#26 - Lament to others {Reflections}

What is up everybody?

My name is Ryan and welcome to our Reflections podcast.

I am in studio in Mike's Beats Laboratory, the basement, the dungeon here at church, where all the magic happens and the genius of Mike Lauer is on display and where he occasionally lets me comment and do a podcast.

So anyway, welcome to our space here, this sacred space.

We're glad to be with you.

And hey, you know, today I wanted to talk about a sermon I gave a couple of weeks ago and I wanted to add a little bit onto it.

I couldn't kind of.

Actually, this came about afterwards too.

I have this rabbi friend that I've become friends with and I shared with him my sermon and he's like this is wonderful.

He loved it.

And then he said, hey, also this.

And I was like, oh, I got to share that with the people so quickly.

To bring you up to speed, I gave a sermon on a lament a couple of weeks ago.

I forget the title of it, but it was about what we do when we experience trauma, and trauma really basically the word literally means a wound, and so whenever we experience a wound in life, what do we do with it?

And the invitation was to bring this to God in a lament.

David, of course, is famous for lament, lament Psalms.

In fact, laments dominate a majority of the Psalms, the book of Psalms, and they're filled with these laments.

And a lament is this passionate expression of grief or sorrow in which David and the other Psalmists write these words of prayer and lament and which actually are words of praise, oddly enough.

But these words of expressive grief and sorrow to God and it's incredible, in Psalms six was the psalm I used in this sermon David comes before God like with this unadulterated sort of passionate expression of grief and sorrow.

He complains about his acute suffering, he tells God his bones are rattled and how long, oh Lord like?

In other words, how long, god, will you let me suffer like this?

And it's a thinly veiled accusation, and I love it because in this moment David is boldly assuming that God cares at all about him, which in the ancient world was unheard of.

Most of the gods didn't care about people and the people knew this.

So you look at Greek history, roman history, even Babylonian or other sort of ancient Near Eastern histories of people who believed in the gods, which is mostly everybody.

They would never express their grief or sorrow to God because God didn't care about you.

But David here in this radical upside down turn of events.

Here he boldly assumes that God cares, and I love it.

He expects God to do something, and so it's like this wake up, call God, wake up and do something, and I want you to help me.

And these laments they never end in the same place in which they start.

So David begins here, but he ends all of his Psalms of lament with this declaration of praise and hope to God.

But I love it.

So in my sermon I said, hey, bring your laments to God, write them down, don't be afraid to be sort of just unfiltered in your prayers to God.

You know, I even gave some instruction for how to write that prayer, that lament, and you can email me if you want me to get that to you in an email.

But just give it to God, like it.

Just bring these laments to God.

And it's odd how unchristian David's prayers are in his laments.

And it's okay to be open and honest to God.

So I sent this to my this rabbi friend of mine.

He's brilliant.

He's Joseph Edelhight.

He's this brilliant Jewish rabbi.

He was a rabbi at a synagogue here in Minneapolis.

Now he's down in Brazil, but he's written lots of books, he's great, and I just get him getting to know him and he's like hey, send me your sermon.

Oh, my gosh, I'm a little bit nervous.

I'm preaching on the Hebrew Bible David, one of the main Hebrew characters in the Bible and this guy's like a.

He's a Jewish scholar, so I'm like a little bit nervous.

But he wrote back.

He's very gracious, like hey, he actually liked it.

He's like this is so wonderful A sermon that should be given regularly, ryan.

And he's like you should do this again because people need to know this.

And then he said this yes, bring your laments to God, but then I'm gonna read you his email.

He said, yes, I agree, laments assume a trusted relationship, and I was assuming just with God.

But he goes.

Some people are blessed to have this relationship as a child, with their parents and or their grandparents, and some find it among teachers or coaches and, yes, clergy too.

The key is to find and sustain relationships at every point of our lives like this.

And he writes there is no lament just to God, in my view.

He says Because sometimes, like Job, we don't get a response until the whirlwind.

God is always there and the ultimate source, but we need someone among us with whom we have a safe and caring source to share our box.

In my sermon, the box was the wound we've been given.

So he's like, yes, ryan, lament to God, but also there is no lament just to God, because oftentimes God can feel or sound silent.

So we need to have people flush in blood in our lives to whom we also lament to.

And I was like, oh my gosh, that is beautiful and that is the epitome to me of like friendship, relationships and the church.

I would say.

So the question posed to me, I think, and also I wanna pose it to you, is do you have someone like this in your life to whom you can lament or who wants to hear your laments, your expressions of grief and sorrow?

My dear friend John passed away a couple of weeks ago I've shared it in a few places and I was asked to go and share his funeral last Friday last Thursday, excuse me and I was asked to share it and I didn't know what to share and I decided to write a lament and, without unpacking all of this for them, I only had a short time to share I just said, hey, I want to lament, I wrote a lament.

I want to lament, I want to share it with you all, and this is my lament to God, it's also to you.

I want you to hold space for me as I lament our dear friend John's death and it's passing.

That was too soon and so I wrote this thing and I actually then gave it as a lament to them for them to hear it, and it was a way to honor John.

And so I want to ask you do you have someone in your life to whom you can lament?

And, of course, give your lament to God and write those down and shake your fists of the heavens, as I said in this sermon.

But I'm also like encouraged now to like find someone in my life to whom I can lament, and then also, may you be that for somebody else.

May you say to somebody a friend, a close loved one, hey, I want you to bring your expressions of grief and sorrow and honesty to me and I want to hold space for you as you lament to me.

So, as you hear this, may you be a person who can find others to whom you can lament, and may you also be a person to whom others can come and lament to you on behalf of God.

May we be this for each other.

Okay, grace and peace.

Love you guys.

Hey, if you enjoy this show, I'd love to have you share with some friends.

And don't forget you are always welcome to join us in person at Central in Elk River at 8 30, which is our liturgical gathering, or at 10 o'clock, our modern gathering, or you can check us out online at clclcreverorg.

Peace.