When Lament is Authentic Worship

When Lament is Authentic Worship

As an American Christian of a darker hue and as a woman of a certain age, I am well aware...if not painfully so...that I always worship from a position of privilege. I have transportation, I have pretty clothes and accessories, I have coffee and breakfast items and our worship space is really quite beautiful with its wide-open windows, polished pews, wireless microphones and fine sound system. The trouble is, at least for today, that none of those things are really important to me. Today, being able to be authentic is paramount and today, clothed in my Sunday best, I fear that someone will challenge my way of being authentic in worship. I do not feel like smiling today. I am sleep deprived and broken hearted and grieving...and no, thank you, I do not want to talk about it in the vestibule. Oh, and by the way, I won't just get over it either. This is me coming to church 'just as I am'. Often, in our desire to live out the mandate to "rejoice and again I say rejoice", we neglect to allow people to visit the space of lament and grief. It is as if it makes us uncomfortable...or is it slightly guilty...to be so happy when someone beside us is not laughing and smiling along with us. What would it look like to come to a worship space where you can weep because that is your response to the gospel? What does it look like to present a gospel that welcomes the wailing women? What does it mean to leave the sacred space of the sanctuary and go out into the sacred space of God's creation with the good news on your lips and tears in your eyes? I daresay it is not a contradiction. I am not suggesting that we wallow in our sadness but I am asking us to give ourselves and one another permission to be authentic as we live out our lives. In Toni Morrison's marvelous novel, Beloved, Baby Suggs calls the children to laugh, the men to dance and the women to weep. Ain't I a woman? Well then, today, you shall hear me weep. This is the good news, yes, Jesus loves me...even when I weep and wail...because while I am trusting and waiting, I am being authentic in His sight.