Knox Presbyterian Church

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This morning we resume our fall series on Integrity – on living an undivided life. Each week we have been looking at characteristics that people of integrity seem to have. This morning the characteristic of integrity that we will look at together is “the Capacity to Lament.”

We’ve heard just a few of the prayers of lament in scripture and now I invite you to stand for the reading of God’s word, to hear the power of wholeness that comes to those who understand the human need and have the freedom before God to lament.

Remember the – “How long, O Lord? Will you forget us forever?” – language from Psalm 13?

Or the – “Our tears have been our food day and night,
People say to me continually, "Where is your God?" – from Psalm 42?
And the — “My God, my God why have you forsaken me language,” – in Psalm 22 the sacred language Jesus used when he hung dying on a cross?
Now hear more words from these same Psalms of Lament. Words that come as one laments in the presence of God and others about what is not right in the human experience of pain and suffering.

Psalm 13:5-6
But I trusted in your steadfast love;
My heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
I will sing to the Lord, God has dealt bountifully with me.
Psalm 42:5, 11; 43:5
Why are you so downcast, O my soul,
and why are you disquieted in me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise
my help and my God.
Psalm 22:24
For God did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted; God did not hide his face from me,
God heard when I cried to him.

Beyond Sacred
This morning I invite you to join me on our continuing journey into wholeness, that will take us into a place I call “Beyond Sacred.” “Beyond Sacred.”
The language that will take us there is from our scripture – it is the language of prayer, complaint, lament. Nearly half of the prayers and hymns found in the Psalms speak this language of faith, yet their words are almost never heard in side the walls of the sacred space in our churches.
• God will you forget us forever?
• God I am in a state of loss and fear? Where are you in my pain and suffering?
• My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Even though Jesus prayed in this scriptural language it is a tradition that for the most part has been lost. Why? At some level most of us probably aren’t convinced that we can really talk to God this way. Most of us probably don’t know how absolutely necessary it is for us to lament. Most of us probably don’t believe that we are free to speak honestly to God about our loss and fear, even when we want to hold god accountable for the pain and suffering that is happening in our lives. Yet this is what the Psalmists do – it is this distinct language of faith that keeps them praying and in relationship with the living God.
Holocaust survivor Elie Weisel remembers an experience of lament while in a concentration camp at Auschwitz: “Inside the kingdom of night,” he writes, “I witnessed a strange trial. Three rabbis were holding a trial, at which God was indicted for having allowed his children to be massacred. It was quite awesome, but what happened next was more awesome still. After this mock trial in a concentration camp on of the rabbis looked at the watch that he had somehow managed to preserve in the kingdom of night and said, ‘Ah, it is time for prayers.’ And with that the three rabbis all bowed their heads and prayed to God.”

The Rev. Dr. Carol Miles of Austin Theological Seminary wonders how we can account for the actions of these Rabbi’s, and for the words of lament found the book of Psalms.
“How could they indict God one moment and offer praise and thanksgiving the next? The only possible explanation she writes, is “that their quarrel with God is a lover's quarrel. And it has been revisited again and again since the early days of the relationship, when the people of God were first bound to their Creator in a covenant of love.”
One of the most destructive things you can do in a relationship – is to stop talking about what’s bothering you, to stop voicing your concerns. Yet pastors often hear this happening, especially during times of great loss, or crisis.
• “God and I are no longer on speaking terms.”
In 2003 at a youth ministry conference in our Presbyterian Church students are asked to talk about their prayer life. One says, “I’ve stopped praying since 9/11.” This opens the floodgates, this time a young woman says, “I’ve also stopped praying since 9/11. How can we pray?” Perhaps this was the student’s prayer. Perhaps they felt like God didn’t answer their prayer ‘how can we pray?”
From a scriptural perspective the language of lament tells us that it’s okay for us to say to God, “Why? How could you have allowed this to happened?” In the church we need to recapture the good news that this is faithful talk and faithful speech for followers of Jesus.
For when Jesus cried out, “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” he joined – as James L. Mayes of Union Theological Seminary points out – “the company of the afflicted, becoming one with them in their suffering. In praying with this language of faith Jesus total identifies with us. He gives afflicted humanity permission and encouragement to pray – in a way that holds the worst of life up to God.”
As it says in Hebrews 5:78 “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers with loud cries and tears.
In what places in your life, in the world, in the church, do you sense the call to lament?
To lament Presbyterian minister Steve Doughty writes “is to ex-press – that is – to press out of oneself the sorrow for the wounds one sees,
• in one’s own self,
• in the global community, (one person might be called to lament over the emerging cries for war in Iran, another might be called to lament the rhetoric of political leaders who speak of destroying Israel)
• One can press out of oneself the sorrow for wounds one sees in one’s church.
• or for the sorrow one feels in the sense of God’s presence, or in the sense of God’s absence.
What is God bringing to your mind right now?
About your self?
About the local or global community?
About your church, or the church?
What do you need to say to God about the sense of divine presence or absence?
What’s remarkable about this language of faith from a scriptural perspective is what happens when a person moves into a place that is “Beyond Sacred.” “Beyond Sacred.”
There is finally internal movement. Once a person knows that God has heard them, in the presence of others, in nearly every lament in scripture, the language shifts from complaint to praise.
We heard some of that this morning –
• “How long of Lord? Will you forget me forever?” “I will sing to the Lord because God has dealt bountifully with me.”
• “While I cry day and night people say to me continually, ‘Where is your God?” Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.”
• “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? God did not hide his face from me, but heard me when I cried out.”
Can you hear what happens in the language of our faith? It is part of what makes us whole and complete, part of what helps us live an undivided life with God at the center. By facing head on loss and fear, pain and suffering, instead of a rift or separation, closeness – healing – emerges. Or as Steve Doughty writes, “the divine-human bond comes together again.”

Before the flames descended early Sunday Morning at Malibu Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles, the Rev. Greg Hughes and a few members of his staff had about 40-minutes to grab what they could – computers, key files of the church, guitars and drums.

By the time Rev. Hughes got to his West Malibu home, the church near Pepperdine University was engulfed in flames. His children wept as television images showed fire consuming the sacred space where they had been baptized.
Hughes thought about 20 years of accumulated books, his diploma from Princeton Theological Seminary, and the visitation communion set his pastor father had left him. Within minutes, all of those mementos were gone.
Yet by Thursday as he and colleagues sifted through the ashes, Hughes told the LA Times, “We pray that we’ll rise again and be better for it,” vowing Malibu Pres. would not only rebuild but also honor a $500,000 commitment, given the night before the fire, to a teen center planned for inner-city L.A. In the midst of devastation and loss, the church is hopeful in part because of the love and support they have received from Malibu and local communities, and from people of prayer around the world. Pledges and gifts have been pouring in from our connectional church body during this time of tragedy.
In a letter of thanks Hughes said, “The Lord will make something beautiful out of the ruins and ashes of our church building. We also know that we are not the only ones affected by this tragedy - and that a crisis continues. As fires continue to rage across Southern California, our hearts and prayers go out to those who are fighting the fires, to those displaced from their homes, and to those who lost their homes in the fires. We are eager to learn of their needs also, and about how we can serve them in this time of crisis.
As poet Ann Weems has observed, "In the godforsaken, obscene quicksand of life, there is a deafening alleluia rising from the souls of those who weep, and of those who weep with those who weep. If you watch, you will see the hand of God putting the stars back in their skies one by one."
I wish I could tell you all of the remarkable ways that I see this happening – not only in the tragedy of the week in LA– but in so many everyday ordinary moments. I wish I could tell you why I believe this to be so true. But reasons of confidentiality keep me from doing so.
Suffice it to say part of my work of being a pastor – part of my work of being human – is learning how to sit with others before God in the presence of loss, in the presence of grief, in the presence of fear, in the presence of pain.
Perhaps this is all part of our lovers quarrel, not only with God, but also with ourselves, with each other. Believe me it is “Beyond Sacred.”

We are a people joined with God. In the words of the Rev. Greg Hughes whose congregation is worshipping God this morning in the midst of devastation and loss, ”let us cherish our resurrection faith,”

I am so thankful that Jesus joins us in our healing. As we get closer to God, as God gets closer to us, I am so grateful that we are free to use the language of our faith to become whole for God’s sake and to become human for our sake.

Words and action coming together, undivided – honestly – before God.

Amen.