Duke Summer Institute pt 2: Lament

Ah, my dear angry Lord,
Since thou dost love, yet strike;
Cast down, yet help afford;
Sure I will do the like.

I will complain, yet praise;
I will bewail, approve;
And all my sour-sweet days
I will lament and love.

-Bitter-sweet by George Herbert

This afternoon I let my own face carry the wet and the salt of lament till it made little red roads down from my eyes and spread across my lips and salted my tongue. I watched a middle-aged Sudanese priest put his face to the floor in tears while praying for the middle east, where Muslims, like those persecuting Christians in his homeland, live apart from the peace of Jesus Christ.

I sat amazed at the table with two African American women as they listened to Bob Dylan sing about Medgar Evers' killer and the senseless murder of Hattie Carol. There is pain that doesn't fit my understanding, or my manageable categorizing. I am convicted by the words of Dylan that I have "philosophized disgrace". There is a time for tears.

Phileena Heuertz, from Word Made Flesh, told of what she has been learning among the poorest of the poor around the world. That God is breaking her from her habit of wishing to fix people. Instead, like Jesus, she is learning to enter into brokenness and lament in order to love. We go with the broken, ourselves broken. Like Psalm 126 says, we

go out weeping,
carrying seed to sow,
and return with songs of joy,
carrying sheaves with us.

I saw paintings, heard poems, listened to songs all created from places of deep grief and lament today. All exhaled into stunned and somehow hideously happy societies, laments carrying seeds to sow. I say 'hideously happy' because when there was hurt that needed to be grieved or suffering that needed to met... the gravesites were paved over and an amusement park built on top. The word 'hide' is in hideous. Jeremiah speaks:

They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. 'Peace, peace,' they say, when there is no peace.

Jesus entered into our brokenness, he wept, he bled. He did not ignore or belittle. Jesus is not embarrassed.

Let's not be afraid to let our hearts break. To call evil what it is, to name the pain. May our tears be seeds sown in the tired, trampled ground. And when the weeping is done, Oh Lord, when the fallow-rest has been enough, let the ground birth laughter - Light and Breath playing through the leaves of the Tree of Life.

Reproach, Approach, Reconciliation

When the Israelites finally entered the promised land God said he was 'removing the reproach of Egypt from them'. (Joshua 5:9-12) Here are some definitions of reproach (which is related to reprobate):

reproach (n.)
c.1420, from O.Fr. reproche (12c.), from reprocher "to blame, bring up against," said by some Fr. etymologists to be from V.L. *repropiare, from L. re- "opposite of" + prope "near." But others suggest *reprobicare, from L. reprobus/reprobare (see reprobate). The verb is attested from c.1489.

reprobate (adj.)
1540s, "rejected as worthless," from L.L. reprobatus, pp. of reprobare "disapprove, reject, condemn," from L. re- "opposite of, reversal of previous condition" + probare "prove to be worthy" (see probate). The noun is recorded from 1540s, "one rejected by God." Sense of "abandoned or unprincipled person" is from 1590s. Earliest form of the word in English was a verb, meaning "to disapprove" (early 15c.).

This word has a sense of a lack of relational proximity, of being unwanted, blamed, undesired, worthless. The Israelites were a people who were not wanted or valued. As they enter the promised land God removes that reproach. Have you ever thought about what it would feel like to hear this from God? It's like he's saying to them, "No one wanted you and everyone thought Egypt was so fantastic, right? I am the real God, think about it, who am I with? You or Egypt? I love you Israel."

Then in the New Testament 2 Cor 5:16-21 we are told we have been reconciled to God through Christ and are now given the message of reconciliation.

Reconciliation is a neat word. Check this out. Reconcile comes from conciliate which comes from council. Check out the etymology of council:

council
early 12c., from Anglo-Norm. cuncile, from O.N.Fr. concilie, from L. concilium "group of people, meeting," from com- "together" + calare "to call". Tendency to confuse it in form and meaning with counsel has been consistent since 16c.

So reconcile has in it a sense of having been 'called' out of separation and into attachment. There's an element of proclamation. The people of God were an unloved, unwanted, people of reproach in Egypt. But there has been a proclamation of reconciliation. God wants relational proximity, loving nearness. Watch this: instead of reproach we have approach. God removes reproach with his own approach and call of reconciliation. You are loved, wanted. Didn't he prove his love? When did he die for us? While we were sinners, slaves, unwanted, unloved, under reproach. That is when he approached us and called us together in attachment to himself.

Now we call out on his behalf to those who live under reproach. Now we approach them. We call them to gather with us with the true God who does want them to be near him through Jesus' loving work- his own death for reprobates.

ps. Want to know what the cooooooolest site ever is? www.etymonline.com
pps. Yes, I'm a word-dork.