How long, O Lord?

Jamie Howison’s sermon on Psalm 13 and John 20:19-31

Two weeks ago on Palm Sunday, I cited an article Bishop N.T. Wright had published in Time magazine, in which he suggested that, “what we need [right now] is to recover the biblical tradition of lament.” 

Lament is what happens when people ask, “Why?” and don’t get an answer. It’s where we get to when we move beyond our self-centered worry about our sins and failings and look more broadly at the suffering of the world.

Fully a third of the biblical psalms are laments, or what Walter Brueggemann calls psalms of disorientation. Sometimes these psalms lament something the writer has done, as is the case with Psalm 51 in which David confesses the depth of his sin against Bathsheba and her husband Uriah. Sometimes these psalms give voice to some horror besieging the whole of the community, as in Psalm 137 when the writer cries out to God from a state of exile, asking “how can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” Sometimes these laments express the writer’s personal agony over being inexplicably besieged by enemies or adversaries; betrayed by a dear friend, as is the case in Psalm 55 when the psalmist writes of how awful it is that the betrayer “is you, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend, with whom I kept pleasant company; we walked together in the house of God.” Psalm 41 even refers to illness, and how the writer’s adversaries, “think that a deadly thing has fastened on me.”

The Old Testament scholar Rolf Jacobson suggests that “these psalms are important for several reasons”:

First, they give us words for the deepest, darkest nights of our lives—when the bottom drops out, when the pain seems too much to bear. Second, they tell us that God is big enough for everything we've got—our pain, our anger, our questions, our doubts. They even suggest that genuine biblical faith is comfortable challenging God. And that God is present with us precisely when it feels like God isn't there.

In this light, then, lament must be seen as an act of faith. Faith that we can dare to express almost inexpressible thoughts and feelings, and to do that in prayer to God. Nothing is out of bounds, including the loneliness, fear, and even trauma that some of us are experiencing in these days. Oh, and are you feeling a little impatient with asking “Why?” and not getting an answer? With God not tackling this killing disease in a direct and miraculous intervention? That impatience and anxiety is all fair game in prayers of lament. 

How long, O Lord? Will you forget me for ever? How long will you hide your face from me?

There’s the impatience, clear in that first line. How long, O Lord? Where are you when I most need you?

How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long?

“Sorrow in my heart all day long...” and isn’t that an apt line for these times in which some of us find ourselves alone, in self-isolation, in our houses or apartments? The days can feel so long, so heavy, so without any purpose beyond just making it through one more day. Sure, you can take that big picture view and say that in staying alone and isolated through long days and nights is an act of love and service, particularly to my most vulnerable neighbour. Stay at home, help flatten the curve, help keep others safe. But for how long can I hold that in view? How long until we can just wander out the door into the sunshine, and meet a friend for coffee and some much-needed companionship?

Consider and answer me, O Lord my God!
   Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death,
and my enemy will say, ‘I have prevailed’;
   my foes will rejoice because I am shaken.

Oh, but here in this psalm there are enemies, and enemies who are poised to delight in the spiralling downfall of the psalmist. And there is a subtle pressure being placed upon God; a pressure that says, in effect, if I’m left to spiral, O Lord, then my foes will be able to say that you have failed me.

We have no identifiable personal enemy in this time of pandemic, but rather an impersonal adversary called the novel coronavirus. While certainly a threat to all, it is particularly threatening to those who are weakened or compromised by age or by pre-existing conditions. It is also particularly fierce for people whose health is compromised through conditions of poverty; that has become abundantly clear in the statistics coming out of the United States. In a recent article in The Atlantic, the following information was shared:

In New York City’s ground zero, Latinos make up 34 percent of the known deaths from the coronavirus, higher than their 29.1 percent share of the city’s population. Two small Native American pueblos in New Mexico had higher infection rates than any U.S. county as of Friday.... A Washington Post analysis found that majority-black counties had infection rates three times the rate of majority-white counties.

Yes, this impacts us all, even if here in our city that largely means the challenge of the physical distancing policies, the challenge to small businesses and charitable organizations, the challenge to those who provide aid and support to the vulnerable homeless population of our city, the challenge of the unknown. All the more reason to continue to love our neighbour—and our most vulnerable neighbour—by embracing together these measures.

But how long, O Lord? And can we with this psalmist still muster the voices, the hope, the resilience to sing out,

I trusted in your steadfast love;
   my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
I will sing to the Lord,
   because you have dealt bountifully with me.

I will sing to the Lord. We will sing to the Lord. The tones may be muted ones for now, but we will find full voices again, and we will rejoice together.

The “together” part of that is ever so important. Even now, through these screens and the podcasts and whatever other ways we are communicating, we must walk with a sense that we are not alone; that we are the Body of Christ together, and that he is present to us.

“A week later Jesus’ disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them.” That for me is the most striking line in tonight’s gospel reading. Thomas had not been with them the previous week, had not shared their experience of being met by the risen Lord, and did not have the courage to believe that Jesus was no longer dead in the ground. He couldn’t risk the heartbreak of being disappointed yet again. I must have proof... otherwise, no.

“A week later Jesus’ disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them.” He’s not fled back north to Galilee, not returned to the fishing boat or whatever else it was that provided his livelihood, he’s not broken company with them. He’s still there, even though he can’t quite bear to believe their story of a risen Jesus. He is still with them. That is just so very, very striking.

Doubt, fear, anxiety, impatience—how long, O Lord—sadness, that feeling of being blue or having the blues; they are all diminished through being shared. Though we can’t be all here in this space, we can still maintain those connections. We must maintain those connections—phone and video and all the tech we can avail ourselves of, maddening as it can sometimes be—we must keep finding ways to bear one another’s burdens.

And still we say, How long, O Lord? Together, we say How long, O Lord, how long? And then with stubborn resolve, we wait through another day, another long night, another week, keeping company with one another as best we can.