Message 3 of 5
Scripture: Psalm 130
These are the notes from a message offered 10/28/18 at Trinity United Methodist Church, Sarasota Florida. I’ll be posting the series on Fridays in the coming weeks. I pray they are an encouragement to you.
This message and recording also include our annual All Saints Remembrance, where we thank God for our departed loved ones and friends, especially those who have helped us to find faith or grow in our faith.
Resilience Series Review: Resilience isn’t so much bouncing back from adversity but moving forward in the midst of it. Romans 5 reminds us of the path to hope. Suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope.
Psalm 130: 1-2, The Message. The author of this translation of the Bible died this week, Pastor Eugene Peterson.
Help, God—the bottom has fallen out of my life! Master, hear my cry for help! Listen hard! Open your ears! Listen to my cries for mercy.
When an old wound is triggering unhealthy responses, I seek the help of a counselor to address it. When life is overwhelming, it’s also helpful to speak with a spiritual director. A spiritual director asks, “How’s your soul? How’s your relationship with God during this situation?” After some prayerful listening, a spiritual director often suggests a spiritual practice to help you stay connected to God.
At a session a few months ago, after sharing, the spiritual director asked me if I practiced lament. I didn’t. I hadn’t even thought about the spiritual practice since seminary. I started practicing lament and it helped greatly.
Common Fears of Expressing our Anguish to God (Fear of practicing Lament)
- Appear weak. I have to be strong for myself and others.
- Burden my loved ones and friends
- Only increase my pain leading me down the path of despair rather than the path of hope. What if I can’t stop the floodgates once I get started?
- Seems unfaithful to question, complain, doubt. It isn’t!
Lament in the Scriptures
- We find laments from the beginning to the end of the Bible. From the ground crying out over the murder of Abel in Genesis to the martyrs crying out for justice in the book of Revelation.
- 1/3 of the Psalms
- The book of Job
- Job 3:11 Why did I not perish at birth, come forth from the womb and expire?”
- The Old Testament Prophets often lament. The prophet Jeremiah was called the weeping prophet.
- For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt, I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no healer there? Why then has the health of my poor people not been restored? – Jeremiah 8.21-22
- If only my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears, I would weep day and night for the wounds of my people.” (Jeremiah 9:1)
- An entire book of the Bible is called Lamentations- written concerning the fall of Jerusalem
Jesus Lamented
- Weeping at the grave of his friend Lazarus. Reminds us we can lament our personal pain.
- Weeping over Jerusalem. Reminds us we can lament people not recognizing the gift of grace/salvation and the brokenness of society.
- If they only knew the things that make for peace (Luke 19:42)
- Weeping all night in the Garden of Gethsemane
- Crying out “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” from the cross.
Lament is not a failure of faith, but an act of faith. We cry out directly to God because deep down we know that our relationship with God is real. God cares. God understands our pain. God can and wants to help.
What is Lament?
“Lament is not despair. It is not whining. It is not a cry into a void. Lament is a cry directed to God. It is the cry of those who see the truth of the world’s deep wounds and the cost of seeking peace. It is the prayer of those who are deeply disturbed by the way things are.” – Emmanuel M. Katongole, Reconciling All Things, p. 78
We teach preschoolers how to pray using simple words. Help. Thanks. Wow! (praise) (A big shout out to Anne Lamott for her book of the same title). We need to also teach them Sorry (confession) to lament- Ouch! Us big kids need the same lessons.
How to Practice Lament
1. Rest
- To lament, we must stop. Feel it fully. Recognize what we’re up against.
- We medicate with activity. Busyness keeps us distant and the pain at bay.
- Rest is “not an invitation to become unconcerned about the conflict and chaos in the world but to imagine that the salvation of the world does not ultimately depend upon us.”
- Rest enables us to cease from grasping, grabbing, striving, trying to be God
2. Direct our cries to God
- “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord; Lord, hear my voice!” (Psalm 130:1)
3. Make your Complaint
- express your anger, pain, heartache, sadness- Uncensored feelings
- ask heartfelt questions
- “How long, O Lord? Will you utterly forget me? How long will you hide your face from me? How long shall I harbor sorrow in my soul, grief in my heart day after day? How long will my enemy triumph over me? (Psalm 13:2-3)
- I do not understand what is going on. This makes no sense. How long? Why?”
- Questions can be more than requests for information, they can also be cries of pain.
4. Make Your Request
- Describe the affliction. It might include rage against your enemies
- Look toward me, and have pity on me, for I am alone and afflicted. Relieve the troubles of my heart, and bring me out of my distress. Put an end to my affliction and my suffering, and take away all my sins. Behold, my enemies are many, and they hate me violently. Preserve my life, and rescue me; let me not be put to shame, for I take refuge in you. (Psalm 25:16-20)
5. Affirm your trust in God
- God’s presence
- God’s power in the past
- The attribute/character of God
- The promises of God that you’re thankful for and that you are claiming
Psalm 130:5-8
I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word, I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning, more than those who watch for the morning. O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord, there is steadfast love, and with him is great power to redeem. It is he who will redeem Israel from all its iniquities.
2 Corinthians 4:8-9
We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.”
In Christ we are resilient!
*****************
I’m excited to now offer mp3’s of my Sunday messages. A huge thank you to Mark and my brothers and sisters at Trinity United Methodist Church, Sarasota for all their help in making this possible. If you’re ever in Sarasota, please drop by for worship Sundays at 9:00 am or 10:30 am, or join us live on our Facebook page at 9:00 am Sundays or drop by during the week for a chat or small group. You and those you love are always welcome.
sermon © 2018 Lisa Ann Moss Degrenia
Contact Lisa for posting and publication considerations.
When Asha Mevlana was 24, she had a great job at a start-up, an apartment in New York’s SoHo, lots of friends, a beautiful head of hair, and a pearl-shaped problem in her left breast. She thought it was a cyst. Her mom had a cyst around the same age. It turned out to be breast cancer.
Revlisad.com 