24^th Sabbath after Pentecost

Organ and Tissue Donor/Veterans Day

November 9/11, 2007

Victor H. Nixon

GOT PAIN?

Lamentations 1:1-6

This sermon is the third in the series "Seeking Something More" based upon the Hebrew prophets that examine the biblical answers to life’s hard questions. Today we look at how the poet of Lamentations responds to devastating pain.

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How could this happen? Why would a loving God permit such a terrible thing? Such are the questions we ask when devastated by personal or national disaster, innocent suffering and death of loved ones, or news of debilitating or fatal disease. Such are the questions of Lamentations. The book opens with this verse:

that once was full of people!(1:1)

These lines were the first words read from one New Jersey pulpit in a service of prayer and mourning on the day after the September 11, 2001, when terrorists hijacked four commercial jets and crashed one each into both of the twin towers of the World Trade Center complex in New York City and into one side of the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.(2) The fourth jet crashed in a field in western Pennsylvania, presumably a result of the efforts of passengers and crew to retake control of the airplane and thus preventing yet another target from being reached. All passengers and crew on each of the planes were killed. Hundreds more died in the crash at the Pentagon. And thousands died as a result of the crashes at the World Trade Center—both towers, each more than a hundred stories high, eventually collapsed. The twin pinnacles that once crowned the New York City skyline exist no longer.

The grief in these ancient poems gives voice to our own grief in desperate times. Hence, they are extremely relevant. The poet’s final prayer to God is no less germane:

Why have you forgotten us completely?

and are angry with us beyond measure.(5:20-22)

What is Lamentations? This book is a sequence of five lyric poems lamenting the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.(2 Kings 25:8-21). Lamentations was written probably between 586 and 520 B.C. when all of Jerusalem, including the Temple, lay in ruins. Many were killed, others carried off into exile, the economy was shattered, hope was dashed. Lamentations is written from the perspective of Palestinians who remained behind. The poems, containing raw emotion and grief, are addressed to God who remains silent throughout.

Tradition holds that the author is the prophet Jeremiah, which accounts for its placement after the Book of Jeremiah in the Christian canon, though he is not mentioned in Lamentations.(2) The Septuagint (Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures) introduces Lamentations: "When Israel had gone into captivity and Jerusalem had been laid waste, Jeremiah sat weeping and sang this lament over Jerusalem." Although from the same period as the prophet Jeremiah it is unlikely that he is the author due to differences in linguistic style, perspective and content. Also, the oldest Hebrew manuscripts of Lamentations do not mention Jeremiah. Furthermore, the Hebrew Bible places Lamentations among the writings—Songs of Songs, Ruth, Ecclesiastes and Esther, rather than with the prophets. Although this brilliant singer of sad songs is anonymous, the powerful emotion in his/her writing still connects with us centuries later in times of desperate pain.

The structure of the five poems is unique. The first four are acrostic, meaning that the first word of each stanza begins with successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet which has twenty-two letters. For example, verse 1begins with an A (Aleph), verse 2 begins with B (Bet), and so on all the way to the end of the alphabet. This is not uncommon in Hebrew poetry. A number of the psalms are acrostic. Chapter 3 is acrostic in which each letter begins three verses in succession, e.g. verses 1-3 begin with A, 4-6

begin with B, and so on for 66 verses until the entire alphabet is used. Chapter 5 is not acrostic, but does contain 22 verses.

Why would the poet use such an arrangement? Well, it does make it interesting! Certainly, the acrostic functions as the material, physical container of the poetry, but it also has a symbolic function: perhaps to provide familiar, linguistic structure and form to a world that is in chaos and to transform the suffering and hurt that engulfed inhabitants of Jerusalem.

What about the message of Lamenations? The first word in verse 1 of chapter 1 is "How," (Eikha) which is also the title of the book in Hebrew. "How lonely sits the city that once was full of people!" It isn’t a question, but an exclamation. The same word, "How," introduces an exclamation in the second chapter, "How the Lord in his anger has humiliated daughter Zion!" and the fourth chapter, "How the gold has grown dim, how the pure gold is changed!" referring to the desecration of the temple. Eikha stresses the overwhelming totality of grief, ruin and divine displeasure. How utterly hopeless it all seemed. Yet, God is silent—as God often is in times of desperation—but that does not prevent the poet from voicing complaint to God.

And that is an important lesson for all of us in times of grief and pain. Just because God seems silent does not mean that God does not hear our pain. Lack of an immediate message from on high is not sufficient reason to discontinue our prayers and our worship, or worse, to dismiss faith and trust in God altogether. On the contrary, says the poet, all the more reason to continue addressing God and sharing our plight with God. When you are in dire straits remember that God hears even when God is silent.

An additional lesson we learn from Lamentations is that whatever the nature of our pain or grief, whatever the cause of our malady and misfortune, we can share it with God, even our anger, especially our anger. I don’t know about you, but there are times when I get angry with God, times when I shake my fist at God and demand an explanation for injustice and innocent suffering. I know it sounds arrogant and disrespectful, but it’s honest anger and I believe that God hears and understands my pain. I was angry when my mother, who cared for my father for 25 years was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease the year after he died. As she slowly slipped away over ten years, doctors discovered that she had a virulent form of cancer that took her life. There is no justice in that kind of suffering. I had some angry discussions with God about that, but I’ve worked through that and now understand that God loved my mother and didn’t want her to suffer needlessly. Lamentation tells us that we can be honest and share our feelings with God—and that is not a sign of distrust but genuine faith.

There’s another lesson from this poet. Chapter one begins in third person, using the metaphor of a widow to describe Jerusalem, once a princess, now a servant, weeping bitterly, whose lovers have become enemies, with no one to comfort her, reduced to scavenging in search of food. This continues for eleven verses. In verse 12, the poet changes from third to first person:

Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?

which the Lord inflicted on the day of his fierce anger.(1:12)

The Lord is right, for I have rebelled against his word;

captivity.(1:18)

The poet acknowledges Jerusalem’s personal transgressions and responsibility for its destruction. Much suffering in the world is brought about by our own foolish mistakes, greed and indifference, like global warming, hunger and war. Lamentation let’s us know that we must confess our sin and responsibility and attempt to right the wrongs that often cause suffering.

But even more poignant in this text is the sudden change from third to first person. Now we are being addressed personally by the awful plight of the widow of Jerusalem. The poet of Lamentations doesn’t want us to merely see a city, but the people in the city. It is one thing to read about flooding in Mexico or hear about brush fires around Los Angeles destroying homes or learn that a teenager died in an accident, it is another thing when the story comes from a person who is experiencing tragedy because that person has a face and a voice and we know that the pain is real and we can no longer remain indifferent. Lamentations teaches compassion for those who suffer. Pain is always first person.

I believe that Lamentations demands that we re-think our theology, that is, our concept of God and the nature of God. The poet firmly believes that while unfaithfulness led to the destruction of Jerusalem, it was also the punishment of God. I agree that human evil can lead to suffering and destruction, but I question whether God is responsible for such devastation, particularly when innocent people and children are involved, as they most surely were then and are now in international conflict and war. God doesn’t inflict disease, tragedy and misfortune upon people. Some of it is accidental. (Accidents really do happen.) Much of it is caused by human error, evil and indifference. I believe in a compassionate God. I believe that God is often silent at such times because God is weeping—but God is always with us and loves us.

Jesus teaches me about the nature of God. He too lamented over Jerusalem. Once he said to the city, "If you had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace!"(Luke 19:41-44) Another time he looked out over the city and lamented, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing." (Matt. 23:37-39; Luke 13:34-35)

God has not forgotten our city, nor any city, as Lamentations complains, and God has other things in mind than punishment, saving things—like faith, compassion, peace, justice, community.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

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