Inscribing the Text: Sermons and Prayers of Walter Brueggemann

Joined in Suffering . . . Reliant on God's Power

Joined in Suffering ... Reliant on God's Power Lamentations 1:1-6; 3:19-26; Luke 17:5-10; 2 Timothy 1:1-14 World Communion Sunday; 27th Sunday of Ordinary Time Christiansjust now have peculiar work to do, and that is what we celebrate on World Communion Sunday; we have the whole world on our horizon in this hour of communion. In the Epistle reading , Paul writes to Timothy: Join with me in suffering for the Gospel, reiving on the power of God (Lam 1:8). Paul states the central mystery of our faith, sufferingpower , that is enacted in the death and resurrection ofJesus, and that is to be replicated in the life of the church. So my theme is that strange connection of suffering and power. I Have you ever heard a sermon on the book of Lamentations? Probably not, though it is the assigned Old Testament reading for today. The book of Lamentations is just that, a lament, five long poems of sadness, grief over the ancient city ofjerusalem that was destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 B.C.E. The Jews cried over that destruction, because the holy city was the focus of all their dreams and hopes, the sign of God's presence and fidelity to diem, the gathering of all things precious and treasured. And then it was gone, gone by Babylonian invasion, but they said, gone by the anger of God ... in any case gone! And they wept. They wept for loss. They wept for abandonment. They wept in their deep hurt and despair. And the book of Lamentations lingers in the Bible, because Jews have never finished weeping over that loss that showed up again in the Nazi holocaust, and that likely is still at work in the present Israeli government with its fear and anxiety and brutality. Christians have never much used and never much needed the book of Lamentations. Never needed and never used, because Christians have forever been triumphant and dominant, partly confident that Jesus is the winner, and partly privileged culturally, politically, 121 and economically. As a result, our losses were never so deep ... and no one did a "Final Solution" on us as on the Jews. We never used and never needed Lamentations, until we considered the cross and the crucifixion and the suffering love ofJesus and his call to enter the places of hurt with him. So now, as we ponder lostJerusalem and crucified Jesus and God's suffering love, as we hear Paul tell Timothy, "Join me in suffering for the Gospel," listen again to these old, deep cadences ofloss, grief, and pain: How lonely sits the city that once was full of people! How like a widow she has become, she that was great among the nations! She that was a princess among the provinces has become a vassal. She weeps bitterly in the night, with tears on her cheeks; among all her lovers she has no one to comfort her; all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they have become her enemies. Judah has gone into exile with suffering and hard servitude; she lives now among the nations, and finds no resting place; her pursuers have all overtaken her in the midst of her distress. The roads to Zion mourn, for no one comes to the festivals; all her gates are desolate, her priests groan; her young girls grieve, and her lot is bitter. Her foes have become the masters, her enemies prosper, because the LORD has made her suffer 122 for the multitude of her transgressions; her children have gone away, captives before the foe. From daughter Zion has departed all her majesty. Her princes have come like stags that find no pasture; they fled without strength before the pursuer. (Lam 1:1-6) It did not used to be so sad inJerusalem. The city was full of people, great among the nations, a princess among the princes of the world. Did not used to be but now, lonely, like a widow, a vassal... humiliated , vulnerable, exposed, brutalized. It is a city imagined like an abused woman: She weeps bitterly, tears on her cheeks, none to comfort... None to comfort, grief, loss, hurt, too deep to utter. There is a reason that we now have the assigned text of Lamentations that we have not needed or used before. The reason is that, like those old Jews who saw Jerusalem...