A PASTORAL LETTER
Dearest family,
I suggested on Sunday that the message I was going to bring might seem untypical of a usual Pentecost Sunday sermon. Shouldn’t it be upbeat and excitedly charismatic? Why bring a message entitled ‘GOOD GRIEF’? The fact is that precisely because the Holy Spirit is a Person and not just an atmosphere or a presence, as a Person, He can be grieved (as well as resisted or insulted). In an earlier series this year on the gifts of the Holy Spirit I spoke at length about the ways that we both grieve and quench the Holy Spirit, so I guess Sunday’s message was an extension of that discourse. When you read Acts 2 on Pentecost Sunday it is clear why our attention is first drawn to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and to the experiential deluge of spiritual gifts. Less attention is paid in our culture to the sermon that follows, simply because we prefer the experiential to the explanation. But even less attention is paid to the outcomes of that explanation in Peter’s presentation of Jesus and the gospel. The text says that the people were “cut to the heart” (v37). The revelation the Holy Spirit brought, particularly about Jesus and what their sin had done to Him, caused a lamentation. I am arguing that lament is one of the inevitable manifestations of the coming of the Spirit as it brings conviction and confession, and a revelation of the heart of God that leads to repentance. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is not disconnected from a baptism of repentance. As a young man I remember sitting at the feet of the great Hebridean revivalist, Duncan Campbell, and hear him plead for that latter baptism. When the Spirit fell on us at that meeting, it fell as the fear of God. This has been the trademark of the coming of the Holy Spirit in all awakenings and revivals. The grief accompanies the glory. Yes, there may be tongues of fire, but there also wet tears. The tears do not douse the flames but are part and parcel of the baptism in the Spirit.
Herewith are some brief comments, but as I’m going to complete the message next Sunday, I will save the full summary of the five main points till next week’s pastoral letter so you have them all in one cohesive communication. In focusing on lament, I suggested by way of introduction that it seems to me that there are two equal and opposite dangers right now.
1. The first danger is that lament becomes its own kind of buzz-word. It has become a new “in” word in the evangelical vocabulary. Some are talking of it as if it has only just been recovered, or discovered. The fact that is seems so new and relevant is perhaps a comment on the demise of our spiritual intimacy and sensitivity and that in itself should provoke sorrow. Yes, it is absolutely true that lament is a thoroughly non-negotiable, irreplaceable biblical expression of spirituality, always has been, and that scripture is full of it. As was shared last week, so succinctly and well by Paul and Val, lament accounts for about a third of the Praise and Prayer Manual of the Bible, namely the Psalms (we looked at some of them in the Psalm Series – 22, 42, 43, 77, 88 etc.); it was integral to the communication of the prophets (see series on Minor Prophets and Lamentations); it was intrinsic to the recorded communication of Jesus (see Luke 19, John 4 and the gospel accounts of the crucifixion). It is true that lament sadly plays little role in public liturgy or popular hymnody. It is true that most churches want to be defined by their experience of laudation not lament. We have praise bands, not mourning minstrels. There are not many guitars that know how to gently weep, to borrow from the famous song by the Beatle, George Harrison. Interestingly, there’s a verse he wrote that was excised from the final version: “I look at the trouble and hate that is raging / While my guitar June 12, 2019 gently weeps / As I’m sitting here doing nothing but ageing / While my guitar gently weeps.” It is true that in American church culture, the theology of celebration has out-shouted the theology of suffering. The loud praise song has silenced the quiet lament. This was the indictment of God on the sanctuaries through Amos: “You strum away like David … but you do not grieve over the ruin of Joseph” (6:5). It is true that a reason for this is the desire for all to be always well with the world, our “best life now”, as Joel Osteen heretically puts it, which amounts to an evasion of any reality that smudges the cosmetics of our ‘be happy’ prosperity and populism. It is true that historical amnesia is the present evidence of a national dementia, and that its alliance with narcissism has resulted in a national mind with a personality disorder.
What I am saying is that as true and important as it is, for the sheer scriptural reasons that I began to refer to on Sunday, to experience and therefore express lament as the grief of God, it must not become a fad, or a fleshly thing, or yet another divisive tag between those who are discerning enough to lament, and the poor unspiritual beggars who do not, and therefore are not as we are. By definition, how can lament that is the dereliction of humility be turned into a badge of enlightenment and spiritual pride? By the way, I just referred to ‘experiencing and expressing’ lament. We cannot express in lament what we have not experienced in either suffering or identificational suffering, but more deeply than that, what we do not experience of the heart of a grieving God. If our responses to the present condition, particularly racial irreconciliation in this nation, is to merely exchange competing views of secular history, differing perceptions of shame, contrary accusations of blame, then we will not be reconcilers. We will have missed several key things that include:
• Knowing that our responses of lament are not original, not primarily rooted in our
experiences or perceptions, but rooted in the character and heart of a reconciling and
redeeming God. In our lament we cannot be pridefully comforted that we are among the few
who really get it!
•We will also miss the fact that Satan, his thrones, dominions, principalities and powers – all
his counterfeit lordships, authorities, and all his demons – are utterly united against the unity
that God’s heart desires. We will end up fighting the problems with carnal not spiritual
weaponry.
2. The second danger is that we will recognize and acknowledge the need to lament, engage it, but move on too soon as if we have checked the box. It will be treated as a temporary need, as a distinctive and independent and situational expression that remains unincorporated into our larger understanding of worship, discipleship and community life. Lament? We read the chapter, had a teaching, and even wrote one ourselves. What’s next? I have always believed that lament is an inevitable experience and expression if you commit to know the heart of God. It’s not a subject, not even a self-conscious practice or means or method. It arises out of intimate relationship with God. It may well be stirred initially by suffering, either of self or others, but if it is not connected with the affections of God, it will just end up as a sad soliloquy. Lament is not an occasional flavor of the month but an integral part of the ‘DNA’ of normal and regular communication with God. Lament is surely a righteous response to personal suffering, but where does that lament lead us and what does it produce in us in our engagement with God and His world? It is for this reason that I am inviting you to linger a little longer on what Paul and Val addressed two Sundays ago. Join me on Sunday as we conclude the truth of “good grief”, the Pentecostal message that lament is a normal response to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
Pastorally yours,
Stuart
