I wrote a few weeks ago about the necessity for churches to relearn to lament in worship. I want to pick up that theme again.
I know why we do it -- why we resist lamenting in our churches. I just think those reasons don't hold up to scrutiny. So here I want to take those "reasons" and scrutinize them, in hope that churches will begin to offer a more healthy worship diet.
Why? Well, to be honest, it's scriptural. "Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom" (James 4.9).
In the popular (read: contemporary) worship scene, we simply don't do these things. Substantial engagement with grief (even when that engagement does occur) feels like trying to move a Carnival Cruise ship's course with a canoe. The ship is just too heavy and the music too loud to hear the shouts of those paddling furiously away from the boat -- the line taut between them. Those in the canoe -- I probably should point out -- really aren't all that popular with the cruise ship people. Aside from the obvious "you're not on board" jeers, the folks in the canoe might appear to be working against the direction of the ship, even if that ship is headed for the rocks. The canoe, for those of us who know physics, will just tip over.
Here are the objections I regularly hear, and my responses to them.
1. Lament doesn't fit the tone of our worship.
Worship is pretty much nearly always characterized (in these "contemporary" settings) as a celebration, so it's hardly a surprise to hear this reason. The language intends, furthermore, to appeal to those new to the church (i.e., to be "seeker-friendly"). "We want them to feel warm and welcome." I'm going to side-step the "seeker-friendly" stuff (because I think there is a place for it) but suggest that creating a worship culture that allows people to voice their pain to God is not only welcoming (of all human emotion) but might eventually facilitate a turn toward genuine praise. Maybe worshipers are longing for that kind of environment, where real pain and suffering finds their voice and praise becomes real. If you want the real world to "fit in" in your worship, you'd do better to begin with the pain and suffering that describes so much of that world, than with the happy and celebratory language that defines so much contemporary worship.
2. Lament is for personal use, not public.
They are, but not exclusively. If this were true, the personal laments we have in the Psalms wouldn't be in the Psalms. The Psalms are replete with "psalms of communal lament", set to music. It might be hard for some to imagine ... especially if you're not connected with wider traditions and with larger liturgical traditions (e.g., there's more in common with African-American worship and the Anglican Prayer Books than most folks realize). But let's be clear here: The biblical witness tips in favor of communal lament. Even individual psalms of lament were often set to music by the choir director (e.g., Ps 5, 88), giving the lonely individual worshiper an opportunity to cry out to God in a corporate environment -- or perhaps more to the point, giving the community an opportunity to take up the cry of others.
3. Lament can only be uttered by those without the hope of the resurrection. Christians are "an Easter people", therefore we don't lament.
The basic premise here is that lament is an Old Testament activity, and symptomatic of life before Christ. But this claim is wrong on two accounts. Individuals in the Old Testament did have hope of resurrection, though perhaps not in the same way Christians would express it ("But God will rescue my life from the power of the grave" [Psalm 49.15]). But more to the point: Jesus himself had resurrection hope and he still encouraged and practiced lament. From the cross itself he cried out a lament ("My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"). By the way, that's a quote from Psalm 22 -- a psalm written "for the choir director, according to the tune ..." In Gethsemane, his soul was grieved, even to the point of death (Matthew 26.38, echoing Psalm 42.5-6). There, he cried out to his Father to be rescued from the cross.
The author of Hebrews writes that "Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission" (5.7). For many of us, this sounds like an oxymoron. How could "loud cries and tears" count as "reverent submission"? To this I suggest reading the book of Job, where the suffering man of God rails against God, takes him to court, accuses God, yet is declared to have "spoken rightly about me [God]" (42.7). Reverent speech sounds irreverent when we lose connection with the biblical lament tradition, and sounds defeatist when disconnected from the hope of the resurrection.
Hear me here: Lament only makes sense in light of the resurrection.
4. We can't lament because there aren't any lament songs to be sung in our worship.
Oh, but there are! There just aren't many on the CCLI list -- the one to which most churches subscribe. Your church's praise band isn't aware of them. Which means learning to lament in churches means first learning which resources are actually out there. You might try start with songs like Dry Bones, By the Waters of Babylon, or Leonard Berstein's Chichester Psalms, or the songs listed here or here. There are enough to at least get started.
5. People aren't/wouldn't be comfortable singing lament songs.
This just simply isn't true. Those going through terrible suffering are not comfortable singing only praise, and perhaps we might heed the words of Ecclesiastes: "It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of everyone; the living should take this to heart" (7.2). Or the words of Jesus: "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted" (Matthew 5.4). Or the words of Paul: "Weep with those who weep" (Romans 12.15).
I've spent enough time as a pastor -- at the side of hospital beds and in the homes of the dying and dead -- to know that lament is really the most pastorally appropriate form of worship that makes sense in the church. My theological vision is formed because of that experience with suffering and death. I think it's time for the church to take that suffering seriously, even (and perhaps most importantly within) in worship.
I know why we do it -- why we resist lamenting in our churches. I just think those reasons don't hold up to scrutiny. So here I want to take those "reasons" and scrutinize them, in hope that churches will begin to offer a more healthy worship diet.
Why? Well, to be honest, it's scriptural. "Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom" (James 4.9).
In the popular (read: contemporary) worship scene, we simply don't do these things. Substantial engagement with grief (even when that engagement does occur) feels like trying to move a Carnival Cruise ship's course with a canoe. The ship is just too heavy and the music too loud to hear the shouts of those paddling furiously away from the boat -- the line taut between them. Those in the canoe -- I probably should point out -- really aren't all that popular with the cruise ship people. Aside from the obvious "you're not on board" jeers, the folks in the canoe might appear to be working against the direction of the ship, even if that ship is headed for the rocks. The canoe, for those of us who know physics, will just tip over.
Here are the objections I regularly hear, and my responses to them.
1. Lament doesn't fit the tone of our worship.
Worship is pretty much nearly always characterized (in these "contemporary" settings) as a celebration, so it's hardly a surprise to hear this reason. The language intends, furthermore, to appeal to those new to the church (i.e., to be "seeker-friendly"). "We want them to feel warm and welcome." I'm going to side-step the "seeker-friendly" stuff (because I think there is a place for it) but suggest that creating a worship culture that allows people to voice their pain to God is not only welcoming (of all human emotion) but might eventually facilitate a turn toward genuine praise. Maybe worshipers are longing for that kind of environment, where real pain and suffering finds their voice and praise becomes real. If you want the real world to "fit in" in your worship, you'd do better to begin with the pain and suffering that describes so much of that world, than with the happy and celebratory language that defines so much contemporary worship.
2. Lament is for personal use, not public.
They are, but not exclusively. If this were true, the personal laments we have in the Psalms wouldn't be in the Psalms. The Psalms are replete with "psalms of communal lament", set to music. It might be hard for some to imagine ... especially if you're not connected with wider traditions and with larger liturgical traditions (e.g., there's more in common with African-American worship and the Anglican Prayer Books than most folks realize). But let's be clear here: The biblical witness tips in favor of communal lament. Even individual psalms of lament were often set to music by the choir director (e.g., Ps 5, 88), giving the lonely individual worshiper an opportunity to cry out to God in a corporate environment -- or perhaps more to the point, giving the community an opportunity to take up the cry of others.
3. Lament can only be uttered by those without the hope of the resurrection. Christians are "an Easter people", therefore we don't lament.
The basic premise here is that lament is an Old Testament activity, and symptomatic of life before Christ. But this claim is wrong on two accounts. Individuals in the Old Testament did have hope of resurrection, though perhaps not in the same way Christians would express it ("But God will rescue my life from the power of the grave" [Psalm 49.15]). But more to the point: Jesus himself had resurrection hope and he still encouraged and practiced lament. From the cross itself he cried out a lament ("My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"). By the way, that's a quote from Psalm 22 -- a psalm written "for the choir director, according to the tune ..." In Gethsemane, his soul was grieved, even to the point of death (Matthew 26.38, echoing Psalm 42.5-6). There, he cried out to his Father to be rescued from the cross.
The author of Hebrews writes that "Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission" (5.7). For many of us, this sounds like an oxymoron. How could "loud cries and tears" count as "reverent submission"? To this I suggest reading the book of Job, where the suffering man of God rails against God, takes him to court, accuses God, yet is declared to have "spoken rightly about me [God]" (42.7). Reverent speech sounds irreverent when we lose connection with the biblical lament tradition, and sounds defeatist when disconnected from the hope of the resurrection.
Hear me here: Lament only makes sense in light of the resurrection.
4. We can't lament because there aren't any lament songs to be sung in our worship.
Oh, but there are! There just aren't many on the CCLI list -- the one to which most churches subscribe. Your church's praise band isn't aware of them. Which means learning to lament in churches means first learning which resources are actually out there. You might try start with songs like Dry Bones, By the Waters of Babylon, or Leonard Berstein's Chichester Psalms, or the songs listed here or here. There are enough to at least get started.
5. People aren't/wouldn't be comfortable singing lament songs.
This just simply isn't true. Those going through terrible suffering are not comfortable singing only praise, and perhaps we might heed the words of Ecclesiastes: "It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of everyone; the living should take this to heart" (7.2). Or the words of Jesus: "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted" (Matthew 5.4). Or the words of Paul: "Weep with those who weep" (Romans 12.15).
I've spent enough time as a pastor -- at the side of hospital beds and in the homes of the dying and dead -- to know that lament is really the most pastorally appropriate form of worship that makes sense in the church. My theological vision is formed because of that experience with suffering and death. I think it's time for the church to take that suffering seriously, even (and perhaps most importantly within) in worship.