Job 29:1, 30:1-2, 16-31
“Surely one does not turn against the needy, when in disaster they cry for help. Did I not weep for those whose day was hard? Was not my soul grieved for the poor? But when I looked for good, evil came; and when I waited for light, darkness came” (Job 30:24-26)
Job is a lament. It is more than a lament, but it is definitely a lament.
Lament is a special type of biblical literature. It doesn’t necessarily try to reveal who God is in it. It doesn’t try to provide an objective account of Israel’s history. It isn’t a prophesy that calls Israel back to itself and points them toward their future. No, it is a simple acknowledgement of the pains and sorrows of a given moment. It is a simple acknowledgement that God is present in pain and suffering (not as the author of the suffering, but as its Comforter).
Lament is also a spiritual discipline. It is a way of pouring out injustices and sorrow before God. It isn’t so much a spontaneous belly-aching, as a conscious decision to acknowledge pain and grief for what they are.
Acknowledging pain is tougher than it sounds. We do a lot to avoid pain before it happens and to ignore after it does. Our world is full of anesthetizing options – from full-blown opioid use to alcohol to too much Netflix to trying to satisfy the soul’s needs by pushing too much junk food into the body. We have a bevy of psychological defense mechanisms that try to convince us to avoid/ignore pain, which is precisely why lament must be a spiritual discipline.
While the example above from Job is one of individual lament, lament can also be a communal act. Entire peoples can come together, rend their clothing and put ash on their foreheads, in order to lament sins/injustices/pain/sorrow. In fact, we do this in the church every Ash Wednesday, which is a Service of Lament at the start Lent in which we lament the sins that caused our Lord to be crucified. Similarly, the congregational meetings we had about the financial theft in the church were also intentional spaces of lament, a place where the broken trust and pain that resulted could be spoken and shared.
We’ve seen a lot of lament in the public sphere these days. Countless vigils (numbering in the thousands) have taken place across our country over the course of the past summer, each of them in response to the racial unrest and racial injustice that still plagues our country. I participated – along with a handful of other folks from the church – in just such a vigil early in the summer. Frustrations over the police killings of hundreds of Black folk over the past few years needed to find a fruitful, faithful expression. Engaging with others who were also experiencing this pain and sorrow was a way to channel brokenness into a holy space, trusting that God would reach down and care for us. And it worked! God proved faithful in my season of lament. God proved to be a friend to the brokenhearted and a healer of the wounded.
And that’s the ultimate hope of lament. It is to see God more clearly than we see even the pain and sorrows in our life. It is to see His hope and not just our own despair. It is to remember His righteousness more than obsess over the world’s depravity. All of this is what is offered to us in lament, a spiritual discipline with holy ends. Amen.
