January 21: Lamentations Today

From reading Pastor Vroegop’s book, I was led to Lamentations.

How did I overlook this powerful book of poetry and humanity, history and emotion, theology and hope, despair and endurance?

Jerusalem and the temple are destroyed. Thousands killed, enslaved, starving, even to the point of cannibalism of children, and that by mothers . The people of God are reduced to barbarians, the chosen humans to beasts. They have no allies, only a conquering nation. Women are raped—no need for semi-euphemisms like “ravished” and “violated.”

In fact, Jeremiah does not leave the women out of his images. He starts the poem with the image of a princess reduced to a vassal. The men were supposed to protect the women and children. Their fall makes that impossible. The kings are powerless. Their subjects have been removed by death or exile. Young high-born men are in Babylon, perhaps eunuchs in Nebuchadnezzar’s court, perhaps slaves, perhaps just dead on the side of the long road they had to walk in chains.

Judah is not the first or last country to be defeated in this way. Lamentations weeps of the how and the why. The poetry is remarkable, at least in the English version. I have no reason to doubt that it is in Hebrew.

I cannot help but remember that three female hostages were released from Hamas yesterday. I don’t want to say they were released by Hamas; Hamas did everything they could to make it not happen. The crowds in the street as they were exchanged from the Hamas vehicle to the Red Cross van were terrifying. They could easily have been shot or blown up, and the ideology that drives Hamas and so many of the Gazans would have justified any loss of life. Those who care about Israel are reliving Lamentations, but those three women give hope.

That Jeremiah’s words remain is a cause for hope, as well. In great disaster, survivors are still alive to record, remember, weep, tell their story, return, rebuild. The exiles returned from Babylon, but not all, of course. They were scattered abroad, and at Pentecost, a day commemorating harvest, they were together to see the “new thing” prophesied by Joel.

I am surprised and also wary that the verses we hear quoted from Lamentations have nothing to do with lamenting and facing the reality of our sins, situations, self-deception.

We read 3:22-23 and skip the “consumed” part.

“It is because of Yahweh’s loving kindnesses that we are not consumed, because his compassion doesn’t fail. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.”

We avoid 1:19-22:

“I called for my lovers,
    but they deceived me.
My priests and my elders gave up the spirit in the city,
    while they sought food for themselves to refresh their souls.

20 “Look, Yahweh; for I am in distress.
    My heart is troubled.
My heart turns over within me,
    for I have grievously rebelled.
Abroad, the sword bereaves.
    At home, it is like death.

21 “They have heard that I sigh.
    There is no one to comfort me.
All my enemies have heard of my trouble.
    They are glad that you have done it.
You will bring the day that you have proclaimed,
    and they will be like me.

22 “Let all their wickedness come before you.
    Do to them as you have done to me for all my transgressions.
For my sighs are many,
    and my heart is faint.

Or 3:1-9

I am the man who has seen affliction
    by the rod of his wrath.
2 He has led me and caused me to walk in darkness,
    and not in light.
3 Surely he turns his hand against me
    again and again all day long.

4 He has made my flesh and my skin old.
    He has broken my bones.
5 He has built against me,
    and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship.
6 He has made me dwell in dark places,
    as those who have been long dead.

7 He has walled me about, so that I can’t go out.
    He has made my chain heavy.
8 Yes, when I cry, and call for help,
    he shuts out my prayer.
9 He has walled up my ways with cut stone.
    He has made my paths crooked.

We Americans prefer celebration to lament, of course. Especially on Inauguration Day, which happens to be MLKing Day this year.

Can we lament our past sins and the ones whose shadow we still live under? I think our sin is the acceptance that people are disposable when money or power or personal desire strikes us as more important or valuable. We disposed of humans by enslaving and selling them like beasts. We kill our offspring because we want careers, or money or convenience and most of all, sex without consequence. We use legally arrived immigrants as commodities of labor rather than including them fairly. One of these changed, two continue.

“What I want conquers all,” is our motto. A boat, a career, my own way, bigger investments, cruises, 4000-square-foot house, all good things. At any price.

Jeremiah’s lament is personal and national. May be the national came first, and he brought it into himself. I think it has to start personal for us today.