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Good Friday: Learning to Lament

Community Amidst the Coronavirus
1. All Parish Gatherings Canceled Until Further Notice
2. The Parish Gathering – March 15, 2020
3. Christ as a Shield Overshadow (St. Patrick’s Breastplate)
4. Ways to Serve & Give
5. Engaging this Season Through Heart, Mind, and Body
6. A Liturgy For Those Flooded By Too Much Information
7. The Parish Gathering – March 22, 2020
8. “Fear is a Liar”… is a lie?
9. My Uncle’s Heart: On Love, Grief, and Hope
10. The Parish Gathering – March 29, 2020
11. Imaginative Reading: Jesus & Lazarus (from John 11)
12. The Upper Room Anchor
13. Daily Office Readings for Holy Week (April 5, 2020)
14. Palm Sunday, 2020 (Gardens: A Journey Through Holy Week)
15. Maundy Thursday, 2020: The Garden of Grief
16. Maundy Thursday: Peace I Give You Meditation
17. Good Friday, 2020: The Garden of Loss
18. Good Friday: Learning to Lament
19. Holy Saturday: A Guided Meditation
20. Easter Sunday, 2020: The Garden of Life
21. Daily Office Readings for the week of April 12, 2020
22. Daily Office Readings for the week of April 19, 2020
23. Daily Office Readings for the week of April 26, 2020
24. Daily Office Readings for the week of May 3, 2020
25. The Parish Gathering | May 3, 2020 (Fourth Week of Eastertide)
26. Daily Office Readings for the week of May 10, 2020
27. Daily Office Readings for the week of May 17, 2020
28. Daily Office Readings for the week of May 24, 2020
29. Daily Office Readings for the week of May 31, 2020
30. Daily Office Readings for the week of June 7, 2020
31. Daily Office Readings for the week of June 14, 2020
32. Daily Office Readings for the week of June 21, 2020
33. Daily Office Readings for the week of June 28, 2020
34. Daily Office Readings for the week of July 5, 2020
35. Daily Office Readings for the week of July 12, 2020
36. Daily Office Readings for the week of July 19, 2020
37. Daily Office Readings for the week of July 26, 2020
38. Current Issues Facing Christians (July 26, 2020)
39. Daily Office Readings for the week of August 2, 2020
40. Daily Office Readings for the week of August 9, 2020
41. Daily Office Readings for the week of August 23, 2020
42. Daily Office Readings for the week of August 30, 2020
43. Daily Office Readings for the week of September 6, 2020
44. Daily Office Readings for the week of September 13, 2020
45. Daily Office Readings for the week of September 20, 2020
46. Daily Office Readings for the week of September 27, 2020
47. Daily Office Readings for the week of October 11, 2020
48. Daily Office Readings for the week of October 18, 2020
49. Daily Office Readings for the week of October 25, 2020
50. Daily Office Readings for the week of November 1, 2020
51. Daily Office Readings for the week of November 8, 2020
52. Daily Office Readings for the week of November 15, 2020
53. Daily Office Readings for the week of November 22, 2020
54. Daily Office Readings for the week of November 29, 2020
55. Daily Office Readings for the week of December 6, 2020
56. Daily Office Readings for the week of December 13, 2020
57. Daily Office Readings for the week of December 20, 2020
58. Daily Office Readings for the week of December 27, 2020
59. Daily Office Readings for the week of January 3, 2021
60. Daily Office Readings for the week of January 10, 2021
61. Daily Office Readings for the week of January 17, 2021
62. Daily Office Readings for the week of January 24, 2021
63. Daily Office Readings for the week of January 31, 2021
64. Daily Office Readings for the week of February 7, 2021
65. Daily Office Readings for the week of February 14, 2021
66. Daily Office Readings for the week of February 21, 2021
67. Daily Office Readings for the week of February 28, 2021
68. Daily Office Readings for the week of March 7, 2021
69. Daily Office Readings for the week of March 14, 2021
70. Daily Office Readings for the week of March 21, 2021
71. Daily Office Readings for the week of March 28, 2021
72. Daily Office Readings for the week of April 4, 2021

We invite you to follow the prompts in this video as a guide to writing your own lament (using the structure of the Psalms as an example).


“My God, My God” (Naming our Losses & Learning to Lament) 

Last night, we followed Jesus to the Garden of Gethsemane, the Garden of Pressure, the Garden of Grief.

Tonight, we continue our journey through Holy Week by taking a seat alongside loss and lament. We have a unique opportunity this year to participate in the Easter season in the context of collective suffering and sadness. 102,198 people have died within the last 2.5 months of the coronavirus. Right now as we gather, 50,000 people are in serious or critical condition. And in our country, it’s likely to get worse in the weeks to come.

We’ve been beating the drum of grief and loss for several weeks now in our gatherings at The Parish.

As Jenna Perrine says, many of us have been taught to see prayer and worship as a means of cauterizing our wounds – these are things that help stop the bleeding. The bleeding, we fear, doesn’t belong in the house of God and needs to be pushed away as quickly as possible.

Yet all along, the Bible has been full of laments.

An entire book of Scripture is called Lamentations. And roughly half of all the Psalms are songs of Lament. Why did the people of God find it so important to embed the language of tears, sadness, injustice, and anger in their worship?

Because our souls grow, expand, and enriched through the necessary journeys of grief and loss we all will face. It has rarely been so important for the American church to have emotional fluency and healthy theology around our pain and suffering. If those whose God suffered and died don’t know how to converse with the deep pain of these realities, who will?

Jesus knows the Psalms of lament well. As we engage Good Friday, we’ll hear him cry out the language of lament that he had prayed often enough that it now spontaneously poured out of him: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”

Would we feel bold enough to say those words to God? Or would this seem to be a failure of faith, a cry of unbelief?

Perhaps because we are not fluent in the language of lament, we don’t know what to do when the world falls apart.

Rene Breuel says “lament is what happens when we ask,’Why?’ and then don’t get an answer. Lament is suffering turned into prayer. It’s the worship of people who admit that they sometimes feel out of balance and out of place.”

As NT Wright aptly reminds us in this time, Christians don’t need to explain why. We need to be able to not explain, then demonstrate how to grieve and lament wholeheartedly, while we wait for hope.


Writing a Lament (Based on Psalm 22)

Using Psalm 22 as an example, consider using the structure below to write your own lament to God, naming your losses and bringing them to him in the presence of his love.

  • Cry out to God
    • “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”
  • Express Your Complaint
    • “Why are you so far from saving me?”
    • Name your anger, pain, heartache, or sadness
    • Rage against the source(s) of injustice or your enemies
  • Name your Request
    • “Lord, do not be far, come quickly to help me.”
  • Give Voice to Your trust and remembrance of God’s presence and faithfulness in the past
    • “Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One, you brought me out of the womb… in the assembly I will praise you”

Music by Chris Zabriskie

Land on the Golden Gate by Chris Zabriskie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

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