promotes peace; who lives it. Some will have been Christian, some not. Indeed, some of the religious people we’ve encountered haven’t been marked with the shalom of God we can come to expect.
According the Matthaean tradition, consonant with the passage above, the person who promotes peace is a person worthy (Greek: ἄξιος) of us spending our time. This is a person suitable for sharing the gospel. If we were to stay with them, their household would be worthy, because the house would be one of peace, because we would gift that peace to it, as much as that household and person would be gifting to us their peace. This is Jesus’ peace we speak of; something that may be given and received. It is an empowering shalom, or pervading presence of peace between entities, for the overcoming of many guiles and trials.[1]
As Christians serving the gospel we’re to be peace-givers, peace-seekers, peace-receivers, and certainly peace-makers. We’re not to feel guilty for leaving situations that present a waste of our precious time. We’re merchants of the one and only living God; the Lord of peace. If our peace is proven to be thwarted, we must thwart that thwarting.
We’re called to look for the person in our midst who has been readied with the sandals of peace, and to walk in fellowship with them. This is a person worthy of our time. And we ought to be worthy of theirs, too, by being persons of peace, ready to serve in the love of peace.
This peace we speak of here is an intimacy between persons where relationship is free to flow and grow. It has the undertone of the salvation of God about it. The relationship has that rarefied quality of joy, even if in the midst of pain, for the commonalities of oneness shared in the concert of twoness.
There is no guilt to be carried for those fractured relationships we’ve borne. Christ has set us free of needing to bear such a burden. We’re not responsible. If we’ve given what we could to a relationship, and we received no sign back that the effort we put in was deemed worthy, to them, then our time is not worthily spent with them.
We grow in peace when we spend time with people at peace.
And as we spend time with a person at peace we may both grow in our experience of the salvation of God in Christ.
Here’s a final thought:
When we’re persons of peace, we’re worthy of time — ours, theirs and God’s. Only when we’re persons of peace are we actually worthy of the time we’ve been given.
Time is precious. It ought never to be taken for granted. Being persons of peace helps us reconcile the wonders of time, that we live at the cusp of it, in order that we might make the most of it.[2]
May He who granted you your peace enliven it more and more until the coming of Christ.
[1] Jesus said “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” — John 14:27 (NIV)
[2] See Ephesians 5:15-17.
by Denise Moore
from pixabay.com, by Hans Braxmeier. Click photo for original.
Although Columbus Day did not become an official holiday until the 1930’s there had been celebrations since the colonial times. Through the years this celebration has been accompanied by controversy. I won’t get into all the details but let’s just say that it isn’t really disputed that Columbus 1) wasn’t a particularly nice person, 2) never stepped foot on North American soil, and 3) even if he had, he would have found others had “discovered” it already and were in fact living there.
It should be no surprise then, that Indigenous People’s Day has been created as a protest or counter-celebration to offer some balance to our sweet little, “In 1492…” rhyme. In reality, the Native American Culture was invaded and these indigenous people’s home was never the same.
That brings me to another celebration that falls on this day, World Homeless Day. It doesn’t always fall on Columbus/Indigenous People’s Day; it comes around every October 10, but this year October 10 just happens to be on the second Monday of October. The calendar aligned to disturb me into thinking how these three days fit together. It challenged me to think about how privileged I am to live in a nice, warm home in the beautiful Colorado mountains that once served as home and hunting grounds for the Ute and Arapaho tribes. And I am reminded of a family trip when my boys were ten and thirteen and how obvious it was to them that the Native Americans were “given” the worst of the worst land available when “white man” took over their country.
In addition to the other celebrations, today is also my mom and dad’s 62nd wedding anniversary. At ages 92 and 90, they are in the process of moving out of their home of 56 years and into an apartment closer to shopping and doctors. Michael’s parents (my in-laws) are moving from their “forever home” as well.
I’ve been thinking a lot about “home” lately. That house where I grew up and my parents made a home for us is a huge part of my life. It wasn’t an opulent home by any means, but a good middle class house where I had my own room with my own bed to sleep in every night. I had heat in the winter and air conditioning in the summer and protection from the wind and rain. I could even open the refrigerator any time I wanted. (I never even realized this was a big thing until I was in my 40’s and youth director to brothers who couldn’t. They didn’t have their own beds either because their family shared a small apartment with two other families.)
It’s not that my parents didn’t try to show me how fortunate I was. Every Christmas I gave my old toys away to the orphanage so those “less fortunate” could have something new to play with (and so my new toys would fit in the toy box!) They even took me to live in a third world war-torn country on the west coast of Africa for a year. Yes, I knew there was a disparity in life; but for much of my life I gave it lip service and served a meal or wrote a check now and again to make myself feel better but I also accepted it as the way things are.
by Michael Moore, Used with Permission, All Rights Reserved.
Yes, this is the way things are. According to a United Nations Global survey done in 2005 there were, at that time, approximately 100 million people who were homeless, and in 2015 Habitat for Humanity estimated that 1.6 billion (1,600,000,000) people worldwide were living in inadequate housing. This number is hard to comprehend.
According to the universetoday.com on a perfect night under perfect conditions the human eye can see up to 9,000 stars. That is 178,000 inadequately housed people for each one. I don’t think is how Abraham imagined it when God had him look at the stars and imagine his descendants.
This is heartbreaking. It’s the way things are but it is NOT the way things should be! God’s house has many rooms according to Jesus. Are we not to demonstrate the ways of God in this world? Shouldn’t we find a room for each and every one of these homeless brothers and sisters? When asked what was of utmost importance, Jesus answered:
You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: You must love your neighbor as you love yourself.(Matthew 22: 37-39 CEB)
How can we say we love and then just accept this as the way things are?
When I think of this day, I see Columbus Day representing the systems of this world that promote division and inequality and the desire to have more even when that means someone else gets less, in that light, Indigenous People’s Day represents the oppressed who suffer from the personal greed of others and systemic problems in the economic and social structure of nations. World Homeless Day is the day of hope and action. It represents a movement where people can no longer be at peace with the way things are and feel compelled to make this world a place where everyone thrives!
This post is part of our October series Living into the Shalom of God.
A couple of months ago I wrote a post: How Inclusive Should We Be in which I asked the question How did Jesus practice inclusiveness. I find myself grappling with the same question as I consider all the dimensions of shalom and God’s desire to see all people and all creation flourish and thrive in the way it was created to.
Part of what I realize is that our embracing of God’s shalom depends on our ability to accept ourselves and others as unique reflections of the image of God. So often we exclude those who look, think or act differently from us. Our image of God looks very much like us – like the white blond haired images of Jesus we see. We struggle to think that someone of a different ethnicity, sexual orientation, social position or skill set is just as acceptable to God.
Wear Your Differences Proudly.
Recently ago I met a woman who suffers from a Crohn’s disease a chronic illness that means she can’t eat the foods that most of us do. As a child she struggled with being different and resented her disease. Then one day she told herself “I am not diseased I am different”. It the beginning of a whole new approach to life for her which made it possible for her to accept herself and way God had made her.
I understand her struggle because I have often resented the way I am made too. As a young physician practicing in New Zealand I was made to believe it was wrong for me as a single woman to earn more than a married man. I was told I thought more like a man than a woman and was made to feel guilty for my gifts of leadership and organization as well as my photographic memory. Today I wear these gifts proudly, recognizing that this is who God has made me to be. I am a unique individual designed by God to reflect a unique aspect of who God is.
Learn to Understand and Accept the Differences in Others.
My stepson is schizophrenic. For years we tried to get him to take the usual medications for his symptoms. We wanted him to become like us. He hated them because they made him feel unlike himself. A few years ago however, he discovered a therapist who, rather than trying to get rid of the voices has helped him to listen to those that are good and disregard those that are destructive. There are many aspects of who he is that I am proud of and at times in awe of. In some ways he is a St Francis type of person with a deep love for animals, a generous spirit and little desire to accumulate the stuff that holds so many of us captive.
Learning to accept the differences in others means being willing to sit with them, ask questions and listen to them without judging. It is about trusting that the Holy Spirit is at work in other lives just as powerfully as in ours.
Learning what differences are acceptable to God
The image above is one I created to help me visualize God’s shalom relationships. I am sorry it is difficult to read in parts. We are so easily corrupted by our own arrogance that tells us who we think is acceptable to God. We want to exclude. God wants to include. We want people to become like us, God wants people to express their individual uniqueness. God says variety and diversity is the way I create. God will do everything possible to embrace all humankind into a loving family.
I am not a theologian so I am sure that some of you will think that I do not have any authority to answer this question. Like many of us I shied away from accepting many who looked, acted and believed differently because I was afraid that my acceptance of them would make me unacceptable to God. Then I spent some time studying the 10 commandments and realized God gave the Israelites a very few categorical statements on who is unacceptable – murderers, adulterers, those that covert their neighbours property, those that worship other gods… and that’s about all. Most of the commandments are about the good things we should be doing to live as God’s children.
Or as Jesus expresses it:
Love the Eternal One your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind.”This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is nearly as important, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” The rest of the law, and all the teachings of the prophets, are but variations on these themes. (Matthew 22:37-40)
Building bridges, not walls, loving not hating or fearing, reaching out with compassion, generosity and mutual care, that is what shalom living is all about. I think that 2,000 years of Christian history has shown us much about how not to practice our faith and follow Jesus. We have excluded women, children, slaves, gentiles, Jews, black people, native peoples, refugees, muslims, and many others, not because God tells us to but often unfortunately because it strengthens our positions of power and prestige. God’s heart aches for wholeness and unity and it is time ours did too.
Q&A with Leroy Barber
What inspired you to write Embrace: God’s Radical Shalom for a Divided World?
Leroy Barber: I wrote this book because we are in some trying times, and I think we need to make a push toward deepening our relationships as a way to move us closer to seeing God’s kingdom break through in powerful ways during times of chaos like these.
We don’t know each other, and that is causing us to hurt each other. Our lack of relational context is allowing injustice to continue, political systems to break down and violence to run rampant around the world. The greatest power we have available to us—relationships—is not being used to change the world as much as it could. It’s my belief that relationships move the world forward in positive ways.
When we witness some great good, there are without a doubt friendships behind the scenes that made the difference. Large donations, peace processes between nations and even bipartisan advances in politics usually mean there is a good relationship in the background. If this is the case, then it is vital that we begin to relate to others in our lives. This will move the world forward in peace.
Describe some of the “Babylons” in people’s lives.
Barber: “Babylons” are anything different that you may identify as bad, less than or other. There are places and people in our lives that challenge us. The majority of us avoid these places because they are usually complicated and call for us to look beyond ourselves. The “Babylons” of our lives may be the very places we are called to love.
What do our “Babylons” look like collectively?
Barber: We are still very divided in the church and in life. Our country and world still allow us to stay close to our own “tribes,” and this often leads to hurt and misunderstandings as we encounter a diverse world. The hard places become things to avoid rather than something to embrace as a pursuit of peace. Our obsession with comfort bleeds over into our social lives and into our ability to speak truth in love, and we become isolated from people who are different. The “other” then becomes the outsider or enemy.
What would happen if more of us reached out to the “other” and went into those hard places you write about?
Barber: I hope to inspire people to explore this book together to not only love the people close to them better but to take a chance on loving someone they would rather avoid. I have found the deepest places of learning in the unexpected relationships with the “other” in my life. When I have embraced the people farthest from me, when I have loved beyond my circle, it has opened space for others and myself.
You say that Embrace is a personal call to “embrace the hard places God calls us to, both physically and relationally, as his strategy for pursuing reconciliation between vastly differing people.” How can we begin to do that?
Barber: If we go through the awkward process of learning about the “other” or entering the hard place, I think we gain the ability to solve problems better. I think we make peace an option because we begin to see the humanity in everyone, and, ultimately, we look like the God we serve. He created us all as an expression of his image. We look more like him when we are together.
This post is part of our October Living into the Shalom of God series and was sponsored by InterVarsity Press.
photo from IVP
Leroy Barber has spent decades pursuing reconciliation and justice among groups of vastly diverse people. He knows the challenge of embracing those who are difficult to embrace, yet he advocates that the way to radical shalom on earth is through pursuing these relationships. We have the opportunity as the people of God to bring true peace and unity to a world that desperately needs it. Embrace the challenge to show a divided world the bridge-building power of God’s love.
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