The Psalms of Lament: A Guide for our Worship

Mental Health & Disabilities
Lorne W. Friesen

Walter Brueggemann in his article, The Costly Loss of Lament, invites us to reflect upon our worship services by examining the use of the Psalms in Jewish worship.

The Psalter, Israel's hymn book, is used regularly in Jewish worship. The Psalms were used with drama and audience participation in Judaism.

There are many kinds of Psalms, but here we want to consider the "lament psalms." Psalms of lament, such as Psalm 55, give expression to the anguish, pain and failure that is within the hearts of individuals and the community of faith.

Brueggemann writes, "In these Psalms, Israel moves from articulation of hurt and anger to submission of them to God and finally relinquishment. Only when there is such relinquishment can there be praise and acts of generosity."

 

We identify our laments

We begin by identifying our laments, the hurt and anger in our life. There are many reasons why we hurt. Some hurt because of the natural consequences of living in a world that the Apostle Paul says is "in bondage to decay."

Some of us remember the painful stories of surviving the economic hardships of the drought and depression of the 1930's. For others it is the upheaval caused by hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, or earthquakes. Still others can never forget the horrors of war and revolutions. Others struggle with loss of life or the loss of the value of life. How do we verbalise the pain in our hearts when we see loved ones suffer and die because of incurable illnesses?

 

Some suffer in silence

Fortunately, our faith communities have often provided emotional and material support. However, there are others who suffer in silence. Consider the agony of young couples who are childless or suffer from repeated miscarriages.

Consider the anguish of families struggling with mental illness. Sit with a woman whose husband is suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Listen to the family of an addict who has squandered their livelihood.

Still others deal with the private pain of wilful injury. Some are victims of abuse, whether that be physical, sexual, verbal or spiritual. Many carry the scars of abuse for decades before they finally have courage to speak of it.

Consider a parent's anguish over a delinquent or abusive child. Still other people feel betrayed by friends and loved ones.

Often the families of prominent leaders, whether civic or church, feel neglected and abandoned because these same leaders are emotionally unavailable to their families. Then there is the pain that is caused by conflicts within congregations. Hurt and suffering are very common.

 

To lament is worship

To lament is not a sign of illness. It is healthy to feel the pain of injustice, betrayal, failure and loss. Likewise, grief is a sign of health. Jesus is a model of lament and grief. He looked over the city of Jerusalem and lamented the religious chaos of that city. He stood by the grave of Lazarus and wept.

I believe the theme of lament is particularly important for people who are affected by mental illness. I am concerned that people whose lives are devastated by mental illness can find support to nurture a healthy faith. Like Jesus, who wept alone in the Garden of Gethsemane while his disciples slept, many of those devastated by mental illness are abandoned by their faith community.

 

Examine the church's response

It is not enough to identify the various sources of our suffering. We need to examine the church's position towards hurting people. It is not the intent of this article to speak to the individual efforts of pastors and churches in meeting the needs of the hurting. As important as this is, it is the subject of other discussions. We want to look at how we address this issue in the time of worship, the high point of the week.

It is gratifying to note that our churches often are very sensitive to people who suffer certain kinds of hardship. Many of our churches include prayer requests in their Sunday morning bulletin. But this is fraught with limitations. One man said, "When I had cancer there were many prayers for me in the church, but now that I have mental illness the church ignores me."

Some of the most bitter of our hurts and sufferings are not appropriate to be included in the bulletin prayer reminders. Printing them in bulletins and specifically including them in the pastoral prayer might just add to the hurt. Some of the pastor's most intense ministry is conducted behind the scenes. Worship, however, is a very public act. When the community suffers, public worship should respond even as it did in Judaism.

Worship in the Old Testament is part of a covenant relationship with God. When we are unable to bring our laments to God in worship, Brueggemann argues, we have a "loss of genuine covenant interaction." The hurting has become voiceless. God is then surrounded only by people who are "yes men and yes women from whom never is heard a discouraging word."

Brueggemann says that in healthy families children grow up able to express their needs and experience appropriate responses from their parents. How much more, then, must we believe that a loving God responds appropriately to our needs! If our worship causes the hurting to become voiceless, our worship has lost its integrity and its capacity to bring healing. It is a major loss to the faith community.

 

The need for theodicy

Brueggemann goes on to say that "The second loss caused by the absence of lament is the stifling of the question of theodicy." Theodicy is conversation with God about justice. It is the process whereby we ask why a loving God would allow events that cause us to suffer. We courageously tell God that things are not right.

Why does a loving God not intervene? "Where the lament is absent, the normal mode of the theodicy question is forfeited," says Brueggemann. "When the lament form is censured justice questions cannot be asked and eventually become invisible and illegitimate."

 

In worship, allow lament

The challenge of Brueggemann's article is to structure our worship services in such a manner that people who are hurting feel that God hears and understands. One of the hard consequences of suffering is the silence and isolation endured when we dare not give voice to our pain.

To imply that our pain has no place in worship is to render powerless those who suffer. This powerlessness leads to hopelessness and a diminished sense of self-worth. Before long people feel that they are not welcome in God's presence. Unfortunately, this is reinforced by some who teach that Christians must always be victorious, healthy and joyful.

I would like to offer these suggestions. First, the reading of Scripture is one component of worship that helps us voice our laments. We do well to include Scriptures of lament in our service at appropriate times. The reading of Scriptures may profoundly impact our healing.

I have observed that some evangelical church services have lost the inspiration that comes from reading Scripture in worship. Too often the Scripture read is chosen to augment the sermon.

Brueggemann suggests that it is a costly loss to exclude the Psalms of lament. We need to evaluate the attention we give to the reading of the Word. We still have much to learn about preparing to read the Word and preparing ourselves to hear the Word. One powerful means of presenting the Word is to memorise passages and speak them to the congregation.

To include the theme of laments within the scope of our preaching is to declare that God passionately meets us in our tears. Brueggemann writes, "the laments makes an assertion about God... God matters in every dimension of life. Where God's availability is lost because we fail to carry on our part of the difficult conversation, where God's vulnerability and passion are removed from our speech, we are consigned to anxiety and despair and the world as we now have it becomes absolutised."

If our congregations are to believe that God is responsive to our laments, they must hear from the pulpit that God enters into dialogue with us over the things that matter most to us.

In order to remain confident in our prayer life, we must have a vision of a God who is affected by the words of our mouth and the groans that words cannot express. If our preaching about justice is to have any credibility, we must believe that God is passionately affected by the injustices that you and I speak about in His presence.

There are times in the life of the congregation when a planned service of lament is in order. The service might be prepared for the whole congregation or for a select group. When farms or businesses fail, when families and marriages are in torment, when a community is devastated by crime, we may find healing by gathering people together and using Scriptures to address these laments.

This can be an excellent opportunity to bring out ambiguities into the presence of God. There are many questions of injustice, whether economic, social, political or personal, for which answers seem illusive. There are many kinds of pain that make the pastor's role as shepherd difficult. To dare to believe that we can approach God even questioning His sovereignty, is powerful. A service of lament may help in providing pastoral care to the congregation.

There has been an increased interest in the topic of healing within the church. Our Christian communities have too often given a narrow definition of healing and healing services. Healing may also happen when people bring their laments into the presence of God.

In Psalm 69:1-12, the psalmist speaks of hopelessness, guilt and injustice. However, in verse 13 he submits his case to God and by verse 30 he is able to contemplate praise.

It would be naïve to assume that each of us will move from lament to praise in one short hour. Our worship, though, can portray a model of that movement. People who lament need the reassurance that they are not imprisoned in their pain. The Scriptures can give them hope through the faith stories of others who have moved from lament to praise.

 

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Lorne W. Friesen is chaplain at Eden Mental Health Centre in Winkler, Manitoba. He is an ordained minister who served as pastor in two General Conference Mennonite congregations in the U.S. Friesen and his wife, Marie, have two daughters and one grandson.

Lorne was involved in the course Mental Health and the Church held recently at Steinbach Bible College (Manitoba).

His reflections are indebted to Walter Brueggemann, whose article was published in the Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 36 (1986, pp. 57-71).