Lament

Yesterday saw another mass shooting, this time in an elementary school. Within the last two weeks, we've seen elderly people of color gunned down in supermarkets and Asian-Americans attacked in their place of worship. Yesterday was kids and teachers in a school.

We grieve, as we should. 

We get angry, as we should. 

We search for answers, as we should. 

But something is missing. 

We do not truly lament as we should. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This past weekend saw the Southern Baptist Convention release it's third-party report on it's failures to properly address abuse over the past several decades. 

This past weekend saw another pastor admit to egregious immorality. This time it was in my hometown.

We grieve, as we should. 

We get angry, as we should.

We search for answers, as we should. But something is missing. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lament, as I see it in the Scriptures, is an inner and outer wrestling with the reality of injustice, pain, sin, and suffering. Not necessarily all of those at once, but allowing one or more of those things to set in your spirit, languishing with the trauma and not brushing it aside or pretending it doesn't exist. 

Lament involves grief and anger and answers, but it is more than that. 

Lament is facing the consequences of idolatry head on (see Lamentations).

Lament is part of repentance and healing. And I would argue it is such a vital component of each that you cannot repent or heal without true lament. 

Lament is the choice to confront your broken condition and broken circumstances and ultimately turn to Jesus - not for an explanation or answers but for his presence. It holds back no questions and lets out all emotions. It doesn't worry if it is "proper" to vent, it just does. 

Lament is Jesus' groan of anger and sadness at the tomb of Lazarus (John 11:33,38).

Lament is Jesus' weeping over Jerusalem as he approaches it before His Passion Week (Luke 19:41-44).

We in the West have trouble lamenting like this. Those families and communities affected will lament, they have no real choice. But lament should be the response of the rest of us too. 

Instead we try to move on quickly. We find excuses why we should and why things should remain the same. It is easier to pretend the problems don't exist. It is easier to pretend it is enough to address the symptoms rather than the disease. It is easier to believe that since no specific solution will prevent all of these tragedies that we have to give up trying to do anything to prevent some of these tragedies from repeating themselves in the future. 

We need to Lament. 

Lament will bring healing, repentance, and change. It will lead us to Jesus.

I use this blog to often feature music I appreciate and enjoy. Here's a song of lament that I happened to revisit last weekend, I think it can be instructive in its own way. 

Sermon Snippets: The Bible Says What?

A common critique of the Christian faith in general and Scripture specifically is that Christians pick and choose what they want to believe and obey and what they don't. 

"You believe _____________ is a sin, but don't condemn wearing clothes of mixed fabrics as Leviticus 19:19 prohibits."

It is an oft-used "gotcha" by non-believers to point out our obvious and blatant hypocrisy.

Except it is an argument that doesn't hold water.

Almost every example critics use in their "gotcha's" comes from the Old Testament Law. And upon closer inspection, both the context of the Law and the content of the laws themselves reveals that we are not being hypocritically selective in what rules we follow and what rules we ignore.

The context of the Law reminds us that God gave Israel these commands to abide by after He freed them from 400 years of slavery in Egypt. The Law was meant to give them a national identity as they lived before Him, holy and set apart from their middle eastern neighbors. The broader Biblical context of the Law is also instructive. The Law is no longer determinative for those who follow Christ (Galatians 3). Jesus himself fulfilled the Law and becomes the true interpreter of the Law, able to define what continues to apply and what no longer has bearing on us (Matthew 5:17-48).

The content of the laws themselves is also important. While we aren't given every purpose, reason, or cultural backdrop behind these commands - we see the Israelites were repeatedly told to do these things to "be holy" (Lev. 11:44-45, 19:2, 20:7,26, 21:8). And we also do know enough about their cultural background to know that many of their dietary restrictions and things like tattoo prohibitions were about avoiding the behaviors of pagan religious rituals of the nations around them.

Most of those realities are different for us 3,500 years later. Holiness still matters (1 Peter 1:16) but how it is lived out has changed. Thankfully we can eat bacon and lobster now because God has instituted the New Covenant to replace the Old Covenant that was founded on the Law (Acts 10:9-16). 

So yes, I probably do believe ____________ is wrong because the Bible says so and I am probably wearing clothing with mixed fabrics. But that doesn't make me a hypocrite. It makes me an informed follower of Jesus and astute student of Scripture.

For further reading on this, much of the above is indebted to Dan Kimball's recent book, How (Not) To Read the Bible (Zondervan 2020).