I read the Psalms and understand them as a template for the corporate worship of Israel. I read the New Testament and understand it as a template for the New Israel. So I read the New Testament in light of the old, especially the Psalms, and am grateful for a direction to my worship. I read the Psalms and am grateful for the 77's and 88's and imprecations--they give voice to my complaints and freedom to my voice. In my 12 years of attending church and seminary and mission sites, today is the first day, as far as I can recall, that I sang a song of lament in church.
The church meets in a music venue. The congregation is mostly young, mostly urban, mostly not like those of my past. The congregants, many of them, were up front, at the foot of the stage, singing and dancing and beating metal pipes on the nicked wood. I sat in my chair and read the words to the songs on the red overhead and kept beat with my fingers, on my knees. My worldview says to me, "This is beautiful, this expression of worship, these individual accidents of heartfelt praise." My heart says to me, "This is good, yes, but different from my own quieter, self-kept expressions," and though I know no one there would care whether I sat and chanted or thrashed and wailed, I also know my tendency to quickly categorize, to label myself as the other and start criticizing anything that doesn't cater to my preferences. I think I was on the verge of this; then, during one of the songs, the band started singing "Sometimes I want to push [Y]ou aside--how can I?" over and over. "Sometimes I want to push you aside, sometimes I want to push you aside." As I sang along, I saw a girl fall to the floor and hang her head, giving voice to her heart: "Sometimes I want to push you aside--how can I?"
The biblical theology, seminary-studies side of me wants to hold my finger up and say, "Wait a minute! We can't stop there, with the Fall. We have to also have redemption and consummation." But no, we don't. Psalm 88, for one, ends not with light and glory, but with darkness and loneliness. God gives us the freedom to stop there if we need to, to bring our complaints before him, bring our pains and hurts before him without theological mitigation or justifications. And not just in quiet, private moments; not just in personal prayer or while driving down the highway. He both allows us and wants us to bring our complaints and hurts to him during corporate worship. He wants us all, as a body, to grieve and moan, to come to him honestly, to admit that all of us, to some degree, want to push him aside. This kind of complaint seems to be an issue of guilt, truly, but more than that, an issue of shame. And while we’re quick to acknowledge our guilt (confessions of sin, e.g.), we’re loathe to acknowledge our shame, especially together, especially out loud, especially during worship. Why is that?
Why is that? because for some reason we think that we can save ourselves. To do something about my sin on my own. I fall to my knees loudly, tearfully when I see how deeply wrong I am. It was good to see you Jeremy. Jack misses you.
Posted by: Tirzah at January 2, 2005 07:27 PMyay and amen, jer. (or do i mean yea?)
Posted by: emily jane at January 2, 2005 08:36 PMi think it is because shame, guilt and repentance are messy. one of my favorite suzan-lori parks quotes is from the play Topdog Underdog:
“People are funny about they Lincoln shit. Its historical. People like they historical shit in a certain way. They like it to unfold the way they folded it up. Neatly like a book. Not raggedy and bloody and screaming.”
seems to me that you could just substitute salvation for historical and the quote would still be true. people want their salvation neat like a book, not raggedy and bloody and screaming.
Posted by: amy at January 3, 2005 05:15 AMIs it OK if I bring Francis Schaeffer into this? I'm feeling really sententious.
I'm re-reading his little Art & The Bible pamphlet (you might have read it?). At the end, he talks about how Christian art should reflect both the crapulence (a neologism I think) of living in a fallen world ("the defeated aspect of even the Christian life") and the fact that man is redeemable based on Christ's work.
But then later on he basically says in order to judge an artist or a sermon (or, like you said, the Bible or books of the Bible), you have to make sure to look at the whole body of work rather than fixating on a certain part.
So this applies to songs in church, too, I guess (I think I've only repeated what you said, except more clumsily).
I guess traditionally we've wanted the instant gratification of having every song a redemption song. Or if it mentions shame, "Quick, to redemption!" (I guess there's a contrary example to this in "O Come O Come Emmanuel" (Belle and Sebastian did a version apparently)--tortured longing--only mentions the *promise* of redemption)
A song with a repeated chorus about shame is all true and probably necessary, but it does leave you sort of sprawling on a pin (you know, if an attractively countercultural visitor came in and heard just that chourus and then left, you'd feel like running after him/her yelling, "No--come back!.")
When you're talking about your shame, "Redemption please--I'm dying here!" is a good thought to have, isn't it?
So, I agree with you.
Posted by: Mark at January 3, 2005 09:17 AMmark, amy, tirzah, thanks for your comments. schaeffer, parks, and jack are always welcome to the conversation.
Posted by: jeremy at January 3, 2005 11:10 AMIt's like that hymn "O Come and Mourn With Me A While" that's about the death of Christ--sometimes we have to mourn completely before we can rejoice and have hope. Light is so much brighter when contrasted with the darkness, I think.
Posted by: Manders at January 3, 2005 11:50 AMi have trouble with grieving and moaning in public because i know that it is often perceived as self-absorbed. i feel guilty if i unburden myself too much on others or too much in front of others. especially when i know the others love me and will grieve with me... i think, "don't they have enough of their own grief? why should they have to take part in mine?"
Posted by: Erin at January 4, 2005 12:52 PMPsalms often tosses my preconceived notions of proper theology out the window of a speeding car. I'm surprised by the violence and tenderness expressed in that portion of the Bible. Ultimately it is one of the most transparent portrayals of sinners in the hands of a Holy God.
Erin, I used to think that "grieving and moaning in public" was "self-absorbed" and selfish. What changed was a friend of mine who hid from me because his father is close to death and he never told me. As he visits his father daily, he has yet revealed to me his secret grief. At first, I thought that is the way it is supposed to be with men who mourn. It struck me today that he is hoarding grief to himself and not allowing those who love him dearly to enter and grieve with him.