In his book, Praying the Psalms, Walter Brueggemann suggests that there are basically three types of psalms: those of orientation, disorientation and reorientation. While at Fuller we have been spending an hour each morning in prayer with the psalms. We have been praying in the style of the ancient lectio devina (divine prayer). This form of prayer has traditionally included four elements: lectio (reading), meditatio (meditation), oratio (prayer) and contemplatio (contemplation). It has been a wonderful experience to pray in this way through the different kinds of psalms.
Today we prayed through a prayer of disorientation, Psalm 137. Psalms of disorientation reflect on life when it is not working the way we intuitively think it should; when the world doesn't make sense; when it feels like God has nothing to say and has abandoned us. Often they are recorded in the form of laments and imprecations.
Psalm 137 is written in captivity. Israel has been conquered, the people have been deported, and the temple has been destroyed. Life as they know it is over, there is no hope in sight. In this context the psalmist writes,
By the rivers of Babylon— there we sat down and there we wept
How can such a lyric be used for worship in the life of a community? As I practiced lectio this morning my heart and soul could not help but meditate on this verse and ask this question. What disorientation and dislocation have I experienced that could cause me to feel so hopeless, so sad, so out of place? There have been a handful of times -- the loss of a grandparent, the break up of a relationship, the anxiety of burnout. But there is a deeper more critical question that this psalm calls forth. What might cause an entire community to lament together?
As I meditated on this question I realized that the place of weeping for me has most recently been the worship service. My heart continues to soften as I am exposed to the pain in people's lives. While leading worship I have learned to be sensitive to the body of believers that has assembled -- to the joy and the pain. I have found myself weeping on a number of occasions: telling the story of a young couple losing a child; processing an act of terror or a tsunami; praying for a family missing children in the wake of Katrina; watching a woman struggle through worship after her husband has left; gathering in prayer clusters around the friends of a woman who committed suicide. Pain visits our sanctuaries every Sunday. Often it is communal.
Lament is the largest category of psalms yet so many of us in church leadership believe that the worship service is the place where people should be happy. Is there a place for tears in worship? Is it possible that I might leave a Sunday service bearing the burden of my brothers and sisters, dislocated, disoriented and honest with my emotions before Yahweh?
Full-time professor, part-time pastor, husband, father of two small boys, news writer for @U2 (atu2.com), just trying to find my way in a new world.
Amen. The denial of human pain in corporate worship is a denial of whom God has made us and a refusal to admit the state to which global and personal sinfulness has brought us.
In addition, I would add, where is our communal music of lament? Our happy songs or lyrics of promise show nothing of the pain that many among our numbers face on a daily basis. It is somewhat disingenuous of us to sing our usual hymns and choruses when what is most on our hearts is the suffering state of our souls. There are times we should allow ourselves to be overwhelmed (even musically) by the difficulties and pain of life - the psalmists certainly did. It is experiencing these moments fully that give us a context for the tenderness of Christ, the awareness of his beautiful Body, and the coming deliverance of God.
Posted by: Linda | February 22, 2006 at 02:13 PM
We do need music that will explore the laments. I think of Mozart's Requiem or Rachmaninov's vocalise which I often listen to.
We also need people of God to write laments in contemporary ways. Bono has been trying to do this through pop music that addresses the pains of life. Check out the song, "Peace on Earth", a bitter sweet recognition of the tension between violence and a coming kingdom -- http://www.u2.com/music/lyrics.php?song=133&list=p.
We need new laments that reflect what is happening in our world (global and local) today.
Posted by: Tim Neufeld | February 22, 2006 at 02:59 PM