6th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 8B

6th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 8B July 1, 2018 Last week, our dog Casper died. It was hard and horrible, and it broke my heart. I cried for two straight days and wasn’t fit to go out in public. I wasn’t planning to talk about it, but then I couldn’t shake the theme of lament that is woven through a number of our readings for today. In our passage from the Old Testament, we see David, now king after the death of Saul, lamenting the deaths of both Saul and his beloved friend Jonathan; we get to eaves-drop on his grief and his lamentation, and we, along with all of Israel, are invited to participate in his lamenting: “O daughters of Israel, weep over Saul, who clothed you with crimson, in luxury, who put ornaments of gold on your apparel… …Jonathan lies slain upon your high places. I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan; greatly beloved were you to me; your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.” Then our Psalm for today, Psalm 130, is one of the psalms of lamentation: “Out of the depths have I called to you, O Lord; Lord, hear my voice; * let your ears consider well the voice of my supplication.” It is a cry to the Lord, out of the depths, for help. And then in our gospel reading for today, we see two people, in extreme situations, where they are clearly distraught and come to Jesus to ask for help. We have the father, Jairus, who seeks out Jesus to save his young daughter from death. Mark tells us that when Jairus saw Jesus, he “fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly.” And as Jesus is headed to Jairus’s house with him, he is secretly confronted by the woman who had been hemorrhaging for 12 years. She is at the point of desperation and thinks that if she can just touch Jesus, she will be made well. And it happens, but then Jesus calls her out in front of everyone. She confesses, and he blesses her and continues on his way. When Jesus and Jairus and the disciples arrive at Jairus’s home, they see “a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly” because the child has died. But Jesus goes inside, and he heals the little girl. It strikes me that both of these people, the woman and Jairus, come to Jesus completely vulnerable and exposed in their suffering, and he responds to them with compassion. (And he will do that for us, too.) All of these lamentations this week, coupled with a little distance from my own grief, have reminded me of the total lack of lamentation in our own culture. I can only think of a couple of different times in my adult life when I have participated in any kind of public lament (after 9/11 and after hurricane Katrina hit the MS gulf coast). And these laments were both in church settings. So many times, we don’t know what to do with other people’s grief or we worry that people won’t know what to do with ours if we share it. In fact, we live in a culture that is obsessed with making pain disappear. And don’t get me wrong, sometimes we do need relief from our pain. But sometimes, the only way to get relief and move beyond our pain isn’t to block it, deny it or ignore it, but to face it head on. And our culture does not encourage us to do that, nor does our church really. Thankfully, we have our lectionary, that makes us deal with more of the scriptures (like the Psalms of lament) than we would if left to our own devices. The Psalms can be helpful tools to us in the times when we need to lament, when we need to remind God that we are still here and suffering; in the times when we need to call God to some accountability; and in the times when we need to name before God our heartbreak. They are the lamentations of those who have gone before us, and there is power and healing in sharing those songs of lament with them. So, my question for you today is “What breaks your heart?” What pain have you been trying to ignore or deny or squash down? I invite you to spend some time considered what breaks your heart this week. And then offer it to God, maybe while using the words of Psalm 130. Also, let’s begin thinking and praying about how we as a community of faith and followers of Jesus might make more space for lamentation, for other peoples’ grief, and for folks to be vulnerable and authentic in ways we haven’t before.