Week 2—Lamentations 2
We will begin each week centering ourselves in the stories of immigrants to the U.S., told in their own words. This week we read an excerpt from Harrowing December by Momoh Sekou Dudu on his journey during the Liberian civil war, and his life before and after the war. It begins with the line, “Sometimes the past does not stay quietly in the past. Sometimes it walks with you. It slips into your present without asking permission and settles there.”
From there Dudu goes on to describe the hypervigilance required to survive in Monrovia (Liberia) during the civil war– with armed guards roaming the streets who held the power of life and death. Later, when he is able to move to Minneapolis, the trauma remains, as he again finds himself hypervigilant, alert to the threat from masked men who again hold the power of life and death.
He concludes by sharing the worst moment, when his nine year old daughter asks “Dad, what should I do if someone stops me and asks for my papers?” Dudu writes:
Nine years old. Already learning the language of fear. Already being prepared for a world that watches, questions, and doubts her belonging. Not because of something she did wrong, but because of how she looks, because of the color of her skin.
I thought I had carried that fear across oceans so she wouldn’t have to. I thought I survived it so it would end with me. But here it is, reaching into the next generation.
These are deeply sad times. Sad because of what is happening—on our streets, in our laws, our daily lives. And sad because of what is happening inside us. Because the past I barely survived has found an echo in the present I am trying to build.
And because no parent should have to explain fear to a child—especially one who should have been free from it.
Is God to Blame?
Turning to Lam. 2, we see that God is the main subject. Every line of vs. 1-8 has God as the subject, followed by a corresponding action. It posits God as the ultimate cause of Jerusalem’s destruction, as a punishment for their sin.
The Lord has destroyed without mercy
all the dwellings of Jacob;
in his wrath he has broken down
the strongholds of daughter Judah;
he has brought down to the ground in dishonor
the kingdom and its rulers.
—Lam. 2:2
This chapter was uncomfortable for me as an open theist. Open theism does not see God as responsible for all the evil and suffering of the world. It pushes back against prosperity gospel’s simplistic explanation that suffering is always a punishment for sin. I have a lot of problems with prosperity gospel—but have to agree with Rah that this is the perspective found in Lamentations. We’ll unpack that more in upcoming weeks.
For now, it’s important to see that the genre of lament, in Psalms and in Lamentations, is appropriated language—in other words, it is not God talking to us, rather, lament prayers are giving words for us to talk to God. It’s not God laying out a systematic theology, it’s God graciously giving us, through the human authors, language to express what it feels like when horrible things are happening. We are allowed to express anger at God. That doesn’t necessarily mean God is responsible for the suffering. But it means God is compassionately giving us space to vent. Lament prayers reflect the desire to answer the unanswerable, to find meaning in the midst of chaos. To find a reason to hope, to find reassurance, even if that security makes God look like the author of evil.
I believe, as an open theist, that there are multiple forces at work– our own human sin is a factor in our own suffering, and in the suffering of others. I also believe there are spiritual forces behind the scenes. And yet, when we suffer, as Jerusalem does, it can feel like divine punishment. We feel abandoned. And the gift of lament is it gives language to that emotion.
Lament For the City: Lam. 2:1-9
Much like the funeral dirge we saw in ch. 1, Lam. 2 is in the form of a city lament. The fall of Jerusalem was particularly troubling because it challenged Israel’s perception of themselves as the chosen people. The destruction of the temple in particular shook their belief that they would be protected.
The Lord has scorned his altar,
disowned his sanctuary;
he has delivered into the hand of the enemy
the walls of her palaces;
a clamor was raised in the house of the LORD
as on a day of festival.
—Lam. 2:7
This section warns us how easy it is for us to think too highly of ourselves, to fall into privilege and exceptionalism. The notion that the U.S. is uniquely the “land of freedom” leads to the belief that it must be defended at all costs, even violently. We’ve seen all too frequently how power is exhibited through trash talk of strength, control and superiority, even verging on colonialism. Stories of celebration and victory dominate, while the language of lament and suffering is stifled. Rah writes:
In American Christianity, the same tendency toward privilege also exists. There is an underlying belief that American Christians have been the standard-bearers of Christianity for several centuries... This favored church status has led to a belief in a favored nation status. But this sense of American exceptionalism and even the sense of exceptionalism for the American church cannot be justified through Scripture.
—Rah, pp. 93-94.
Mourning the loss of influence
The political movements that gave rise to Trump and anti-immigrant sentiment come from segments of evangelicalism that seek to advance the Church by aligning with places of power and influence. One group in particular speaks of the Seven Mountain Mandate, which aims to control seven key areas of American society, including education, government, media, arts/entertainment, and business.
Rah shares how he was a speaker at a conference that discussed the decline of European and North American Christianity, at the same time there is a rise in non-Western Christianity. These indisputable statistical realities have been observed for more than a decade. Yet one of the organizers walked out in mid-speech because he could not accept that American Christianity was on the decline and would have a diminished role moving forward. Rah observes:
American Christians may be fearful of the dramatic changes that have already occurred in the world and in American Christianity. Could that fear be rooted in a loss of power as the demographics of world Christianity begin to favor non-Western nations? But these changes in Christianity may be exactly what God intended, requiring American Christians to relinquish a historical dominance and embrace a greater mutuality, equality and reciprocity in twenty-first-century world Christianity... Our conversations as a church would shift from preventing the decline of middle-class, white evangelicalism to embracing the rise of world Christianity.
—Rah, pp. 79-80.
As we begin to see the ugly fruit of this infiltration of dominationalism and exceptionalism within American Christianity, we find ourselves at a moment of opportunity. We look more like the Church when, instead of attempting to dominate and control, we preach prophetically from the margins.
All of the voices are heard: Lam. 2:10-22
As the lament continues, the narrator/Jeremiah switches from condemnation and warning to fellow mourner. But Jeremiah is not the lone voice—he invites other voices in so that the full extent of the grief can be expressed. Voices that go beyond the dominant voices of rulers (v. 2) and priests (v. 6) to those who are often overlooked and marginalized: the elderly, young women (v. 10), children and infants (v. 11), wounded children (v. 12).
The elders of daughter Zion
sit on the ground in silence;
they have thrown dust on their heads;
they put on sackcloth;
the young women of Jerusalem
have bowed their heads to the ground.
—Lam. 2:10
The young and the old are lying
on the ground in the streets;
my young women and my young men
have fallen by the sword;
in the day of your anger you have killed them,
slaughtering without mercy.
—Lam. 2:21
The power of Lamentations is found in the multiple voices. As we find ourselves in such precarious times, it’s important to ask: What voices need to be elevated in the U.S. right now? In our churches? How can we help amplify their testimony?
Rah ends with an encouraging challenge:
The church has the power to bring healing in a racially fragmented society. That power is not found in an emphasis on strength but in suffering and weakness. The difficult topic of racial reconciliation requires the intersection of celebration and suffering... But if lament were offered to a suffering world, the hope that is woven into lament offers the possibility of genuine reconciliation.
—Rah, p. 106.
Next week we will explore Lamentations 3 and Rah ch. 8-10. We will hear a particularly poignant story of immigration.
Let us pray this week for our cities, observing their beauty as well as their pain, remembering the real people who live there. We pray for the cities of Ukraine, Congo, Gaza, Sudan, Syria, Lebanon, Iran and Cuba. We pray for the cities of Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Portland. Pray for cities far from you, for the city where you live, the city that feels like home.
Lord, we come before you today from many different places. We are carrying pain and fear. Some of our wounds are raw and open, some are scarred over after many years. But we bear them all. Give us the courage to bring these things before you, to say the true things, trusting you with our pain, our questions, and our tears.
We pray for our cities. We think of their beauty, and we think of their pain. We remember their people. Lord, Hear our prayer. Amen.