Lament

I'm teaching a course on suffering this term. Fitting, since so much of the term falls during Lent. I was just reading Nicholas Wolterstorff's Lament for a Son, a book Wolterstorff wrote after the death of his 25 year-old son in a mountain climbing accident. I came across this powerful passage that seems to me to get at the heart of Lent:

"How is faith to endure, O God, when you allow all this scraping and tearing on us? You have allowed rivers of blood to flow, mountains of suffering to pile up, sobs to become humanity's song--all without lifting a finger that we could see. You have allowed bonds of love beyond number to be painfully snapped. If you have not abandoned us, explain yourself. We strain to hear. But instead of hearing an answer we catch sight of God himself scraped and torn. Through our tears we see the tears of God" (p.80).

The church has not always been good about raising these questions. They are raised more often by those outside the church--often as a critique. But Lent is a season that gives permission to ask, indeed invites the asking, of these kinds of questions. Lent asks us lament, to stand alongside all the suffering of the world--not to give an answer (what answer could we give?) but to image the God who suffers in our suffering. What would it take to be a community that invited lament? How can we overcome the temptation to dress ourselves up for church? How can we be a place where the broken know it is okay to rupture the formality with tears and heartache? Could we be that kind of church?

| lent, lament, Nicholas Wolterstorff, suffering, community |