A lamentable problem
Tim Judson shares a brief overview of the biblical and historical tradition of lament
Introduction
There is a growing concern that the style, posture and content of our prayer and worship in the contemporary Western church is inadequate for responding to suffering, sin, and sorrow, amidst the contingencies and complexities of life.[1] Whilst suffering is sometimes given a voice within Christian practice and life today, lament plays an unparalleled role in this regard as “the language par excellence to give voice to suffering.”[2]
For my PhD thesis, I wanted to wrestle with this situation, that suffering and evil abide in this world, and that (in my initial view) many churches seemed anaemic or tangled in confusion regarding their ability to confess Christian faith through suffering. Likewise, Paul Bradbury claims, “We have lost a critical ability in our language of faith expression to articulate anything of integrity and truth in the context of suffering and tragedy.”[3]
This lack of lament is notable through the contemporary songs we sing,[4] the hymns we are given,[5] and such developments allude to the possibility (or likelihood) that within Western church sensibilities, lament is not necessary or valid, or even, not the “ideal” posture before God and others.
However, such a claim requires legitimising when compared to the stark contrast within the Psalter, where lament represents a considerable proportion of its content.[6] Even the Book of Common Prayer, which includes the entire Psalter, omits sixty-seven psalms in the lectionary readings for Sundays and major festivals, of which fifty-five are laments and eleven are related to the laments.[7] Whilst the whole Psalter is provided in some churches, that does not mean it is appropriated fully within the liturgical rhythm of the church. I wonder how many times we have felt the pressure to offer a call to worship using something upbeat and praise-full.
In today’s globalised world, there is an overwhelming awareness of suffering, sin and sorrow that arguably provokes further cause for lament. Yet, on the whole, the contemporary Western church is typically not lamenting.[8] John Bell reasons that there are perhaps “fewer occasions that merit lamenting.”[9] I think Bell is wrong here, at least, on a general level, as such a claim is not valid amidst the particularities of all people and places. Still, Bell is correct in his subsequent claim: “Not to deal with the depths of life in the writing of music is to court shallowness in the composer and to disenfranchise the congregation or listeners from that which makes life rich and real.”[10]
Bell subsequently pleads with churches to cultivate practices of engaging with sorrow and suffering before God.[11] He is by far not the only person calling the church to re-envision lament in our life together. I lost count of the number of blogs, articles or talks that were sent to me highlighting the popular emphasis on our “need” to “lament more” within Western communities of Christ. Despite this clarion call, churches remain largely resistant to it, or alternatively, struggle to embed it within Christians’ life together. I am hoping that the other articles and stories in this edition of the Baptist Together magazine will inspire and challenge people about lament.
For my part, I will give a very brief survey of the biblical and historical tradition of lament. This will illumine how we have ended up where we are today, in order to discern a way forward.
Lament and the Bible
Kathleen Billman and Daniel Migliore define lament as “that unsettling biblical tradition of prayer that includes expressions of complaint, anger, grief, despair, and protest to God.”[12] The presence of lament in the Old Testament is clearly evident in books such as Job, Jeremiah, and Lamentations, as well as numerous psalms, providing obvious locations for this dimension in a life of faith.
Moreover, lament forms a consistent thread throughout all the Hebrew Scriptures, with a few examples being Gen. 50:10; 1 Sam. 7:2; 2 Sam. 1:17; 2 Chron. 35:25; Isa. 3:26; Jer. 51:15; Ezek. 27:32; Amos 8:10; Mic. 1:8, to name a few.[13]
Claus Westermann opines that, “In the Old Testament there is not a single line which would forbid lamentation or which would express the idea that lamentation had no place in a healthy and good relationship with God.”[14]
He then reflects, “I also know of no text in the New Testament which would prevent the Christian from lamenting or which would express the idea that faith in Christ excluded lamentation from [humanity’s] relationship with God.”[15] We remember after all, the Old Testament “continued to be the holy book for the early Christian community.”[16]
Sure, the presence of lament in the New Testament is less notable than in the Old. However, Robin Parry explains that the New Testament church assumed its obvious validity in reference to the Old, but that, detrimentally, this connection has been gradually forgotten by the church over the course of history.[17] Perhaps now is the time for the Western church to take seriously the story into which it has entered, as predominantly “secondary (White Gentile) readers.”[18] Certain New Testament verses, when read in isolation (not a great way to read the Bible!), may suggest that joy supersedes lament.[19] However, its overall witness, as well as numerous texts, would insist on a different conclusion. In addition to the New Testament’s regular reference to different psalms (including laments),[20] let me highlight a few key places in the New Testament that may be helpful to ponder.
In Acts, the prayer of the released prisoners, Paul and John, does not follow the technical structure of a conventional lament, but nevertheless follows the language and context of one, mirroring the impetus of many Old Testament laments.[21] More starkly, Acts 8:2 notes, “Devout men buried Stephen and made loud lamentation over him.” Whilst Stephen’s martyrdom led to missional expansion at the impulse of the Spirit’s leading, we are given pause for lament. After the power of Pentecost, nevertheless we read that “pain and tears, sorrow and mourning, are yet within the new order … This death should not be, and the work of lament must go on and give witness to death’s intrusion into life. Men lament loudly.”[22]
In Acts 16:25, Paul and Silas are in prison, “praying and singing hymns to God,” which is “a broad, inclusive, and ambiguous term.”[23] The jailer’s response of attempting suicide before repenting would make sense if we consider that he heard the laments and petitions offered alongside praise (in its basic sense), which resulted in God hearing and answering Paul and Silas.[24] Remember here that Psalms means “book of praise” so the term needs to be understood more broadly than “Yay, Jesus is awesome!” I am intrigued that lament may been a conduit for someone’s salvation.
There are other examples in the New Testament that clearly recognise or actively encourage lament in different forms, such as Matt. 5:4; Rom. 12:15; 2 Cor. 12:7–8; Heb. 5:7; James 4:9; and Rev. 18:9. In addition, Ephesians 5:19 involves Paul’s encouragement to “sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs,” which features the Greek custom of combining three similar terms to convey an all-inclusive meaning of something. As intimated above, this includes lament, which is a significant (and foundational) aspect of the Psalter.[25] Also, Revelation 6:10 gives voice to the complaint of the martyrs in John’s apocalyptic vision, sandwiched between the heavenly singing in Revelation 5, and the multitude’s worship in Revelation 7, but in a way that we cannot overlook (yet we often do).
In the Gospels, the life and teachings of Jesus frequently evidence lament. In John 11:35, Jesus weeps over the death of Lazarus. In Luke 19:42–44, Jesus laments over Jerusalem. This is not only a “human reaction to a sad and frustrating situation” but the “tears of the God of love,” who longs for his people to put God and others first.[26] Through Jesus’ own sorrow over the world, we witness what it means to be human in union with the divine. Jesus also lamented whilst regularly alone in prayer, as Heb. 5:7 indicates: “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.” At times, Jesus experienced overwhelming compassion for the crowds he encountered, witnessing to God’s love and justice through his bodily grief.[27] In his lament, Jesus actualises God’s union with the whole world in its misery through bearing it in service to them. The crowd—who did not necessarily believe or become disciples—were, as Karl Barth explains, “brought into a very real union with Jesus by the fact that He was moved with compassion when He saw them.”[28]
Most climactically, Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane holds crucial insight into the place of lament within his own life, not to mention his cry of dereliction on the cross.[29] In Gethsemane and on the cross, the word made flesh laments in word and flesh.
‘A trajectory of decline’ – lament in the church through the ages
So how did we get to where we are now? Acknowledging lament within many of our Christian communities would be a departure from the predominant theological trajectory of the mainstream tradition.[30] Let me trace the church’s historical use of the Psalms, which has been well documented. Rachel Ciano suggests, “a survey of history reveals possible causes for the neglect of the lament psalms. It also aids in an understanding of our own historical context, and therefore better enables us to correct our neglect and reclaim lament psalms in corporate worship.”[31]
The adoption of the Psalter is clearly visible in folks like Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, Jerome and Augustine.[32] The bishop of Hippo wrote, “Lament for things of the present, sing of what is to come in the future.”[33] Brian Brock explains that lament was the “Christian form” of response for the “affective eruption” of suffering.[34]
During the Middle Ages, religious orders like the Benedictines used lament psalms as a regular part of their rule of life, singing the whole Psalter through every week.[35] The same happens amongst Benedictines today.[36]
From the Reformation onwards, the whole Psalter was also used. “Reformers such as Martin Luther, John Calvin and Martin Bucer used the lament psalms as the basis of evangelical confession and repentance.”[37]
Each had an emphasis. For example, Luther’s theologia crucis permeates his interpretation of the Psalter to the extent that lament is an acknowledgment of our helplessness and dependence on the grace of God.[38] Calvin considered lament to be a natural response towards the loss that everyone experiences in life, though he also encouraged moderation and “balance”.[39]
Of course, “broad overviews of history risk being reductionistic and contain generalizations that do not represent all schools of thought within a movement.’[40] Nevertheless, broadly speaking, the Renaissance period marked the beginning of a decline in the church’s use of lament. The Renaissance was a time where great thinkers emerged who increased human self-confidence.[41] Rachel Ciano observes that “a self-confident humanity runs antithetical to the tenor of the lament psalms. The lament psalms profess the exact opposite: humanity is utterly dependent on God and cannot forge its own destiny.”[42]
This trajectory of decline continued with the Enlightenment and the modern age, which based human knowledge on science and rationalism. Any cause for lament in a traditionally biblical sense became threatened, due to the developing explanations for natural disasters, national crises and forms of suffering which may have previously prompted questioning and complaint to God. The “God” of the Christian religion was becoming seemingly superfluous, or at least, becoming annexed by human reason to occupy a smaller place within modern life.[43] The development of biblical criticism encouraged a more selective use of psalms within Christian worship, facilitating the severing of certain lament psalms from the church’s liturgy. Certain laments proved difficult and unpalatable when read in isolation.[44]
Interestingly, the twentieth century, with its two world wars and the multiple cases of cataclysmic suffering on a global scale, has not prompted a resurgence of lament for the majority of Western churches. Instead, the impact of these devastating events has been an impetus for the stoic resolve of stifling complaint and being nobly self-sufficient virtue.[45] But Kate Fox argues that this posture is more reflective of the cultural context within which the church finds itself today, than it is a faithful Christian response to the events of recent history, or suffering in general.[46] In a post-Holocaust reading of the book of Lamentations, Kelly Wilson summarises that “human suffering often challenges our view of how God and the world ought to work, and allowing suffering to speak therefore threatens to perpetuate an uncomfortable disorientation of one’s life.”[47]
This is especially notable in the exclusive focus on Lamentations 3:22–24, where “the majority of interpreters have allowed its images of hope and conversion to eclipse the rest of the text and have effectively silenced those who are suffering.”[48] Even in funeral services today, there is an overwhelming emphasis on the celebration of life, lacking any grief over death, though of course, our grief as Christians is different.[49]
Billman and Migliore highlight the more positive contribution recently offered by liberation theologies, which generate new possibilities for lament.[50] Through distinct experiences, lament gains a basis as faithful resistance to evil. James Cone eventually foregrounded womanist voices within his own work as a Black theologian.[51] Whilst ancient Greek society attempted to suppress female mourning, Cone challenges the stigmatisation and silencing of women who lament.[52] Theologies of liberation from different contexts “offer new possibilities of understanding the meaning and importance of the lament prayer in Christian life and worship.”[53]
We may also look hopefully towards postmodernism. This is certainly the assumption of Soong-Chan Rah, who argues that lament has long been silenced in the church by modernity’s more dominant voice of self-confident triumphalism.[54] The common maxim goes, “What is true for you is not true for me.”
So does postmodernity provide an opportunity to recover lament? Well, maybe for some people, but that is the problem, or the shadow-side of postmodernity. Whilst this societal change opens for other voices, those voices largely remain constrained within an echo chamber representing that particular narrative. Craig Gardiner rightly concludes, “As each person becomes increasingly intent on composing and performing the one tune, their tune, few are willing to listen to others or to listen in community.’[55]
Postmodernity has made space for platforms of liberation and other narratives, but it also engenders an intense hyper-individualism, which makes all experience relative.[56] For many of us, another’s lament remains incidental and irrelevant, and whilst we might afford “them” space to lament, it is often at the expense of their being heard, legitimised, embraced, and borne in the community because, as the common response claims, “They just aren’t my language.”[57]
Tim Judson is the author of Awake in Gethsemane: Bonhoeffer and the Witness of Christian Lament (Baylor University Press, 2023)
Tim is a Lecturer in Ministerial Formation at Regent's Park College, and serves as pastor of Honiton Family Church, Devon
This article accompanies the Summer 2024 edition of Baptists Together magazine, which had a focus on prayer
Tim has also written You Are There - a congregational song to help orient believers towards others who are suffering, while recognising that when we struggle, God is with us. The song can be accessed on Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music
[1] See John Swinton, Raging With Compassion: Pastoral Responses to the Problem of Evil (London: SCM, 2018), 90–93.
[2] Armand Léon van Ommen, Suffering in Worship: Anglican Liturgy in Relation to Stories of Suffering People (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017), 91.
[3] Paul Bradbury, Sowing in Tears: How to Lament in a Church of Praise (Cambridge: Grove, 2007), 3.
[4] CCLI registers songs and hymns used in churches globally. In August 2012, their top one hundred worship songs included only five that might be qualified as laments. See Soong-Chan Rah, Prophetic Lament: A Call for Justice in Troubled Times (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2015), 22.
[5] Denise Hopkins, Journey Through the Psalms (St Louis: Chalice, 2002), 5–6; Glen Pemberton, Hurting With God: Learning to Lament with the Psalms (Abilene: Abilene Christian University Press, 2012), 39.
[6] Don E. Saliers, Lament Denial in a Lamentable World, Worship 89 (2015): 80. See also Pemberton, Hurting with God, 39.
[7] Kathleen D. Billman and Daniel L. Migliore, Rachel’s Cry: Prayer of Lament and Rebirth of Hope (Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 1999), 13.
[8] Saliers, ‘Lament Denial,’ 80.
[9] John Bell, The Lost Tradition of Lament, in Composing Music for Worship, ed. Stephen Darlington and Alan Kreider (Norwich: Canterbury, 2003), 107.
[10] Ibid., 116.
[11] Ibid., 115.
[12] Billman and Migliore, Rachel’s Cry, 6.
[13] Brian Brock, Augustine’s Incitement to Lament, From the Enarrationes in Psalmos, in Evoking Lament, ed. Eva Harasta and Brian Brock (London: T&T Clark, 2009), 183.
[14] Claus Westermann, The Role of Lament in the Theology of the Old Testament, Interpretation 28 (1974): 25.
[15] Ibid., 25.
[16] Billman and Migliore, Rachel’s Cry, 33.
[17] Robin A. Parry, Lamentations (Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2010), 3.
[18] Willie James Jennings, The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), 250–88.
[19] Phil. 4:4; James 1:2–4; 1 Pet. 5:10.
[20] Pemberton, Hurting with God, 48.
[21] Pemberton, Hurting with God, 54.
[22] Willie James Jennings, Acts (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2017), 74.
[23] Pemberton, Hurting with God, 56.
[24] Ibid., 56.
[25] See Pemberton, Hurting with God, 53.
[26] Tom Wright, Luke (London: SPCK, 2002), 233.
[27] Matt. 9:36, 14:14, 15:32, 20:34; Mark 6:34, 8:2; Luke 7:13, 23:28.
[28] CD IV/2, 185.
[29] Matt. 26:36–46, 27:46; Mark 14:32–42, 15:24; Luke 22:39–46.
[30] Nicholas Wolterstorff, If God Is Good and Sovereign, Why Lament? (lecture given at Calvin College, April 1996), cited in Billman and Migliore, Rachel’s Cry, 46.
[31] Rachel Ciano, Lament Psalms in the Church: A History of Recent Neglect, in Finding Lost Words: The Church’s Right to Lament, ed. G. Geoffrey Harper and Kit Barker (Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2017), 13.
[32] See Bruce K. Waltke, James. M. Houston and Erika. Moore, ed., The Psalms as Christian Lament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014).
[33] Augustine, cited in Billman and Migliore, Rachel’s Cry, 49.
[34] Brock, ‘Augustine’s Incitement to Lament,’ 188.
[35] Ciano, Lament Psalms,11.
[36] Michael Jinkins, In the House of the Lord: Inhabiting the Psalms of Lament (Collegeville: Liturgical, 1998), 2.
[37] Ciano, Lament Psalms, 12.
[38] See Billman and Migliore, Rachel’s Cry, 51–52.
[39] Ibid., 56–58.
[40] Ciano, Lament Psalms, 13.
[41] Ibid.
[42] Ibid., 14.
[43] Ibid., 15–16. This will be addressed in section 2.1 and 5.1.
[44] Ciano, Lament Psalms, 16–17.
[45] Ibid., 18.
[46] Kate Fox, Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour (London: Hodder, 2004), 376.
[47] Kelly M. Wilson, Daughter Zion Speaks in Auschwitz: A Post-Holocaust Reading of Lamentations, JSOT 37 (2012): 94.
[48] Ibid.
[49] Cf. 1 Thess. 4:13. See Ciano, Lament Psalms, 18.
[50] Billman and Migliore, Rachel’s Cry, 70–73.
[51] James H. Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2013), 120–51. Cf. Matt. 2:16–18.
[52] Richard A. Hughes, Lament, Death, and Destiny (New York: Peter Lang, 2004), 18.
[53] Billman and Migliore, Rachel’s Cry, 70.
[54] Rah, Prophetic Lament, 73–73.
[55] Craig Gardiner, Melodies of a New Monasticism: Bonhoeffer’s Vision, Iona’s Witness (Eugene: Cascade, 2018), 75, emphasis mine.
[56] Rah, Prophetic Lament, 123, 169.
[57] See Saliers, Lament Denial in a Lamentable World, 82.
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