The Lost Language of Lament

The following excerpt is from Michael Card’s “A Sacred Sorrow: Reaching out to God in the Lost Language of Lament” (the end of chapter 6)
“Today we would ask Job to leave all these negative emotions at the church door. They are not appropriate to nor do they fit inside the narrow confines of our definition of worship. And so, likewise, those of us who have nothing else to offer but our laments find the door effectively closed in our faces. It cost Job everything to teach us this lesson. It is time we learned it.
Worship is not only about good feelings, joy, and prosperity, though they are at the heart of it. If this were true, then according to this modern American understanding of worship, the poor have nothing to say, nothing of value to bring to God. While Jesus would pronounce a blessing on those who mourn, we pronounce this curse. Those who “labor and are heavy laden” can find no place in our comfortable churches to lay their burdens. We reason, “who could possibly conceive of a God who would want to receive such worthless empty offerings?” But Job desperately clings to such a God, one who encourages us to offer everything to Him, every joy and every sorrow. All our broken hearts. All our contrite spirits. Because He is worth it.”

I read really exciting books nowadays (insert sarcasm here). This morning, as I read over these words, I had to keep myself from yelling “Amen” and waking the boys! As it is, I had a REALLY hard time not changing that final period into an exclamation mark. This has been my battle cry for a long time. It started pre-tragedy but was sent into overdrive by the events of that awful day and much of the fallout thereafter. There ought to be something more than space for these “negative” emotions- they are a beautiful and complex offering, especially under the scrutiny of shushers (yup, another made up word).

In my opinion, we have all shushed the pain of someone we love at one point or another (often unknowingly), we have all been shushed in our pain, and we have all experienced that “closed door” Card refers to in churches.

Again, I do not believe that any of this is intentional. I have spent a lot of energy trying to understand why we do what we do. In the book “Surviving the Loss of a Child” I learned that only 25% of Pastors visit their congregants who have lost a child. As a pastor myself, I’d like to understand. I wonder whether I would have been one of that 25% if my shoe was on someone else’s foot?

There is a mystery to suffering, a mystery that we will not understand this side of heaven. If we understood everything and could follow a formula, would we need any God other than ourselves? Also, as we learn from Job, God is simply too big for us to wrap our tiny finite brains around. Yet pastors are under an enormous amount of pressure to be able to answer our questions, aren’t they? Do they really know much more than us? God has placed them as shepherds to a flock, not as experts to His unknowable mysteries.

And so, they are stuck between a rock and a hard place. An answer is expected, and they have no answer. Have you ever been in that situation? Have you been brave enough to say, “I don’t know”?

Pre-tragedy I knew that “Lamentations” was a book of the Bible and I did participate in part of this lost art, but I didn’t understand it. I’m working to understand it and participate in it even more fully now by reading “A Sacred Sorrow” and even completing its “experience guide”.

I’d love to encourage participation here. What can we do as THE CHURCH (the body of Christ as a whole) to make space for “negative” feelings? How do we un-lose this lost art of lament? Please comment with your thoughts. I would like this to be a “loving like Jesus” space so please consider how to share your experiences so that they are shared with as much love as possible.

And remember, no matter how closed the door seems, God’s love has the ability to open it! Until next time…
Keep Going, Really!
-Markie