thinking about lament
DESCRIPTION
Think About newsletter, Tabor AdelaideTRANSCRIPT
Volume 1, Issue 3 - October 2010
Thinking About...
The teaching faculty of Ministry, Theology, and Culture at Tabor Adelaide are committed to serving the church by thinking about the gospel. We believe that individuals and the church can be transformed by the renewing of our/their minds. Too often college lecturers are characterized as “living in an ivory tower” and “being too theoretical.” This stereotype doesn’t apply at Tabor; we are part of the church, and we want to see it grow in faithfulness to Jesus. This is why we have committed ourselves to producing this themed magazine for free distribution to the churches of South Australia. We trust you will find this edition helpful. We will value your feedback and your contributions; please email me at [email protected].
Rev Dr Stephen SpenceHead of Ministry, Theology, and Culture
why can’t our churches?
The subjects that we teach here at Tabor Adelaide attempt to bring
the student into dialogue with the Christian faith and with the reality of daily life. We can’t avoid the reality of grief and lament. Neither can you.
Thinking About Lament with...David McGregor; Aaron Chalmers; David Turnbull; Stephen Spence; Graham Buxton; Bruce Hulme; Matthew Gray; and Lesley Houston.
I remember vividly my first encounter with deep, debilitating grief. I
had been called to Bonnie’s home less than 1 month after becoming a pastor. Her 21 year old son had committed suicide, leaving her, his partner and their young daughter, and his 6 brothers and sisters lost in a world of pain and anger. Bonnie was sitting on the side of her bed, rocking slowly back and forward in some vain attempt to find comfort, her hand unconsciously rubbing furiously at her leg. She wanted to cry out to God, but she didn’t have words. Nor, it seemed, did she have permission to express her pain. Her piety had always restricted her to speaking words of praise, of thanksgiving, of joy towards God; not words of lament.
In situations of grief, only those schooled in pastoral care by “The
Friends of Job” will deny the right of the individual access to a God who “weeps with those who weep” (Rms 10; see John 11). However, too often it seems that the church when it comes together to worship will not weep with those who weep. We are too busy with our up-tempo praise songs to get caught up in the emotional downer that is grief. Our actions suggest that grief is a personal emotion: only joy (and its like) is the corporate emotion.
The heroes of Scripture knew that lament was a legitimate expression
of faith; why don’t our churches? The Psalms express corporate lament;
Thinking About...Lament
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“How long, O Lord?”Lamenting – giving voice to our deepest
grief and hurts before God – is a cry of faith.
Lamenting acknowledges that evil and suffering is
part of our present experience while, at the same
time, expressing a hope in a future that God has
planned for us when “mourning and crying and
pain will be no more” (Rev 21:4). It says that the
world is not as it should be (Rms 8:19-23). Yet, it also
says that God cares and that God can (and will)
do something about our situation.
Some well meaning Christians, and most Sunday
morning services, choose praise over lament
because they see praise as honouring to God
and lament as questioning God’s goodness and
greatness.
Yet, the martyrs of Revelation chose lament because they believed wholeheartedly in God’s goodness and greatness.
“Sovereign Lord, holy and true,” they cried in
a loud voice from beneath God’s altar, “how
long will it be before you judge and avenge our
blood?” (Rev 6:9-11).
And this is where lament differs from grief. Grief
expresses our sorrow to God. (And is, therefore,
a legitimate part of any Christian’s prayer.) Yet,
lament cries out to God to establish his justice
and mercy and reign over all the earth. We
lament because we believe that God will act to
overcome the evil that is very much part of our
present experience. Lament is our cry for God
to come in justice and righteousness. It is a cry in
the present for God’s future to come. We lament
because life is not as it should be, as it will be! We
look forward to the Second Coming of Jesus not
just so that we will not have to experience death
(that would be self-centred of us). No. We look
forward to Jesus, as Judge of the earth, righting
wrongs and establishing God’s eternal kingdom
reign in all its fullness.
Until then, we will continue to lament as our cry of
faith in a God who will [email protected]
Rev Dr Stephen Spence, Head of Ministry, Theology, and Culture
Stephen will teach Romans Exegesis and Pauline Theology in Semester 1, 2011.
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Monday, 17 January with Dr Colin GreeneEngaging Biblically and Creatively with the Digital World
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Tabor Adelaide is bringing to Adelaide a number of internationally respected scholars whose research and writings have greatly contributed to the church. These are rare opportunities to hear from people who are helping the church think through its life and mission.It is possible to enrol for 1-week intensives with these scholars for credit or as an audit student. Register now with [email protected]
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Behind the deep cries of lament that afflict us
all at times lie the pain and grief of feeling
abandoned. But in the face of such lament we
do well to recall that there is a God who has not
forgotten us: “Can a mother forget the baby at
her breast and have no compassion on the child
she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not
forget you!” (Isaiah 49:15).
We are a remembered people … all of us.
Remembrance and compassion are in fact two
sides of a single coin. Walter Brueggemann points
to the Israelites of old who cried out to God in
lamentation and complaint, reminding him of
their sense of forsakenness. In his faithfulness and
unchangeableness, God offered both assurance
and promise to his people. His loving-kindness,
goodness and promise of peace are “more than
enough to override the flood, to overcome the
absence and shame, and to overmatch the terror
of exile.” Implicit in Brueggemann’s understanding
of the relationship between disconsolate
human beings and their God is the notion of
remembrance: the people dare to recall their
God as one who will still act for them, and the
God to whom they cry still remembers his people.
Parker Palmer once said that “remembered
means to re-member. It means to put the body
back together. The opposite of remember is not
to forget, but to dis-member. And when we forget
where we came from … we have in fact dis-
membered something.” To remember someone
in this way is to be a part of their healing. To
respond to a person’s cry of lament, “Remember
me!”, is to live in solidarity with that person in their
struggle and pain; to tell someone that we will
not forget them offers hope and reassurance in
the midst of loneliness and despair. In pastoral
ministry, not only do we remember who we are as
God’s people, we also ‘re-member’ one another.
Rev Dr Graham Buxton is the Director of Post- Graduate Studies
Lament and Remembrance in Ministry
Learning to lament feels unnatural. It runs
against the grain of our upbeat secular and
religious cultures. While occasions for lament are
invitations in our humanity to get deeply honest
with God, ourselves and our world, the territory
seems so foreign and terrifying that avoidance is
often our instinctive response.
Yet lament is a critical discipline for our spiritual
formation. Three occasions in particular – my
dad’s untimely death when I was 13, our fourth
miscarriage, and my wife’s hospitalization with
severe post-natal depression – have spawned
occasions for deep lament in my life. Though each
circumstance stands unique, the dark thread of
lament is the gut response weaving the three
together in the tapestry of my walk with God.
There will be more. No doubt such occasions exist
in your life too.
In these times, and in those of devastation in
others’ lives, we can be particularly thankful for the
dialect of the lament psalms as God’s primary tool
for learning to lament. They not only help us voice
our disorientation, but encourage us to do so.
They even include Psalm 88, an embarrassment to
conventional faith. Typically lament psalms have
an address, complaint, petition and motivation,
before finishing with a confession of trust and
vow of praise. Psalm 88 omits this conclusion,
ending with “You have taken from me friend
and neighbour–darkness is my closest friend”
(Ps 88:18). The Benedictine Sebastian Moore
comments that “God behaves in the Psalms in
ways he is not allowed to behave in systematic
theology.” (Hopkins, Journey through the Psalms,
10.) Psalm 88, the embarrassing psalm, is not the
full story, of course – but thankfully, it does exist.
Even in deepest despair, God welcomes honest engagement.
Lament may feel unnatural, but it is pure gift for
life lived well in the face of the darkest mysteries
of life. How are you learning to lament?
Learning to Lament
Bruce Hulme is a lecturer in Practical Theology and is studying towards an MTh in Spiritual Theology
In 2010, Bruce is responsible for the Spiritual Formation Program, which involves all MTC’s degree students, and for the Supervised Field Education Program
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TM1102 INTRODUCTION TO CHRISTIAN MINISTYExplore what it means for the whole church to be caught up in God’s Trinitarian ministry to the world, promoting the gospel in life and word. Explore your own personal calling to be a part of that ministry. This subject is suitable for anyone exploring God’s call on their life. TUESDAY, 6-9pm.
TM2115 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENTLearn about the world, significant people, events, and message of the OT, with a particular emphasis upon seeing how the OT can continue to speak into our lives and ministries. This subject is suitable for Bible study leaders and those wanting a better understanding of the Bible. THURSDAY, 10am-1pm.
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The Psalms contain more anguished complaints
than hymns of praise. For Israel, complaining
to God was part of their liturgy. But, as Helmut
Thielicke observes,
many of us would rather talk about God than to him.
Is complaining to God lack of faith in him? Walter
Brueggemann says Israel complained to God
because they believed in him. Their laments rise
from their unshakable belief that God is good: “the
very premise of the accusatory prayer of petition is
that Yahweh is indeed steadfast and faithful.”
Complaining to God was Israel’s way of naming
their pain. Eugene Peterson tells us that four of the
five chapters of Lamentations are alphabetical
acrostics. In reciting these words the Israelites
rehearsed their pain from aleph to tau (A to Z).
Cliched answers to life’s profound tragedies often
betray a misguided need to “justify God” and a
nervousness with the inexplicability of suffering.
C. S. Lewis wrote two very different books on
suffering. His first, “The Problem of Pain,” is an
apology for belief in God. One critic commented
that the problem of pain was bad enough
without Lewis adding to it by writing a book on
the subject! His second, “A Grief Observed,” is a
heart-rending complaint to God over the death
of his beloved wife. One is an argument for faith
attempting answers, but the other is an expression
of faith despite the lingering questions.
Karl Barth has reminded us that we do not complain alone. God takes up our laments and feels them more deeply than we do.
Jesus’ terrible cry of dereliction voiced the misery
of us all. Now our complaints are always too little
and too late. Too little –for now they can only be
a mere echo of his. Too late - for now they have
already become God’s concern!
Too little too late!
David McGregor is Senior Lecturer in Theology. He is enrolled in the PhD theology program at Newcastle University
David will teach Creative Living, Jesus the Christ, and Kingdom of God in Semester 1, 2011.
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Lamentation seems to be a rather antiquated
idea. The need to lament is still around, but
our society seems to hide away life’s personal
tragedies. The closest thing to lamentation these
days is satire. Satire laughs at agony and injustice.
Nobody wants to listen to lament.
The Church is much the same. Our songs, our
services, our sermons, often have no room for
lamentation (where would it go? Before the
offering, or after?). “Weep with those who weep” (Rom 12:15) has been replaced by “rejoice with those who weep, until they start rejoicing too.”
Nobody wants to listen to lament in Church.
At the heart of lamentation is the recognition
that God actually does hear, and wants to hear.
CS Lewis remarked, “Our struggle is... to believe
that, whether He can grant them or not, God
will listen to our prayers... Even to go on believing
that there is a Listener at all.” Scripture insists God
Listen to Lamenthears. Perhaps His silence is just Him listening to
our lament.
Perhaps that’s why Job has to wait so long until
God speaks. Of course, the other reason could be
that God expected Job’s four friends to listen to
his lament. Instead, they gave advice – unlistened
advice. We are sometimes called to just listen,
understand and lament with the broken. The
Desert Forebears understood this: “In Egypt once
Abba Poemen passed by and saw a woman
sitting on a grave and weeping bitterly. And he
said: ‘If all the delights of this world should come,
they would not bring her soul out of sorrow. Even
so the monk should ever be sorrowful within his
heart.’” Listen to lament, then lament as well.
The power of the Church is that it speaks of a God
Who not only hears our pain, but participates in it,
most obviously through the cross, but also through
His Spirit entering into us, including our laments.
And part of the way that happens is when we
hear others’ pain, and participate in it. To weep
with those who weep, to listen to their [email protected]
Matthew Gray is Lecturer in Church History. He is enrolled in the PhD history program at Adelaide University.
Matt will teach Introduction to Christian Ministry and Reformation History in Semester 1, 2011.
The experience of loss and great sorrow is a
universal one. Yet, as we read our Bibles, it is
clear that individuals and cultures express their grief
in very different ways. Neither the “stiff upper lip”
of the Englishman or the loud wailing of the Middle
Eastern peasant can be characterised as “the right
way to lament.”
We know this. However, too often our pastoral care
seems to deny the truth of this. At times we do not
recognise when people are grieving because we
do not recognise their loss. At other times, we try to
shape a person’s lament to fit our expectations.
The grief and loss of cross-cultural workers who
return home often goes unrecognised. Grief and
loss occurs with the loss of status on return and
the things left behind (possessions, memories and
friendships). This grief is heightened when the return
is sudden and unexpected. This was the case for
my family when we had to leave Nigeria suddenly
(and without opportunity for closure) when our
new-born son, Matthew, was diagnosed with
disability issues. However, when we returned to
Australia our family’s grieving was not recognised
because we had “come home” and that, to
everyone else, seemed to be a good thing.
It is challenging for a church to provide culturally competent and appropriate pastoral care to those outside its dominant culture.
Increasingly, in our churches there are people
from Africa, Asia, and the Pacific. These people
will lament in ways different from the dominant
Australian culture and from one another. Such
differences can be confusing or misjudged.
Before the crisis comes, our churches need to
be prepared. How does this subgroup within our
church lament? How are we, as their family and
community, meant to grieve with them? How
can we best care for them in a way that they will
appreciate?
David Turnbull, Senior Lecturer in Intercultural Studies
David will teach Intercultural Life and Work, Christians in a Multicultural World, and Poverty and Integral Mission in Semester 1, 2011.
David was an Australian delegate to the 2010 Lausanne World Evangelisation Conference (South Africa).
Lamenting is a Cultural Action6
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Dr Aaron Chalmers is Senior Lecturer in Biblical Studies. Aaron has recently contributed articles to Tyndale Bulletin and to Vetus Testamentum.
Aaron will teach Introduction to the Old Testament, Biblical Theology, and Understanding the Biblical Narrative in Semester 1, 2011.
Since the pioneering work of the German
scholar Herman Gunkel (1862-1932), it has
been common practice in OT studies to group the
psalms according to their various genres. Six major
genres have been identified (hymns, laments,
songs of thanksgiving, wisdom and Torah psalms,
royal psalms, and liturgies) and of these the most
common (by far!) is the lament.
Such psalms, however, can make confronting
reading:
• “O God, why do you cast us off forever? Why
does your anger smoke against the sheep of
your pasture?” (Ps 74: 1),
• “O God, you have rejected us, broken our
defenses; you have been angry; now restore
us!” (Ps 60: 1).
Because such Psalms do not mouth the
comfortable religious platitudes we are used to
hearing, because they may not fit our Sunday
morning worship theology, there is always the
temptation to ignore or skip over them (much like
there is a tendency to skip over Good Friday –the
day of lament par excellence in the Christian
calendar - and go straight to Easter Sunday).
Yet by ignoring these texts of lament we may actually be doing our people a profound disfavor.
It seems likely to me that one of the primary
reasons why Israel was able to maintain her
faith throughout the vicissitudes of her long and
challenging history was her ability to lament.
If we wish to be involved in raising up and shaping
individuals into mature, faithful believers who
are there for the long haul, perhaps we should
consider the psalms of lament and the kind of
faith they embody as something worth exploring.
In our desire to “protect” our people from such
texts, perhaps we are only hamstringing them.
Psalms of Lament
Frank A. James III is a preacher, a professor of historical theology, and the provost of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in the USA.
In December 2006 his brother died in a climbing accident on Mount Hood. He writes, in Christianity Today (September, 2010), “One question haunts me: Where was God when Kelly was freezing to death on Mount Hood? For me, it is not whether I should ask such a question, but how I ask it. One can ask the question in a fit of rage, shaking one’s fist at God. Many of us, if we are candid, have done that. But once the primal anger settles to a low boil, we can—and, I would submit, should—ask the question. I am not suggesting that mere mortals can stand in judgment of God or call him to account. God does not report to me. But an honest question posed from a broken heart is to my mind a good and righteous thing. To ask this hard question is an act of faith. It presupposes a genuine relationship in which the creature actually engages the Creator. If God is my Father, can’t I humbly ask why he did not come to Kelly’s rescue? For me, to not ask this question would be a failure to take God seriously.”
Read the full article at...www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2010/september/36.58.html
The Story Behind the StoryIn December 2006, Kelly James and his climbing partners, Brian Hall and Jerry “Nikko” Cooke, died on Mount Hood in northern Oregon. Their expedition was intended to prepare them for their lifelong dream of climbing Mount Everest. The climb began on December 8, but they encountered a rogue blizzard of enormous intensity and duration. They burrowed into a snow cave to wait out the storm. But the storm was unrelenting. Apparently Kelly had been injured, so the hard decision was made that Brian and Nikko should go for help. Sensing the gravity of their situation, Kelly must have released Brian from their long-standing pact never to leave one another. Alone in the snow cave, Kelly made desperate calls on his cell phone. On
Meeting God in the mystery of grief...Sunday, December 10, against all odds, one call mysteriously connected, and he was able to speak to his wife and two of his sons for six minutes. It was the last time they would hear Kelly’s voice.
From the outset, the story captivated the national news media, and the three families asked if I would serve as the public spokesperson. A massive search was launched, and finally, on December 17, we were notified that a body had been discovered. The fateful call came that evening, informing us that the recovered body had a signet ring with the initials JKJ—Jeffrey Kelly James. The search for Brian and Nikko continued, but their bodies were never found. I preached at my brother’s funeral on December 27, 2006.
www.taboradelaide.edu.au181 Goodwood Rd Millswood SA 5034tel. 08 8373 8777
for further information contactSamantha Docherty
Creative Commons License
We are happy for you to reuse any of the material in this journal. We do require, though, that you clearly identify the source by “author’s name,” Tabor Adelaide, School of Ministry, Theology, and Culture (November 2010)
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 Australia License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/au/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.
Leslie Houston is the program director for Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). She is enrolled in a PhD program at Flinders University.
Leslie will teach Adult Education in Semester 1, 2011.
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Lamentation has many forms: silent screaming at
the loss of a loved one; groanings over a failed plan;
wailing at the death of a dream and lost hope.
When we lament there is the sense of isolation, of being alone.
Some years ago I came across this poem. There is no
explanation of the origin of the grief; no overt cause
with which the reader can sympathise. But still the
words speak...
I’m lonely Lord
In the bustle of life,
I stand alone
And weep inside
Here in your house
Among your people,
I’m lonely Lord
And weep inside
Their laughter is warm
An offering to you
My silent wail,
I weep inside
Were you lonely Lord
In Gethsemane?
When the soldiers came
Did you weep inside?
Were you lonely Lord
When Peter cried
“I know him not!”
Did you weep inside?
You were alone Lord
When you hung on the tree
WHY HAVE YOU ...
FORSAKEN ... ME!
It’s less hard to bear,
... you understand ...
You join the lament
And weep with me
When confronted with grief, are we like Job
shouting and shaking our fists at God, demanding
an explanation? Or like Job’s friends looking for
spiritualised explanations and easy solutions? Or do we
turn to the one who understands, who has journeyed
through Gethsemane? When we share Christ’s cross,
we hear God’s heartbeat. Let us embrace the lament,
and like Job we will be able to say, “My ears had
heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.”
A Song of Lament