Truth-Telling in Corporate Lament

Most faith traditions have failed to teach us how to lament. Now is an opportunity for us to center our communal grief.

By Rohadi

In April, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, a close ministry friend and I discussed whether our churches had adequately prepared us to deal with grief. We noted how, despite living in different countries, our congregations were coping in similar ways.

“I can’t handle sitting still. I’m going crazy!” some said. Without regular work or rhythms, many started grasping for significance. Our sense of rugged individualism crumpled under the weight of self-isolation, showing that we are defined more by our doing than our being.

It also demonstrates how unprepared we are for uncertainty.

One way to process moments—and now seasons—of enormous loss and sorrow is through lament. Lamentation is a form of truth-telling about what we’re feeling in body and soul. I'm not okay. I’m grieving. Life has changed. I’m having trouble dealing with the loss.

For many of us, lamentation is something we struggle to embody. We tend to stifle our cries rather than dig deeper into our vulnerabilities. We’re also ill prepared to deal with sorrow because it’s not something we typically address in our faith traditions. Put another way, we don’t know how to lament because we’ve never been taught how.

As I spoke with my friend, we acknowledged these aren’t simple questions to solve, but they’re worth tackling. We could begin by reimagining how we gather together, whether it be online, or one day, in person again.

Formation of Worship

Most contemporary worship services are half music and half preaching. We could improve formation around lament by ensuring that both reflect and embody it.

Unfortunately, whether in liturgical or modern contexts, lament is rarely emphasized in the corporate sphere. The repertoire of contemporary worship music is devoid of sad songs. Even during this pandemic, that remains the case. When I reviewed the top worship songs for the month of May at CCLI, Lifeway Worship, and Praise & Worship, I found no laments. I took my search further and reviewed the top fifty songs in May on CCLI. Again, no laments.

The two songs that slightly fit were “Yet Not I But Through Christ in Me” and “O Come to the Altar.” But they, like many others, approach sadness and loss through the individual experience.

In other worship songs, popular refrains include: “God is my refuge” (Psalm 46 says “God is our refuge”); “Lord, weep with me”; “oh I need you”; “you are my rock”; “you lift me up”; “help me see my sin, my weaknesses, my failures and flaws, my pain.”

We sing about graves turned into gardens, but we have trouble lingering in the seasons we’re stuck in the grave.

There’s no doubting the importance of personal introspection, but God’s story of rescue is far greater than me. Lament also extends beyond me. Truth-telling must emerge through the lens of community. We should ask: How is the church body, neighborhood, or city grieving? And what is our collective response?

The individualized posture of modern worship is built around “praise and worship”; it doesn’t leave space for collective grief. Corporate suffering is not lauded in mainstream churches, so lamentation is not a popular genre of music. By failing to normalize lamentation, churches develop little experience responding to suffering.

In Asian and Asian American churches, we often use the same hymnals or reiterate the same popular songs written by predominantly white authors and artists. In the approximately seventy-five songs I reviewed, only one was written by an artist of color: Way Maker, by Nigerian singer and songwriter Sinach. In all likelihood, most churchgoers are only familiar with this song’s cover version by a white man.

We do not need to look far back in history to remember suffering is very much part of the experience of being of Asian descent, both in the US and abroad. Our experiences during the pandemic remind us we bear our own grief in the present too. As such, we need to stop relying solely on formation from spaces that struggle to understand shared suffering.

There are existing traditions to lean on. We can learn much from our Black and brown brothers and sisters, who center the community in celebration and sorrow. Lament is often seen through the lens of deliverance not for me, but rooted in we. It’s a shared hope for community that many Asian churches are unfamiliar with.

When we exclude our experience from corporate lament, we are severing the link between one another and community. But this is what we need right now. We must preach and sing through our own cultural experiences.

Linkages in Lament

The novel coronavirus is bringing all that’s not right to the forefront of our society, and we must make an account of these findings. Death, despair, job loss, and mental health challenges are all around us. We see friends and neighbors targeted for the shape of their eyes and color of their skin. We fear that one day this could be us too.

In recent weeks, we’ve seen and experienced even more grief and pain. The murder of George Floyd triggered a pent-up rage and cry for racial justice. Asian American Christians can no longer turn a blind eye to white supremacy in our midst. How might we respond?

Much like worship, lament doesn't start or end with me. Lament is inextricably linked to others’ loss. Sharing in collective pain through lament allows us to express solidarity. The way things ought to be aren't the way things are. Not just for me, but for everyone facing this global pandemic. Not just for Asians targeted over the “Chinese virus,” but for Black communities who have suffered for centuries from systemic racism.

We need to create new liturgies that reflect the acute needs and experiences of our neighborhoods and cities. We have to champion our own community artists and poets to reflect our shared sorrow. We must choose to descend into lament by sharing our own stories and amplifying the stories of others.

It’s here, where we’re honest about our own suffering, that we are in solidarity with the crucified Christ and suffering people in our midst.

Truth-telling about our grief puts us in a space to long for deliverance, to hope all wrongs will be turned right in this age and the one to come. Lamentation helps us navigate this tension as we cry for deliverance that may not seem forthcoming. We have a hope but it's not evident right now.

We seek God’s restoration in the now, the not yet, and the yet to come. Lament creates a liminal space that we must linger in until we can emerge scathed, but together. 

Photo by Mike Labrum on Unsplash

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Rohadi is a writer, entrepreneur, nonprofit developer, and pastor. His most recent books include Thrive. Ideas to Lead the Church in Post-Christendom and Soul Coats: Restoration. He is also the co-founder of Decolonizing Christianity Canada. Connect with him online on his blog, Instagram, or Twitter.