3rd Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 7A

3rd Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 7A June 21, 2020 When I do premarital counseling with couples who are preparing to be married, I spend a whole session with them on expectations. Unvoiced or unmet expectations are often sources for conflict in marriages as well as in other relationships, including churches. Folks in 12 steps programs often say that an unspoken expectation is a resentment in waiting, and resentments are deadly for people in recovery. Our two scripture readings today are actually both, in some ways, about expectations. Our Old Testament reading from Jeremiah is a study in what unmet expectations can do to a relationship as Jeremiah rails against God. And Jesus, in his 2nd of 5 major teachings in Matthew’s gospel is trying to debunk some of his disciples unrealistic expectations of what life will be like as his disciple before he sends them out to do mission work on his behalf. While the two readings are complementary, it is Jeremiah that has caught my attention this week. Jeremiah, who lives in a chaotic time and who has been preaching about the coming destruction to Jerusalem, is finding his audience to be more hostile than he would like. And so he rails against God, accusing God that God has enticed him and overpowered him, saying that God has compelled him to proclaim the coming ruin and destruction of Jerusalem, and as a result, Jeremiah has become a laughingstock. Jeremiah’s rage and his grief are palpable even across the centuries, and I find this passage is often difficult for me to read because it is just so raw, so real. But it can be helpful for us, too, as an invitation to sit with our own unmet expectations in our relationship with God. In fact, this portion of Jeremiah falls into a genre of biblical literature that is known as the lament. There is a large portion of Psalms that fall into this category of lament and, of course, the book Lamentations. The classical biblical lament follows a standard pattern that we see unfolding here in this passage from Jeremiah (specifically in verses 7-13): “(i.) a brief opening address, directed to God (v. 7 ‘O Lord’) followed by (ii.) the complaint (vv 7-10), in which the lamenter’s affliction and isolation are vividly described and the enemies are portrayed and quoted; followed by the most characteristic feature, usually introduced by an adversative (‘but’ or ‘nevertheless’), in which the lamenter gives (iii.) a strong confession of trust in God (v 11) and directly petitions God (v12, ‘let me see your retribution upon them’). Finally, laments usually conclude with an element of praise, present or in prospect, directed to the larger community, to whom testimony of God’s deliverance is directed.”i (We can see a similar structure at work in the Psalm appointed for today, as well.) So, what’s that got to do with us? This past week, I listened to a podcast titled Pivot that comes out of Luther Seminary, and the episode for this week was on lament. The hosts talk about how lament helps us give voice to our anger, our grief, our frustration, our powerlessness, our feeling that we are all alone, surrounded by enemies; and it is an important way of being with God, basically naming before God our unmet expectations so that they do not come between us and God. One of the hosts tells a story about how leaning into lament has change and reshaped his relationship with God. He tells the story of an Old Testament professor he had named John Goldengay, who describes lament as “shaking your fist at God and saying, ‘You promised things wouldn’t be this way.’” And he tells a story of when Goldengay’s wife was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and overtime she became unable to speak and was confined to a wheelchair. John would take his wife everywhere with him, to meetings, to class, and then every night, he would pray lament on her behalf because she could no longer do it herself. He would cry out to God and say, “Things are not supposed to be this way. This is not what you promised.” Eventually, John’s wife died, and years later, he remarried. The daughter of his new wife was working in the refugee camps in Darfur with people who were in immense suffering, and every evening, John and his wife would pray lament on behalf of the people of Darfur. These two powerful examples in the life of this one man show that lament is both deeply personal as well as communal; lament can be prayed on our own behalf, on the behalf of others, or on behalf of our entire society. I don’t know about y’all, but I need lament right now because it gives me a place to be candid with God, and it gives me a place to put all of the longings and losses and disappointments and grief of this season of our common life. Candor, with God and with each other, is a statement of trust and vulnerability, and in that spirit, lament can be an act of courage. It is an invitation to us to give voice to our expectations of who God is in order to release those expectations; because as Jesus teaches, God will consistently defy all expectations and refuses to be limited by them. So, your invitation this week is to write or pray a lament, either for yourself, for society, or for someone else. And as you practice lament, be mindful that lamenting connects us across time and across the world to all others who have cried out to God in lament. Even in our individuality, lament is always communal. In order to do this, I have a form you can use, and I want to challenge you to be as candid in this as possible because, as Jeremiah shows us, God can handle our honesty. This lament form is comprised of 4 statements: 1. God, I don’t understand _____. 2. God, please, fix _________. 3. God, I trust you with my future even if__________. 4. God, I will praise you even when___________. Lament can change the way that we talk to God, and in this season of chaos and isolation, it may be exactly what we all need. i. Butler, James T. Exegetical Perspective (for Proper 7A) from Feasting on the Word Year A Vol 3. Ed. Bartlett and Taylor. Westminster John Knox: 2011, p 149.