“Remembering and Praying in a Minor Key”

INTRODUCTION: 

Lament, as an expression of pain, is something that is neglected in the church today. We seems to be more in favour of the songs and passages that bring a more positive feel to our congregational worship and we at times more intentional, concerned and passionate about the feel good factor of congregational worship than about the situations that are causing havoc in our world today?

We don't always like to hear music that is played in a minor key, it has to be jolly and uplifting. Not a funeral song of loss and sadness.

This approach to congregational worship is at odds with what we find in the Bible.

The majority of worship songs and psalms of the old testament are found in the "Psalter" The book of psalms. 

The majority of those psalms are "Lament" psalms - songs that are in a minor key so to speak. Of course there is the book of lamentations also, but when was the last time you heard preaching from there. 

A real question for me in all of this is "Have we as the church moved away from remembering and praying in a minor key?" "Have we given up bringing to God our raw emotions over the things we cannot make sense of?

So why, have we, the followers of Jesus abandoned lament?

•  Is it because we have become too comfortable? 

• Is it because we are not sensitive enough to communal pain and social injustice? 

• Is it because our churches do not allow the voice of suffering and protest to surface in our prayers and liturgies?   

• If the lament is, characteristically, the voice of the oppressed, then perhaps this means we have ceased to be a church of, for, and alongside the oppressed and disadvantaged. 

This message is about trying to recover congregational worship that is honest enough to bear those raw emotions to one another in our prayers, our worship and to God.

1. REMEMBERING AND PRAYING BIBLICALLY IN A MINOR KEY.
There are two key biblical avenues into lamenting, remembering and praying in a minor key.

1. The first biblical avenue into lamenting is the Psalms:

Conversations between the people and their God—the God who creates, redeems, and is on the side of the oppressed.  So the people, in the midst of injustice and hardship and oppression, can call upon this God in anger and frustration.

2. The second biblical avenue into laments and lamenting is Lamentations.

Let’s be honest: this Book of Laments is not commonly read or used by Christians, although it has a deep significance for Jews.  Lamentations is a series of five poems of grief that identifies with the oppressed.  Lamentations are the songs in minor key that give the people of God a prayer language in a minor key over the destruction of Jerusalem, over disaster and catastrophe, over horror and grief. 

2. REMEMBERING AND PRAYING TRUTHFULLY IN A MINOR KEY.

1. Truthfulness is required in worship.  not ignorance. Truthfulness even if it is painful is the right thing for worship. Truthfulness in worship is remembering and praying in a minor key, it's about bearing our souls before a God who we have doubts about.

2. Because we need to say it.  Laments announce aloud and publicly what is wrong right now.  Laments create room for seeing and naming injustice, that is political, domestic, ecclesiastical, national, and global. Lamenting is a longing of a people for justice to reign. Lamenting is an appeal to God to bring liberty of all kinds. Lamenting is remembering and praying in the minor key over injustice, hurt and anger and saying together "How Long O God"

3. REMEMBERING AND PRAYING LIKE JESUS IN A MINOR KEY (Matthew 23:37)

1. Jesus knew how to remember and pray in a minor key.  Jesus lamented over the state of Jerusalem “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!  See, your house is left to you desolate.  For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’” A painful lament for Jesus that was about the place he was and the unjust things that were happening.

2. Jesus' Laments were Prophetic - Jesus lamented prophetically over the city of Jerusalem. He lamented over past conflicts, and institutional murders . He laments over the future of such a regime. He laments over his departure from such an oppression. He laments because people do not see the urgency of their situation. He laments because he cares!

CONCLUSION:

• When we encounter war and conflicts around the world and see no peace, leave place for lament. 

• When oppression goes unchallenged and there is no political will for change, leave place for lament. 

• When the planet is ravaged and is robed of it’s resources, leave place for lament. 

• When the sick are unhealed, leave place for lament. 

• When questions go unanswered, leave place for lament. 

• Let us hold before God the things that are raw and painful and proclaim that we do not see a way out.