Melissa's Theological Wrestling Match: Reverence for God Revisited

A few months ago I wrote a blog called “Keeping it Real and Reverence for God”.  There I admitted that even though I resonate with my generation’s passion for spiritual authenticity, I find myself uncomfortable with some of the crass and colloquial statements that we sometimes use to express our feelings of anger or confusion toward God.  It wasn’t just a coincidence that I had just finished reading Leviticus and gotten the feeling that perhaps many of us had forgotten the awe-inspiring nature of the God at whom we are hurling these comments. I made the following statement there that summarizes the tenor of my blog-post:

"The hard truth is that we are going to endure times that we feel God is absent or even that He is forsaking us in a certain situation but we should be careful how, when, and to whom we verbalize it. Perhaps, in smaller matters that mostly have to do with out distrust in God, we may need to repent of our unbelief.  In matters of great disaster that leave our heads completely spinning in devastation, perhaps we should first confess our anger and grief in our personal prayer lives or maybe even with an individual and very trusted accountability partner.  He obviously knows when we are angry with Him, so we should confess this to Him, plead with Him, and pour out our hearts to Him in truth, butmust we always publicly express our displeasure toward God?"  

I tried to make a distinction between comments we make to God privately in prayer or whatnot and what we say to God or about God in a public forum (for example, a blog or a sermon, etc).  And then I made a qualification that I hope you caught.  I said, “Perhaps you have better answers and solutions than I do.”  This was my attempt to warn you that I even though I felt fair enough warrant to say what I did, I also knew there was much more to the story. 

And there is. 

And I’ve been doing a lot of reading in that direction because I never want to get too stuck in my theological viewpoints that I miss out on allowing Scripture to knock down my tightly held interpretations.  I think sometimes we search Scripture in order to look for support on viewpoints we already maintain, when we really should expect Scripture more often than not to confront and destroy those viewpoints- after all, we are human and we’ve been wrong before, right?  So we can be wrong again.  I have on occasion seen people maintain viewpoints that are so obviously contrary to what Scripture says in effort to defend a position that they have held for many years.  To see this sort of behavior firsthand is astonishing.  It is also one of my greatest personal fears.  So I did more study because I felt there was more depth to this tension that we experience as Christians- this tension of fearing and showing reverence to God while at the same time maintaining confidence to approach Him and voice our despair and unbelief to Him.

In addition to looking through some of Jeremiah, the Psalms, Job, and Lamentations, I’ve read two things that have caught my attention lately: a book called “The God I Don’t Understand: Reflections on Tough Questions of Faith” by Christopher J.H. Wright and an article called “If God is Good and Sovereign, Why Lament?” by Nicholas Wolterstorff (published in Calvin Theological Journal 2001).  Both of these publications have me thinking a whole lot about the literature that reflects a voice of protest and lament in the Bible itself.

So, What is Lament?

To use Wolterstorff’s explanation “The lament, at its heart, is giving voice to the suffering that accompanies deep loss, whatever that loss may be.  Lament is not about suffering.  Lament is not concerning suffering.  Lament does not count the stages and try to identify the stage in which one finds oneself.  Lament is the language of suffering, the voicing of suffering.  Behind lament are tears over loss.  Lament goes beyond the tears to voice the suffering.  To voice suffering, one must name it- identify it.  Sometimes that is difficult, even impossible.  The memories are repressed so that the suffering is screened from view.  Or one is aware of it, in a way, but in naming it, identifying it for what it is, would be too painful, too embarrassing.  So one resists.  Then, one cannot lament.  One suffers without being able to lament.  Lament is an achievement.   Lament is more, though, than the voicing of suffering.  The mere voicing of one’s suffering is complaint, not lament.  Lament is a cry to God.  This presupposes, of course, that lament is the action of a believer” (42-43).

Wright also made a comment that hit me in between the eyes.  I hope you will read it all the way through:

"In the Bible, which we believe is God's Word, such that we find in it is what God wished to be there, there is plenty of lament, protest, anger, and baffled questions.  The point we should notice (possibly to our surprise) is that it is all hurled at God, not by his enemies but by those who loved and trusted him most.  It seems, indeed, that it is precisely those who have the closest relationship with God who feel most at liberty to pour out their pain and protest to God- without fear or reproach.  Lament is not only allowed in the Bible; it is modeled for us in abundance.  God seems to want to give us many words with which to fill in our complaint forms as to write out thank-you notes.  Perhaps this is because whatever amount of lament the world causes us to express is a drop in the ocean compared to the grief in the heart of God himself at the totality of suffering that only God can comprehend” (50-51).

And then he says something even more striking:

"It surely cannot be accidental that in the divinely inspired book of Psalms there are more psalms of lament and anguish that of joy and thanksgiving.  These are words that God has actually given us.  God has allowed them a prominent place in his authorized songbook.  We need both forms of worship in abundance as we live in this wonderful, terrible world…I feel that the language of lament is seriously neglected in the church.  Many Christians seem to feel that somehow it can’t be right to complain to God in the context of corporate worship when we should all feel happy.  There is an implicit pressure to stifle our real feelings because we are urged by pious merchants of emotional denial, that we ought to have “faith” (as if the moaning psalmists didn’t).  So we end up giving external voice to pretended emotions we do not really feel, while hiding the real emotions we are struggling with deep inside.  Going to worship can become an exercise in pretence and concealment, neither of which can possibly be conducive for a real encounter with God.  So, in reaction to some appalling disaster or tragedy, rather than cry out our true feelings to God, we prefer other ways of responding to it.

It’s all part of God’s curse on the earth.  

It’s God’s judgment. 

It’s meant for a warning.

It’s ultimately for our own good.

God is sovereign so that must make it all OK in the end” (52).

And then comes the real clincher.  Wright says, "But our suffering friends in the Bible didn't choose that way.  They simply cry out in pain and protest against God- precisely because they know God.  Their protest is born out of the jarring contrast between what they know and what they see" (53).

Wolterstorff gives two main parts to a lament: First, lament is a cry to God for deliverance:  “Deliver me, O God, from this suffering” (see Psalm 22:19-21a as an example).  Second, lament is a cry to God of “Why? “Why, O God is this happening?” (Psalm 22: 1-2 as an example) I don’t understand it…I cannot discern your hand in this darkness” (44).  It is crucial as believers in Christ that the “the cry occurs within the context of the yet of enduring faith and ongoing praise, for in raising Christ from the dead, we have God’s word and deed that he will be victorious in the struggle” (52). 

Now I’ve never uttered a lament in my life.  I’ve complained, don’t get me wrong but I’ve never composed or verbally expressed something of my own in the form of a biblical lament.  If I am to be honest, I must admit that my personality tends to want to err on the side of reverence for God and unwavering trust no matter the horror of the situation rather than choose the route of raw authenticity.  I don’t say this to boast, for I am obviously numbered among those “pious merchants of emotional denial” who lay pressure on people to stifle their real feelings that Wright so eloquently rebukes.  And I am openly grappling with Wright’s words.  I think he may be right about me.  Just like those who I think have stepped over a boundary and offended God in their attempt to be “authentic”, I think in my attempt to “reverence” God I may have been emotionally aloof and callous toward real human suffering.  In this I have ignored my own Savior’s haunting words, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”  Over the past few weeks of studying lament and protest in the biblical text, I’ve felt a humanness that I don’t always feel.  I haven’t felt as dismissive of suffering or brokenness.  I feel a little more in touch with reality.  So this is me being theologically vulnerable with you today.  And it ain’t easy.

Now back to our previous issue- the paradox.  The paradox is something like this- we have confidence to voice our despair and our confusion to God but at the same time we must remember to whom we speak.  Now in this blog post I am trying to come clean that I may have swung too far on the pendulum, but there is of course the polar opposite extreme.  There are a couple of passages that draw a line for us concerning our protests and laments to God that I think we must keep in mind.  Psalm 73 is a passage that often gets my attention.  The Psalmist Asaph compares the righteous and the wicked and he despairs that the wicked are carefree and prosperous.  Why do the faithful exert so much energy when there is no advantage for them over the wicked?  He then lets us in on something- he wouldn’t speak this out loud to others because he knows he would betray God’s children. He refrained from speaking disturbing words to the people of God because he knew they could cause serious and perhaps lasting damage.  This is profound.  In addition to Psalm 73, there is a fascinating passage in Jeremiah where Jeremiah says something absolutely SHOCKING:            

"You understand, O LORD; remember me and care for me.  Avenge me on my persecutors...When your came, I ate them; They were my joy and my heart's delight, For I bear your name, O Lord God Almighty...Why is my pain unending and my wound grievous and incurable?  Will you be to me like a deceptive brook, like a spring that fails?" (Jer. 15:15-17)

 Okay, so Jeremiah has just asked God why his pain is unending even though he has lived faithfully and in painful isolation for God’s very name, and then he says to the Lord, “Will you be to me like a spring that fails?”  This is bold, Jeremiah, very bold.  This is Scripture, mind you, and I am getting uncomfortable.  God then says:

"If you repent, I will restore you that you may serve me; if you utter worthy, not worthless, words, you will be my spokesman" (Jer. 15:19).

Here God’s words to Jeremiah show that even though we have a voice with Him, there is a line that we can cross when we protest and lament.  Jeremiah may need to watch his mouth at this point.  The Lord has deemed Jeremiah’s words to be worthless, though of course He allows him the opportunity to repent.  There are boundaries to our protests.

The point of this blog was to take you through a theological journey I am going through- one of dealing with the paradox of the Christian life.  As Wolterstorff pointed out in his essay, there have been many in our theological tradition resistant to following the biblical writer’s example and fully partaking in lament (Augustine, Aquinas, and Calvin are just a few examples).  And they had their reasons.  Some of them are pretty good reasons.  For example, Calvin would have voiced his suffering but would not have cried out “Why?” since he believed he knew the answer to that question: suffering is sent from the hand of God for our good.  As Wolterstorff says, “We must choose, then, between the massive weights of our theological tradition, on the one hand, and following the psalmist and permitting ourselves to lament, on the other.  Should we choose against the tradition, that choice must not be quick, or glib…We must know what we are doing when we make the choice; we must realize the consequences” (50).  Wolterstorff who wrote in the wake of the early death of his own son chose to lament but he is careful to caution us to make our choice intelligently.

Be assured- these are theological questions and I know they’re tough.  These are questions concerning how we apply and interpret biblical texts, whether or not we feel that we have the freedom to speak in the same way the biblical authors spoke.  And if we believe we do have that freedom, then just how far is too far?  Where is the line?  So, faced with the paradox and the promise that some amount of pain is inevitably coming your direction- how will you respond?  Will you swing toward the direction of refusing to verbalize your deepest questions and uncertainties or will you lament like the Psalmist or like the prophet Jeremiah?  And beyond that, do you think lament should be used more commonly in corporate worship contexts?

As far as I am concerned these are very difficult questions without any simple answers, but this doesn’t keep me from asking you where you stand in the midst of all of this and what insight you may have. 

Praise the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph; the God of David, Solomon, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, Peter, and Paul.  Praise the God who carries His people through a dark and broken world and grants us bright hope for an everlasting tomorrow.  The God who will one day light the beacons of heaven, sound the trumpets, and until that great day scatters glimpses of triumph for us through all the tragedy.