Foundry UMC DC: Sunday Sermons
Religion & Spirituality:Christianity
Lament as Release
A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli with Foundry UMC, March 14, 2021, Lent 4, “Learning to Sing the Blues” series.
Text: Psalm 22
Many things look different today than they did this time last year. One of those things is our basement. In the midst of a major overhaul and repurposing of the space, I’ve learned more about BTUs and the need for outside air than I ever cared to know. Evidently, for someone to safely sleep down there, we need to install an air vent valve. If this isn’t cared for, toxic fumes can build up and do damage to human bodies!
This came to mind as I thought about the spiritual practice of lament as “release.” It’s common these days to hear someone say, “I just need to vent!” There are times when we need to get energy or feelings or frustrations out so they don’t do damage to our bodies and spirits! A good “vent” session is appropriately shared with someone trustworthy who understands you need to get something out of your system. And venting is not an edited essay, but rather flows unfiltered right from the place of pain.
Psalm 22 and all Psalms of lament are like that; sharing with God what we need to get out of our system—when something is not right, when there is pain, grief, injustice, fear, persecution. And, as we’ve been learning, the practice of lament invites us to speak freely to God, literally to liberate ourselves from any pretending.
When we speak freely with God, not controlling everything in an attempt to feel, sound, or appear “together,” then our words are no longer held hostage and can begin to name things that shift our trajectory. Perhaps you have experienced something like this; when you let go of your politeness with God and allow your words to flow unhindered, sometimes new insight or forgotten wisdom emerges and you catch at least a glimpse of hope or new life.
Some of you may remember a couple of weeks ago when we discovered in Jeremiah 20 one verse of “praise chorus” (verse 13) sandwiched between two absolutely brutal laments of complaint. I suggested that in giving voice to our pain without trying to clean it up, our speech might turn from complaint to praise. And biblical scholars say this is not at all unusual. The lament prayers in scripture consistently make such a turn. Most Psalms of lament include not only complaint and pleas for help but also words of trust and praise.
Psalm 22 may be one of the best-known Psalms of lament, because it’s quoted by Jesus from the cross (Mt 27:46, Mk 15:34): “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The opening complaint in the Psalm is followed in verses 3-5 with words of trust. This pattern of complaint then trust repeats in verses 6-10. In verse 11 we receive a petition for help: “Do not be far from me.” Then back into complaint (verses 12-18) followed by another petition “But you, O Lord, do not be far away!...Deliver my soul…my life…Save me!” (19-21a)
Then there is a final turn in the prayer. Beginning in verse 21b, the psalmist breaks into a song of praise that carries the prayer to its ending. Notice that the praise is not because all things have been made well. Most of the language is future oriented—things that “will” happen. And a key word is “remember.” People will remember God’s mighty acts of salvation and “future generations will be told about the Lord, and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that he has done it.” (Ps 22:30b-31)
Memory and hope are intertwined here. Some of you have heard me say before, “in the present we can hope for the future because we know what God has done in the past.” This memory of God’s activity liberates us in the present moment. It keeps us from being bound by despair, from becoming stuck in pain and resentment.
But sometimes we may need to rattle our cage in order to shake loose memory that’s been crusted over with pain, humiliation, or rage. The Psalms of lament show us how. They illustrate that to get free requires the release of what we think we have to keep bottled up. Hiding or holding on to our pain can lead to deep resentment and bitterness in our hearts and spirits. And resentment and bitterness are poison for relationships, for joy, for any hope of newness. There are two options: some kind of release that is intentional and healthy or a blow-up that causes lasting damage.
A couple of weeks ago, I was sharing with my friend Randy some of the grief I’ve been feeling—the stacked-up griefs of the past number of years, this last year of pandemics, and the most recent grief over the death of my friend and colleague, Junius. Randy shared with me the story of a woman he came to know when she was his child’s pre-K Montessori teacher. As with most practitioners of the Montessori approach, she is a peaceful presence, careful with her words, patient, and beloved by the little ones she teaches.
One day Randy went to visit her at her home. She was going through a painful divorce and was caring for her two children. At one point he went into the backyard and saw a large stack of assorted, brightly colored plates. When he asked one of the kids about them, he was told, “Oh, those are my mom’s plates.” “What are they for?” “Look…” And there, where the fence formed the corner of the back yard, was a pile of shattered shards of brightly colored plates. Randy asked his friend later, “What’s up with the plates?” She said, “Whenever I need to let something go, I come out here, close the door, and throw plates.” She then demonstrated; she really hurled them…really let it rip. Randy said her countenance changed, the act allowed her to access her fire, her pain, her anger and to release it. When he probed further, he learned that she had learned to do this from her mother back in Puerto Rico where she had been raised.
What beauty and power there is in this practice. This woman knows how to identify when her energy is getting toxic and needs some outside air, how to direct and release her difficult and painful emotions in a visceral way that isn’t aimed at others. “Sometimes,” Randy told me, “she will gather shards from the pile and create mosaic art for her yard, making something beautiful from the broken pieces.”
For most of my life I struggled with the thought of Jesus being “forsaken” on the cross. In the moment he cried out, quoting Psalm 22, he was indeed experiencing the fullness of human suffering—physical, relational, vocational; he gave voice to that deep pain through lament. But some years ago, I remembered that Jesus knew all the words to the Psalms…he knew that verse 1 isn’t the whole prayer. He knew the movement from despair to hope in Psalm 22. Jesus models for us the importance of crying out to God in our suffering, of naming what is real without trying to pretend the wounds of pain and injustice haven’t landed on our bodies and in our spirits. Jesus, on the brink of death, hurls his voice against the heavens like brightly colored plates hurled against a fence, releasing his words even as he releases his spirit, all the while clinging to the promise that God will yet make of his broken body something beautiful and new.
This is the promise from God for all our brokenness and pain. Lament is one way to shake loose that promise in our memory. And so we are invited to pray with Jesus:
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?
O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer;
and by night, but find no rest.
Yet you are holy,
…In you our ancestors trusted;
they trusted, and you delivered them.
To you they cried, and were saved…
All the ends of the earth shall remember
and turn to the Lord;…
…and I shall live for him.
(Ps 22:1-5, 29)
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