SAINT LUKE
S
SAINT LUKE’S
“WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A CRY OF PAIN
THAT IS ALSO A CRY OF PRAISE AND A CRY OF PAIN
THAT IS PURE DESPAIR?”
TWENTY-SECOND SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
PROPER 25
YEAR B
JEREMIAH 31:7-9
PSALM 126
HEBREWS 7:23-28
MARK 10:46-52
A SERMON BY THE REV. DEACON POSEY KRAKOWSKY
OCTOBER 25, 2015
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In his recent prose work, My Bright Abyss, Poet Christian Wyman asks this
critical question. Deep into treatment for a serious and potentially fatal
disease, Wyman examines his own faith from the perspective of one who
could understandably have solid reasons for abandoning it. He continues:
“The cry of faith, even if it is a cry against God, moves towards God, has its
meaning in God, as in the cries of Job. (…) A cry that seems to at once
contain and release some energy that is not merely the self, that does not
end at despair but ramifies, however darkly beyond it, is a metaphysical cry.
Many people have told me how much they were struck by another recent cry
tinged with despair. When President Obama spoke in the aftermath of the
mass shooting in Oregon, his voice was filled with palpable frustration.
Obama stated that “our thoughts and prayers are not enough — they do not
capture the heartache and grief and anger we should feel, and it does
nothing to prevent this carnage from being inflicted someplace else in
America.”
“Somehow,” he continued, “This has become routine.”
Each of these voices, Wyman and Obama, speak from their specific place,
time and situation. Each has a particular pressure placed on them: for
Wyman — it is the fundamental urge to survive; for Obama — the need to
protect the people under his care. And each sounds a unique note of
despair — despair born of a sense of helplessness against tides that cannot be
held back. And yet — listening carefully to their words, we hear that they are
not alone. Wyman and Obama are both speaking within the prophetic
tradition — a continuum of voices stretching all the way back to the
astonishing words we heard from Jeremiah this morning. Words of anguish
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in the face of deep and seemingly unsolvable crises. Words that recognize
the frustration of the human condition, and yet reach beyond it to find the
promise of a God that never abandons us.
Jeremiah, living in the 600s BCE, had every reason to despair. During his
lifetime, he watched the little country of Judah pass through a brief
moment of autonomy under the young reforming king Josiah straight
through to the total destruction of Jerusalem and the horror of the
Babylonian exile. Jeremiah saw it all, and he cried out against the injustices
he observed. So scathing were his prophecies, that king Jehoiakim, (son of
Josiah) burned them in a brazier as they were read to him. The king cut off
pieces of the scroll and threw them into the flames with his own hand.
Later, Jeremiah was tossed into a cistern and left to die, eventually rescued
by friends before he starved to death.
Jeremiah does not limit his commentary to humanity — he also shouts at
God with frustration -- why has he been chosen to speak and prophesy at a
time when everything is going badly? Why does God allow him to be
persecuted by those who hear him, especially when they know he is right?
And yet, despite his despair, within Jeremiah we find some of the most
soaring prophecies of God’s promises to us — prophecies of God’s refusal to
give us up to the devastation that surrounds us — despite all evidence to the
contrary. Even as he watched Jerusalem be utterly destroyed, even as he saw
all those he loved die or be carted off into exile, Jeremiah still spoke of the
ingathering promise of God.
See, I am going to bring them from the land of the north, and gather them from the
farthest parts of the earth, among them the blind and the lame, those with child and
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those in labor, together; a great company, they shall return here. ⁹ With weeping
they shall come, and with consolations I will lead them back…
Such a glorious image - the promise of the return, the promise of the
ingathering. God will bind up our wounds and bring us consolation. We
will once again be in community.
What is the difference between a cry of pain that is also a cry of praise and
a cry of pain that is pure despair?
As Wyman says, the cry of praise reaches beyond itself, asking for, begging
for communion, even when it is unsure that the cry will be answered.
Jeremiah’s yearning is so strong — so firmly embedded in his consciousness,
that it cannot be denied, no matter what he sees. He reminds us that
God’s promise is to always be with us — that we are always in communion
with God. Even when all seems lost, we are never alone.
Jeremiah’s trust is so deep that he goes on to tell us, just a few verses later,
that we do not even have to do anything to earn this consolation, this gift
of saving Grace. God has promised to do it for us ³¹ The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with
the house of Israel and the house of Judah. I will put my law within them, and I
will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
The cry of praise is the one which recognizes this communion —
acknowledges this yearning within us, even in the face of chaos, loss and
crisis. The cry of praise hopes that even when we feel besieged by doubt
and uncertainty, our cry will be heard. Wyman writes: “… this is how you
ascertain the truth of spiritual experience; it propels you back toward the
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world and other people, not simply more deeply within yourself.” We can
see this same focus on communion in Obama’s assertion that prayer is not
enough, because he speaks from his roots as a community organizer — a
person who has a deep, abiding faith that change can happen when we
reach out to others.
Jesus says: For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am with
them. As Christians, we hear this message of communion most clearly
from the cross — God so loved the world that God chose to share our
human nature. God chose to live and die as one of us. When Jesus cried,
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” we recognize his deep
yearning for connection. We also recognize his conviction that GOD WAS
THERE TO HEAR WHAT HE HAD TO SAY. That searching, that
restlessness within us, that desire for communion, is a fundamental part of
our being. We are made in God’s image. God created us because God
desired to be in communion, and God is there for us always, gathering us
in. “With consolations,” Jeremiah tells us, “I will lead them back.” From
Jeremiah to Wyman to Obama, the cry of praise will always be heard.
Because no matter where we are lost, we are never, truly alone.
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