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In the name of Jesus

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Amen.

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It his excellent book the Reformation of suffering.

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Ron Rittgers traces the various ways Christians have dealt with the

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experience of suffering through the Middle Ages and into the early

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modern period.

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And with an eye to Luther and the reformers Rittger's documents the

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transformation that Luther's discovery of the Gospel had

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on how people interpreted and approached suffering.

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Much of this can be seen as a shift in pastoral care.

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We're suffering was no longer regarded as possibly something

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meritorious for salvation.

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Nor was it redeemed as retributive as a kind of punishment from God or

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as an indicator of God's Wrath and rejection.

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No said Luther and his colleagues.

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God is faithful to his promises to us. Promises that we have received

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in baptism and repeatedly in his word and they are sure they are as

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certain as Jesus is raised from the dead.

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The reasons for suffering

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we're not to be speculated on.

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But it was not to be regarded as an indicator of God's rejection.

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In fact suffering could even be considered mysteriously as an

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expression of God's love.

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A fatherly discipline.

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In any of that suffering was a place where hope and trust in God could

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be nurtured as the Christian cross urged one to rely more steadily on

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God's word

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and the Cross of Christ.

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At the end of the book Rittger's makes a remarkable observation.

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He notes that even though Luther and the reformers were able to reshape

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people's approach to suffering and beautiful and profound ways.

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They never seem to entertain Lament

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as a fitting response.

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And in that position the reformers did not veer far from the medieval

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and even the classical stoic tradition. Those who suffered

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where to accept it patiently

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and make no protest against the workings of Divine Providence.

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But Rittger's wonders

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whether the neglect of lament as a response to suffering

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has had profound negative consequences for the church.

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Leaving it vulnerable to the hard questions and criticisms

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of an age that boasts in its self-sufficiency.

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He writes that the loss of lament may have contributed to quote the

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gradual disenchantment of the world.

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Perhaps in the very long run the insistence of the western churches

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that human beings must face suffering without the possibility of

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lament has worked to undermine the plausibility of the Christian

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faith.

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Well, what Rittger's says maybe true.

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In my own life and experience

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I've certainly felt the absence of lament as something that the church

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does.

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And this past year has really exposed some

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very strange real Oddities in our culture and in our church when it

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comes to loss and suffering.

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The dominant voices have been polarizing.

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Freedom vs.

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Safety. Fear vs.

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Foolhardiness. Fury vs.

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Fragility. Our response to national and global calamity has been

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stunted by hearing only these extremes live as a stoic or a snowflake

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this seems to be our only choices.

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Without Lament

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the church has also been tempted to absorb these polarities.

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Tempted to accept easy answers.

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Propose simplistic solutions.

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We're tempted to throw our energies behind various strategies of

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self-sufficiency.

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Trust the science calls out one.

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Protect our rights cries out another.

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All the while forgetting that behind it all

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lies and embattled and lacerated World in which creation is rent from

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top to bottom. As Oswald Bayer writes.

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There is no agreement

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no Harmony in the world.

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It rings out like cracked bells.

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And if we no longer feel the ultimate contradictions of this broken

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world and the goodness and love of God, how can those outside the

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church even begin to care?

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Whether we are a nice welcoming bunch of folks or not.

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Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann put it pointedly as he's want to

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do.

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The church is not supposed to be the happiest place in town.

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It's supposed to be the most honest place in town.

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Perhaps were afraid that lament is too honest.

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Complaint seems to frank with God protest to impious.

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How is it possible that fear and frustration and fury can mix with

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faith?

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Nevertheless the biblical Lament

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is not contrary to Faith but it grows out of it.

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Lament begins by sacrificing our self-sufficiency and turning wholly to

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God the one who laments believes.

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Believes that they will be heard by God.

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That someone's actually on the other end of this lying that I'm tugging.

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The one who laments believes in

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the goodness of creation

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and the God who made it.

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And thus we're in distress at the experience of its brokenness.

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The one who laments believes that

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God speaks and he reveals his heart to us.

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That's our dismay when he is silent.

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The one who laments believes that God's deepest word comes to us as a

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promise to which he is faithful.

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Thus our outrage when it appears that he is not.

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Without faith

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there is no lament.

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Show may think that lament is born out of ingratitude.

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Yet in the scriptures lament anticipates Thanksgiving.

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Lament is a prelude to praise a doorway to doxology. At least 1/3 of

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the Psalms are Psalms of lament and they seem to follow this similar

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pattern from complaint to petition.

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And finally to praise and confidence that God will in fact answer.

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In fact, the entire Psalter seems to be arranged in this fashion with

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the lament Psalms predominating in the first half of the book and the

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psalms of praise outnumbering the laments in the second half

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culminating with the five great halals of Psalm 146 through Psalm 150.

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And we see this in the New Testament as well.

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In Romans, Paul's account of the law

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spirals down into lament as he describes the inescapable struggle

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between sin and his desire to follow the law. Wretched man that I am

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who will deliver me from this body of death.

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And then

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thanks be to God

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through Jesus Christ Our Lord.

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Likewise in Romans 8 Paul declares that the present sufferings are not

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worth comparing to the glory yet to be revealed. Never the less

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the entire creation is in the throes of lamentation burdened by its

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subjected futility the creation groans.

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And so do we.

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And so does the spirit taking up these inexpressible groans and

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Lamentations on our behalf.

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And yet even in the midst of such universal lamentation Paul leads us

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into marveling at the grace and love of God What then shall we say to

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these things

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if God is for us who can be against us. And even though we're being

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killed like sheep for the slaughter quoting are Psalm,

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Psalm 44.

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Nothing can separate us from the love of God and Christ Jesus our

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Lord.

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Lament lives in hope.

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Psalm 44 is interesting in this regard

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because the praise

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is delayed.

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The hope is only a brief glimmer at the end. The lament stands open

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ended

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it's looking for a place to land.

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The original calamity of Israel's experience is hidden from us. Yet

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we find the psalmist account to resonate across the ages into our own.

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There is no self-sufficiency here.

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God has done everything. Every past victory belongs to him.

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Every blessing that we have ever received came from his grace not from

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our strength or righteousness and every present success is only

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possible because God has been with us.

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Yet.

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Yet now it seems as if we have become sheep marked for slaughter.

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The inexorable march toward grief and sadness.

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With only you oh God to be able to stop it.

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So stop it.

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Put an end to our suffering.

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Awake.

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Rouse yourself, arise there's no quid pro quo.

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We wait in the dust from which we have come.

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We wait

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for God to arise.

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And he does.

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In Luther's preface to the Psalms

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he writes that not only do we have here the deeds and the prayers of

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the Saints.

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But we have those of him

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who is the very head of the Saints.

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All laments are communal.

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For Jesus has prayed these Psalms.

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Including the laments and his passion

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is the place where all our laments are gathered.

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In his person and in our stead Jesus others the chief lament in his

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frightened and furious cry.

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Why my God, why

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have you forsaken me?

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Never forget

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that our lament is always addressed to the crucified one.

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And because this is so

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our lament finds a place to land.

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And it is as sure and as certain

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as Jesus resurrection from the dead.

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Awake.

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Rise.

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Come to our help.

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Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love.

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Amen.