by the waters of babylon

we sat down & wept

I couldn’t have been here more than a month; I was making a hospital visit, when out of nowhere she asked: “what do you think, why would God let Pastor Chuck die so young.”

That was the first time I touched, for myself, the scar that had ripped across this place. I knew that Pastor Chuck’s sudden and tragic death was a part of this place’s story. That day, though, I learned that the scar was still raw. That day I learned that tragedy had ripped across you all and left sorrow and that terrible question in its wake, “why.”

That day in the hospital, the woman I was visiting had known me for as long as about ten minutes, and Pastor Chuck’s death had happened over ten years ago. Yet, when she was confronted with someone from Trinity, the first question on her lips wasn’t “how are you,” but “how could God let something like this happen.”

We all know what that’s like, too; to be tormented by some tragedy that prods at what we think we know about God…

Whenever Death and Tragedy rear their ugly head and shatter what life we’ve managed to put together, they always leave terrible questions in their wake. The unspeakable questions that wreak havoc on our pious and proper, dry-clean only faith. 

Each of us knows for ourselves how terrible those questions are, how they linger, how they easily defy our best sunday-school answers. Each of us have known in our own life, the way catastrophe bursts in and wipes that smile off our face as we say “it must have been God’s will.”

In the face of tribulation and the terrible questions it puts to our faith, we can’t help but realize all the easy answers we’ve pretended were faith hold up any longer. That terrible question “why,” in the face of some tragedy we can’t get ourselves to ignore, forces us to realize that our problem has actually been a problem with God all along…

That’s how it was for the psalmist who composed the admittedly impious and un-sunday school psalm we sang earlier. From studying this psalm we can tell that the psalmist was a church musician at the temple in Jerusalem. The psalmist sang in the temple when the foreign conquerors, the Babylonians, came in and destroyed the temple. Not only that, though, the Babylonians also took Israelites from their homeland, as a kind of prisoner of war.

This psalmist, who likely saw their own friends and family slaughtered, has been forced to live in a foreign land, away from home and his place of worship. Then, to make matters worse, his captors had come to him; saying, in effect, sing us one of those those temple songs, we like those. 

It could be akin to, after this place burnt down, someone showing up and saying, “sing us one of your songs. We like that fortress one. You know, ‘a mighty fortress is our God…’ Oh wait, that fortress burnt down, didn’t it???” Just to get a sense of the anguish the psalmist must have known.

In the face of such tragedy this psalmist, God’s musician, could no longer pretend. The psalmist had to admit his problem was with God. 

There he was, stuck. The psalmist couldn’t pretend anymore that things were hunky-dory with God. After the horror of his exile, the psalmist could no longer sing only songs of praise. In fact, truth be told, the only song the psalmist could bring himself to sing, were songs about being unable to sing. 

The cataclysm of the destruction of the temple made the psalmist a singer who was unable to sing…

And in our own way, we all know what that is like. 

We know what it’s like to be here as every one sings “glory to God in the highest,” when nothing seems glorious. We know what it is like to be a singer who is unable to sing. 

We know this because each of us has known for ourselves the way some tragedy pushes against those easy answers we thought were faith. We know what it is like to suddenly realize, although we wish we hadn’t, that our problem is actually a problem with God. We know what it’s like to be unable to pretend anymore. We know what it is like to sit over the pieces of a broken life, wondering “what now,” and hear only the echo of our own sobs.

We also know, however, what it’s like to be caught with God. That is why you’re here on this holiday weekend, is it not?

That’s the trouble for those of us who have been gotten by God. 

No one escapes pain and tragedy in this life; and those of us whom God has chosen, can’t escape God either. 

We’re caught. Caught between God’s promises and the tragedy of this life. We’re caught. Caught between wanting to believe and being unable to believe. We’re caught, between belief and disbelief.

That’s what’s particular, or unique, about grief for Christians. In fact, I don’t even like the word “grief.” Grief is a clinical term, a therapeutic one. Grief is something we fancy that, with the right tools, we could somehow cure. 

For instance, we like to pretend we can cure grief, if we could just somehow educate ourself out of it. We imagine that if we could just understand the mechanics behind this, that or the other tragedy we would be satisfied. We imagine that if we just knew why some affliction occurred, our grief would subside and we could go about our lives perfectly well adjusted.

Admittedly, those who really think that don’t have a grasp on reality. 

That myth, though, that we can educate our way out of grief, is what’s behind that question “why.”

We call the search of such an answer “theodicy.” The perennial problem of why bad things happen to good people. 

Truth be told, though, the Bible is never interested in such questions. It seems the witness of faith looks on questions such as that, with dogged suspicion. 

For instance, when Job’s friends try to explain away the Job’s misery, God shows up out of the whirlwind to chastise them. When Jesus gets the question posed to him, he just retorts, “well, the rain falls on the good and the evil, I suppose.”

No, those who are caught, those whom God has chosen, ought to know better. You who have known the hand of Death as well as the hand of God, know that the question “why,” in the final analysis is a “red-herring.” Those who have had to lean on God, know that we can’t educate ourselves out of grief. Answers can’t cure our broken hearts, our faltering faith.

The psalmist whose song we just sang, knows better. Jesus, who knew he was on his way to raise Lazarus but still couldn’t help but weep himself, knows better too. Those of you who were Chuck’s pallbearers and yet can’t help but return to this place, also know better.

In fact, each of you, in your heart of hearts, know better. 

None of us have escaped grief. None of us have escaped those terrible nights, trying to fall asleep, when the question of “why” just won’t stop torturing us. None of us have escaped an assault of this life, that make us question each of God’s promises. 

None of us who are here, have escaped the reality that we’re trapped either, though. None of us who are here, have been able to get God off our backs, as it were. None of us who are here, have finally had some horror dry-up our faith. For as fragile as it often feels, and indeed it is fragile, none of us who are here, have had our faith broken. 

So we’re stuck. None of us who are here, have escaped knowing what it is like to be caught between belief and unbelief. To be a singer unable to sing, a believer unable to believe.

That is why christians, those of us who are caught by God, suffer grief in a very unique way. In fact, there’s an old biblical word to describe our grief, that word is, “lamentations.” Lament.

Lamentation describes being caught between the hard place of tragedy and the rock of God’s promise. Lamentation describes that, for as at odds as we are with God, we can’t get away from God, either. 

Lamentation describes knowing, deep down, that the question of “why” isn’t enough. Lamentations describes that, for those of us who have been grasped by the promise that only God gets the last word, we know we need something more than some supposed explanations.

In the end, lamentation is the cry of the person who’s caught by God. It turns out that lamentation is the cry of the believer, who can’t believe it, but somehow faith won out. 

For as dreadful as the psalm about being unable to sing is, it’s still a song. It’s isn’t a song we want to sing for long, but it is still a song. In the battle between faith and doubt, somehow faith carried the day. Each of us who are here, here in spite of everything that might keep us away, and there is plenty to keep us away, know that miracle too; that somehow faith persists.

Lamentation is simply the cry of those of us who, like the psalmist, are caught between being unable to believe and being unable not to believe, either. 

Lamentations are a cry of heartbreak, yes; but they are also a cry of faith. 

Martin Luther described our theology as, not one of glory, but of the cross. 

Luther once said that the world seeks God in the high and glorious places, but God comes to God’s people in the depths. 

I believe that is true. I know in my own life, when my best laid plans were shattered. As I sat in the wreckage, wondering why God would let something like this happen, I saw in those mangled pieces the cross.

Lamentation are what Saint Paul described as the spirit’s intercession with sighs that are too deep for words. Lamentations are the miracle that when we can’t believe, God surrounds us with saints to believe for us. 

In fact, lamentations are even more than that. Lamentations are the cry of the believer who can no longer believe, and so Jesus sends to Holy Spirit so that we may yet believe

. 

The cry of lamentation is the cry of the believer, who in their bitter sorrow dared out to cry to God, only to find God right there along with them.

Amen