"Lament and Faith"

         As almost all of you know, I’m a relentless basketball fan, especially University of North Carolina basketball. (Lebron can take his talents to South Beach all he wants. I’m rooting for the Tar Heels!) What you may not know is that I also love to play the game myself. I remember more than twenty years ago playing basketball at seminary. I wasn’t that good of a player, but, as I said, I loved to play. One day I was trying to guard a man who was a lot better than I was, somebody who’d actually played ball on a high school team earlier in his life. At one point, he went to take a jump shot and I jumped up to try to block his shot, but in his follow-through the guy’s elbow  accidentally came smashing down just below my left eye. I was knocked to the floor, teammates clustered around. I saw stars and blood dripped from a gash below my left eye. But after a few moments I got up, walked to the bathroom, wiped the blood off, pressed the wound with a wet paper towel, and headed back to the court. And the great thing was that the other players then gave me a lot more space on the court (it was seminary after all). After the game though, many of my friends insisted that I should go get some stitches. Nah, I said. My spouse also advised a doctor’s visit. Not necessary, said I. Of course, after a day or so, my eye looked awful–black and purple with a gash that was not healing properly (gave a really nice scare to folks at church and around the seminary). Finally, I did see a doctor who laughed and said, “Yep, you needed stitches all right--a couple of days ago. It’s too late now.” Happily, one of my friends (now a pastor in Arkansas) upon viewing my eye and after providing me with the requisite pastoral sympathy, concluded, “It looks macho as hell.” So I have a little scar under my left eye, a scar only recently swallowed by wrinkles and middle age.
         Have you noticed? Many of us have a tendency to deny pain–physical pain, emotional pain, spiritual pain. “How’re you feeling?” “Fine.” “You seem depressed.” “No. I’m just a little tired.” “Man, that’s gotta hurt.” “It’s okay. A lot of people have it worse than I do.” We rationalize, minimize, and psychologize. We deny pain, loss, depression, and suffering.
         But not the writer of Lamentations. The writer of Lamentations first spoke to Israel after Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians and Israel was taken into exile in 587 B.C. And the writer does not pussyfoot around. Over and over again he complains, mourns, laments how awful things are for Israel. People, young and old, dead in the streets. Starving children. Gloating enemies. Who’s to blame? Sinful Israel, says the writer. But who has caused this catastrophe? God, says the writer. God has sent this affliction as a punishment for Israel’s unfaithfulness. Most of us do not accept the notion of God punishing a people in this way, yet we still resonate with the writer’s honest lament and complaint to God. He says, “The thought of my affliction and my homelessness is wormwood and gall!” Wormwood is a small, bitter tasting shrub. And gall is a bitter and poisonous herb. Life is bitter and poisonous for the writer. “My soul continually thinks of it and is bowed down within me.” The writer’s soul, his very being, his life, keeps focusing on his suffering and the suffering of his people. So he sinks down–an apt description of depression.
         Scanning the paper, we read of a woman in Cleveland sentenced to life in prison. She scalded her two-year-old daughter to death in a bath tub. Her daughter! Can we even stand to imagine? What did that sound like? Where was God? Where was God’s church?
         A Columbus area pastor steals a million dollars from his former church.
         A gay Rutgers student kills himself when he is humiliated by a web-cam video posted on-line.
         Wars continue to rage around the world. The hungry are still hungry and the poor are even poorer, while CEO salaries have climbed to more than 300 times the average worker’s salary. And you and I have our own personal pain and loss to contend with. At least the writer is honest enough to admit he’s depressed sometimes. On this World Communion and Peacemaking Sunday, can we admit it too? You see, admitting there’s something wrong is the first step in dealing with it. Acknowledging something’s wrong requires that we be awake enough to notice the injustice, suffering, and pain not only in our personal lives but in the world around us.
         In Luke, Jesus’ disciples also had to recognize something was wrong. Earlier, Jesus had just challenged them about not causing new believers to stumble in their faith. And he’d just commanded them to keep on correcting and then forgiving even the most difficult, ornery members of the faith community. And the disciples must’ve thought, “Holy smokes! If you’re going to drop all this responsibility on us, you’re going to have to help us out.” So they yelled, “Increase our faith!” And Jesus said, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed (and I know you do), you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be ripped out of the soil and planted in the sea’ and it would do what you say.”
         Do we see what Jesus is getting at? David Bartlett puts it this way. “Jesus knows that the disciples have faith because they ask for faith. Wanting faith, asking [for] faith may not be much faith, but it is a mustard seed’s worth and the story says that for now, that is enough . . . Wanting faith is the beginning of faith.” (David L. Bartlett, “Mustard Seed” a sermon, Oct. 16, 1977)
         Jesus is not some bejeweled televangelist hollering that if you only have enough faith you’ll be healthy and wealthy, and if things are going badly in our life it’s your fault because you don’t have enough faith. No. Wanting faith is the beginning of faith. Even a tiny mustard seed’s worth of faith is enough to get us started, but that is not the end.
         Go back to the writer of Lamentations for a moment. After his vivid complaints and first-rate laments, suddenly he says, “But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; [and as we sang to begin worship this morning] great is thy faithfulness.” How does he respond to his predicament? Honest sadness, even some depression, yes. But then he remembers. Faith is always an act of memory. But we can only remember what we’ve already learned. And, as advertisers know so well,  we remember best that which we review and call to mind over and over.
         You may have noticed a disturbing report in the news this week. According to the New York Times, “Researchers from the independent Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life phoned more than 3,400 Americans and asked them 32 questions about the Bible, Christianity and other world religions, famous religious figures and the constitutional principles governing religion in public life.” On average, people got only half the answers right and the highest scoring groups were not fundamentalist Christians, nor mainline Christians like you and me, but atheists, agnostics, and “religious minorities” Jews, and Mormons. (Laurie Goodstein, “Americans in the dark on religion, survey says” The Plain Dealer, Sept. 28, 2010)
         “But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope . . .” Faith is always an act of memory. But we can only remember what we’ve already learned. Are you and I learning and relearning the faith? Or did we quit growing after confirmation classes were over?
         Finally, the writer of Lamentations says it’s good to wait for the Lord. And we say, “Wait? With everything that’s going on? How can we wait?” And the answer is that, as one scholar says, “The Hebrew word for hope is the same word as the one meaning ‘to wait.’ (Beth Laneel Tanner, Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year C, Vol. 4, 133.)
         The writer doesn’t mean just any kind of waiting; he means a hopeful kind of waiting, a waiting for God. And he doesn’t mean a do-nothing kind of waiting; he means an active kind of waiting, a participating in the justice and peacemaking of God.
         On Thursday evening, we were privileged to hear Mano Rumalshah, Bishop Emeritus of the United Church of Pakistan, speak here about “Christianity and Islam: Prospects for Reconciliation.” Mano, as he likes to be called, told us there are about 16 million people in the Province where he serves and of that 16 million only about 100,000 folks are Christians. These Christians are mainly poor, menial laborers. And the mission before them is impossible, right? But no. The church has started educational institutions, community development, and ministry among women, youth, and children. Mano has begun a group, Faith Friends, for interfaith dialogue. At a local hospital, Christians clean the wounds of the Taliban and Christians reach out to earthquake victims. And Mano challenges us in the U.S. He says, “Sharing the faith has become a mistake for some of us, and that saddens my heart.” So, quietly, under constant threat of death, Pakistani Christians share their faith as they wait for the Lord, waiting in hope.
         It all began with a mustard seed of faith. Wanting faith is the beginning of faith. And now it is growing as Christians learn and relearn their faith, as Christians live in active, hopeful waiting.
         On this World Communion Sunday, this Peacemaking Sunday, how is God calling us to reach out to a bloodied and scarred world like our brave Christian Pakistani brothers and sisters do? Can we be honest enough, aware enough of the needs around us to embrace the sadness, but then turn to God in trust? We have at least a mustard seed of faith. God, increase our faith! Increase our faith. Amen.