pain and words

In my through-the-Bible-in-a-year reading plan I’ve just finished Jeremiah and have started Lamentations. Jeremiah has been called “the weeping prophet” and Lamentations is his lament over the fall of Jerusalem. In my NIV Study Bible it mentions how Lamentations is used in both Jewish and Christian worship. Of course, the NIV is used mostly by American evangelicals so the idea of using a 5-chapter book of poems of lament in worship is a pretty foreign notion, which is why the practice has to be explained.

Which is too bad. If anyone can identify with the pain of losing a homeland it should be many of the Asian ethnicities that are now resident in the US. Chinese Americans called themselves “sojourners”. Japanese Americans have lost their Japanese-ness in the eyes of Japanese nationals. These are examples of how the Asian American church should be able to identify with Jeremiah and find a sympathetic voice in Lamentations. But I can’t remember a single sermon I’ve ever heard on Lamentations 2:11: “…I am in torment within, my heart is poured out on the ground because my people are destroyed…”

I find that it’s hard to imagine reading Lamentations regularly and allowing the pain that’s expressed to become my pain. I’d rather follow the American evangelical tradition of skipping to the nice parts (like 3:22-24 “…great is your faithfulness…”). I don’t want to deal with pain. I'd rather ignore it. And the Jewish notion of the word as sacred in itself is very different from modern evangelicalism’s view that what we really want is the essential meaning. We don’t have the patience to listen to or read whole books of the Bible (albeit short ones) as part of our worship. We want the bullet-point version (even Cliff’s Notes are too long) that can be put up on a PowerPoint slide. Yet the words of the Word are meant to take our time, to occupy an important part of our lives. We need to learn to read the Bible for transformation, not just information. I remember praying with a Jewish friend who would say, “Help us to understand Your words” as we discussed the Bible together. It sounded odd to me because I’m so used to thinking of the Bible as “Your Word”. But now it makes sense to me: it’s the very words that are transforming when I give them time.

I’ve grown up in evangelicalism so I appreciate the honor that’s given to study and proclamation of the Word. But I also want to learn from other Word-centered traditions. I don’t want to become just a student of the Bible. Somehow I want to allow the Word to speak into my humanity and form me and to form us as a church community.