Good friends of mine from seminary, a clergy couple in Texas, are in quarantine/isolation from each other right now. Their kindergartener almost certainly picked up COVID their very first day back to school and brought it home to share with their mom and one of two siblings.
Healthwise, they’re already recovering. But consider: 10 days out of school for everyone, a sick mom trying to take care of two sick kids and dad hoping to keep the other one healthy. This could yet be reality for Sister Jennie and I, the way the Delta variant is spreading through local schools. We hope and pray otherwise, for ourselves and for everyone we know.
It’s not worth rehearsing the arguments about how we got here in this space. Remarkably few people’s towards public health interventions have changed since the early days of this pandemic, although many people seem more willing to mask up and/or get a shot when it seems a more imminent threat to their own health or their closest family members.
Instead, this calls for lament, one of the most neglected Biblical modes of prayer & song. We’re familiar with praise, thanksgiving and asking for help. But even as we give thanks that most of us and those we know and love best have weathered this last 18 months fairly well, and pray that might continue, probably the most needed prayer comes from Psalms like the 13th: “How long, O Lord…? Consider and answer me, O Lord my God!”
Most lament psalms end in an expression of trust in God’s goodness. But let’s not rush past genuine expressions of lament. God can handle our anger, our accusations, our fears, our weariness, our lack of hope, our hardness of hearts, and even the tininess of our faith. What laments would you add, knowing that God already knows them all before we speak?
Pastor Jon
