Lament is a language born of both grief and anger: grief over that which is being lost, and anger over the circumstances that brought about the loss in the first place.
If we forfeit the language of lament in our preaching and worship, faith communities are bereft of one of the most significant resources for corporately holding their grief and anger over the state of the world and the individual losses we face.
The most frequently occurring type of psalm is the psalm of lament. About a third are laments, with lament themes showing up in other psalms as well. Some lament psalms are communal, like Psalm 137, and some are individual/personal, like Psalm 88; individual laments outnumber the communal.
It is a matter of congregational care to ensure that the full range of human experiences and the emotions that attend them find expression in the liturgical labor of the church. Yet, many in our congregations have likely never heard lament expressed in a liturgical or homiletical way.
Of the 45 psalms that never appear in the Revised Common Lectionary, 30 of them are psalms of lament, and those that do appear are often alternate readings.
The common movement of the lament psalms, and one that offers us a template for our preaching and liturgical practices of lament, is a movement that goes like this:
- First, an invocation (“Listen to my words, O LORD; attend to my sighing,” Psalm 5:1)
- followed by the fist-shaking, gut-wrenching cry of lament (“You have made us the taunt of our neighbors, the derision and scorn of those around us,” Psalm 44:13.)
- then prayers of supplication rooted in one’s sense that God hears our prayers (“Do not be far from me, for trouble is near, and there is no one to help,” Psalm 22:11),
- and, finally, expressions of praise and confidence in God’s goodness and care (“But my eyes are turned toward you, O GOD, my Lord; in you I seek refuge; do not leave me defenseless,” Psalm 141:8).
This could serve as the structure for a sermon, just as well as for a communal liturgy.
A few exceptions to this typical movement are Psalms 88 and 137, which linger in desperation, as well as the book of Lamentations, which ends in an expression of uncertainty. Thus, the unresolved and the uncertain are also perfectly acceptable places to end an expression of lament when the person or community cannot yet ascend to an expression of praise and confidence.
The language of lament is helpful in several ways for congregations needing to hold the heaviness and, at times, brutality of life.
Lament invites a realistic appraisal of the world. The destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE is the precipitating event for many of the laments we find in the Hebrew Bible, including the book of Lamentations. For many of the individual psalms of lament, we do not know what personal calamities rest behind words like “I am like those who have no help, like those forsaken among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, like those whom you remember no more” (Ps. 88:4-5).
While most of the psalms of lament do not reveal the personal or the communal context giving rise to their expression, each of them arises as a prayer to God out of a specific circumstance: from personal hardships and failed harvests to war and the destruction of the Holy City.
A lament divorced from any specific context makes little sense in liturgical, homiletical, or prayerful expression. Lament always invites us to name with brutal honesty the realities we are facing, to hold nothing back, to bring our grief and anger into speech.
Lament invites hope rather than optimism. In many US congregations—especially predominantly white and more affluent ones—a culture of optimism can drown out the cries of lament. Looking on the bright side, believing things will get better if we just wait long enough, substituting trust in God with a cheaper trust in progress or the status quo all hinder our ability to give expression to the deepest cries of our hearts, both individually and on behalf of communities on the brink, including the ecological community on the brink of climate collapse.
Lament is born of despair, not of optimism. And it points toward the hope bound in relationship to God, rather than sure and certain outcomes.
Even when things look like they may not work out, the language of lament gives expressions to a hope-against-hope that, even amid despair and destruction, God is there, and God is at work. “If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there” (Psalm 139:8b; though not a proper lament, this psalm contains some elements of lament).
Yet, many in our congregations likely feel that the raw and real, angry and grief-filled language of lament borders on faithlessness. This is why preaching, teaching, and practicing a liturgy of lament can be so important. You cannot find a more faithful community of trust in the sovereignty of God than the community that produced the Psalms. And over a third of the time, they expressed that faith in the language of lament. At least some of the time, so should we.
Ultimately, lament invites trust in God’s presence in our suffering. Lament only makes sense within spoken, intimate relationality with God, even when that relationship, at times, feels distant.
Other Resources on Lament from Luther Seminary
- “Finding Hope by Listening to Longings and Losses” by Dr. Dawn Alitz with a template for writing your own lament psalm (Faith+Lead)
- “The Book of Lamentations: Grief, Poetry, and the Question of God’s Presence” podcast episode featuring Dr. Cameron Howard (Enter the Bible)
- “Where Is God in Our Suffering? The Theology That Actually Helps in a Crisis” podcast episode featuring Dr. Rolf Jacobson (Faith+Lead Pivot Podcast)
