Standing with the Afflicted
http://www.jrdkirk.com/2012/07/17/standing-with-the-afflicted/ July 17, 2012 Lament. Songs of mourning. Plaintive cries to God from a world-gone-wrong. The biblical tradition of lament invites us to take hold of three things at the same time: (1) the world as we experience it is not, in fact, the world as God wants it to be; (2) that God’s commitment to the world is failing at this point of pain, suffering, and death; and (3) that we have a right to expect that our demands for a better world will be met by the God with the power to do something about it. Riffing off of Walter Bruegemann here, lament means that we honor God by agreeing with what he’s told us about what a good world looks like: a world of justice, a world of abundance, a world of peace. Lament means we honor God by coming to God as the one who actually has the power to do something about this world gone awry. And, lament means we honor God’s choosing of us as his people by taking up our place, the people of God...