When we lift our eyes to the world around us, there are so many reasons to lament. It is overwhelming, isn’t it? In recent days it has come into even greater focus through experience, conversation—and song.

Sunday Sermon

Our young senior pastor (Dave) is admitted to hospital with a chest infection and then, within hours, he is in intensive care, with his life in the balance and dependent on machines. Two weeks later, he is yet to ‘wake-up’, although God is at work through medical staff and there are some encouraging signs.

Dave had me in the calendar to preach that next Sunday, but now things had changed—a lot. I had been planning to reach for the Psalms of Ascent (120-134) and ask the question, “Where is God in Our Pain?” In the end I didn’t change much—at all. God is Further Ahead. God is Deeper Down. God is Alongside. I sensed Dave would want me to linger with these convictions…

Seventy Seven

Also in our calendar, in the week following that Sunday, had been Carey Baptist College’s Psalms Conference. Lament lingered through these days as well. Aussie Jill Firth captured it well. Lament feels like God is ‘ghosting’ us. “Joy may come in the morning but sometimes we need to weep all night first.” “Praying uncomfortable feelings is like journeying through potholes in the pathway of praise.”

On that first afternoon, we were introduced to a new composition by six Carey staff members who had collaborated on the project for an entire year:  “Psalm 77: He Hīmene nā Ahapa mai i te Hīkoi (A Sacred Song of Asaph, from the Journey)”. It was stunning. After the conference was over I found myself humming the tune as I was waking up. That is a good sign—because they were attempting to compose a singable lament to be used in corporate worship. It was sung at a public event in which 400 people crammed into a local church. Here is my clumsy, amateurish effort to film it from the back row—with the lyrics almost readable!

Fifty Five

Brilliant in both its conception and its multi-sensory delivery was a workshop from Lindy Jacomb. A big part of her journey has been a painful exit escape from an Exclusive Brethren church. She has been instrumental in founding the Olive Tree Network, set aside to assist former members of “religious high-control groups”. Lindy landed in Psalm 55 with a workshop entitled: When Friends Become Foes: Betrayal at the House of God. Trauma is anytime you experience “a profound horror paired with deep helplessness” (I think she was quoting someone else)—but then this statement of hers will remain with me: “Everything must be brought to speech—and every speech must be brought to God”.

But it is you, one like myself, my companion, my close friend,

with whom I once enjoyed sweet fellowship

as we walked with the throng at the house of God.

… My companion attacks his friends; he violates his covenant.

His speech is smooth as butter, yet war is in his heart;

his words are more soothing than oil, yet they are drawn swords.

(Psalm 55.13-14, 20-21)

Eighty Eight

Another workshop, intent on creating “singable lament in congregational worship”, was William Chong’s And Darkness is My Friend: Interrogating an Attempt to Reintroduce Psalm 88 as Christian Congregational Lament. As the acclaimed Old Testament scholar, Derek Kidner, expresses it: “there is no sadder prayer in the Psalter” than Psalm 88—so what a great focal point for song-writing!

[It brings to mind my Langham Preaching colleague, Dwi Handayani, handing out little bags of play-dough to 900+ delegates at the IFES World Assembly last year—and then, as she preached through Psalm 88, stopping at various points to ask people to ‘shape’ a response to what the psalm was saying…]

A band called Badminton Rd, out of Sydney Missionary Bible College (SMBC, from which my grandfather was one the first graduates!) goes to work, convinced that Lament is “a crucial mode of resisting evil … a faithful response in worship”. A little counterintuitively to what we are led to believe, William noted that a lack of lament is likely to be a contributor to the (oftentimes) short period between someone having an experience of suffering and that person exiting the church.

The song is on Spotify—and on YouTube: You are the God Who Saves Me…

Can I confess to a little skepticism seeping-in at the moment? Composers can write laments, but I suspect the larger issue is not the availability of such songs for corporate worship, but the attitude of those who select songs for worship. What change is needed for these songs to be chosen?

Guy and Girl

Filipino Rico Villanueva is a friend and colleague in the wider Langham Partnership ministry. In Langham circles he is known as The Lament Guy, because he talks about lament at every opportunity. This conference was no different! While his doctoral research was in the area and his little book, It’s OK to Be Not OK, has found resonance across the world—it is his winsome way that wins the hearts of so many people.

On this occasion he brought his daughter, Faye, with him. They did the presentation together. Rico would speak a bit about lament from a psalm and then Faye would sing a bit—in fact, her own composition of that same psalm! It was hard to believe that it was the very first time they had worked together in this way—because it was so effective. As Rico said to me, “Now there is Lament Girl to go with the Lament Guy!”.

Here are a couple of short clips of Faye’s songs…

Wednesday Workshop

The sermon on Sunday was followed by a workshop on Wednesday—on Preaching from the Psalms. In my preparation, I freshened-up by reading two books: Kenneth J. Langley, How to Preach the Psalms (Fontes Press, 2021) and Christopher Ash, Teaching Psalms (Christian Focus, 2017). Both books pushed me in new directions—and that Fontes Press series, Preaching Biblical Literature, is going to prove very useful…

Probably the most significant area of growth for me in my understanding of the Bible in the past decade, or two, is a greater appreciation of the biblical context of a passage. Every student of the Bible is trained in the importance of the historical and literary contexts in the discovery of the meaning of a passage. But what about a conviction that a specific passage in the Bible is not fully and completely and accurately understood until it is placed in the context of the entire biblical story…? Hmmm.

And what does this mean for the Psalms and, more specifically, the Lament Psalms? I touched on this question in the workshop, but only briefly. For example, what difference do the two comings of Christ—sitting at the heart of the full and complete and accurate biblical story—make to the way we interpret and preach the Lament Psalms? Should we be able to hear any difference in the way a Lament Psalm is preached in a synagogue—and in a church? These are big questions for the preacher to ponder.

nice chatting

Paul