The Faithful Blues

The Faithful Blues--July 18, 2017

"By the rivers of Babylon--there we sat down and there we wept

     when we remembered Zion.

  On the willows there

     we hung up our harps.

  For there our captors asked us for songs,

     and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying,

     'Sing us one of the songs of Zion!'

  How could we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?

  If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither!" [Psalm 137:1-5]

It takes no bravery at all to fake a smile.

But perhaps we are never more courageous when we can be honestly sad.

We live in a time and a culture that seems obsessed with manufacturing happiness--or better, the appearance of happiness--like it is a product that can be mass-consumed, ordered on demand with Amazon Prime, or super-sized at the McDonalds drive-thru window.  We live in an age and in a society that is so fearfully uncomfortable around sorrow that we do everything we can to either deny that it is there, numb the feeling away with pills, bottles, screens, and distractions, or shoo the sadness away with "retail therapy" and the thought that we can buy our way out of both emotional and economic depressions (both are lies).

And it takes no courage at all to give in to fake happiness or to dull the pain of sadness over things in life that genuinely call for sorrow.  It takes no courage at all to hide a broken heart from family and friends.  Somewhere along the way we got this foolish notion that real strength never reveals that it is hurting, never lets anyone see you bleed--but all that really did was to glorify denial and to let us cover up our insecurities.  Do that for long enough and you get a society of people who project a toxic "toughness" to the world but are really scared playground bullies underneath, shaking angry fists at the world in the hopes that no one will notice our knees knocking together in fear.  Well, that's us.

Against that, the surprising wisdom of the God who speaks in the Scriptures is of a totally different picture of real courage--one that is able to see power in being honest about grief in this life, one that is brave enough to be sad.  And one of the things that we are given in this life, the more and more we are shaped by the story of God's people is a freedom from the fear of letting others see our sadness.  We gain the ability--the power, you could say--to lament.

Lament is one of those things you rarely hear talked about in our culture, much less appreciated.  There is a section in our denomination's most recent hymnal entitled "Lament," (along with a complete collection of all 150 Psalms, including the sad and angry ones), which I must confess caught me by surprise the first time I saw it, maybe because I had gotten used to the (wrong) idea that Christian songs, poetry, or thinking should all be peppy, upbeat, and happy all of the time.  I think I had unwittingly bought into the assumption that people with "real" faith are always in good mood and smiling wide. But the Bible itself make room for real lament, and in fact seems to suggest that sometimes the greatest, most courageous, act of faith is to allow oneself to be sad... honestly.

These verses from what we call Psalm 137 are a good example.  In the midst of exile, and under the shadow of an arrogant empire, the people of God resist the fake-happiness of Babylon by lamenting.  They won't be prodded into singing a joyful song just because the Babylonians taunt them into it.  They won't pretend that everything is fine when it's not.  They resist the lure and persuasion of Babylon that kept trying to tell the exiles, "We are in charge. We rule.  This is normal. Get used to it." by refusing to sing the old happy tunes while their hearts are broken. 

The fearful ones who went into exile eventually gave in.  There were plenty who went into exile and eventually just gave up their sense of belonging the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  There were plenty who just decided to accept the way of life Babylon offered, and to accept whatever fake happiness Babylon offered.  But there was this handful of brave souls that would not give in and would not sing while their hearts were broken--they had the courage to be honest, which freed them from the fear of sadness.

Sometimes sadness is our greatest witness of hope, oddly enough.  Sometimes tears are the only way to adequately say, "This isn't how it's supposed to be."  Sometimes lament is the right way, the only way, to protest what is wrong, what is unjust, and what is heartbreaking, and to resist the voices that want to numb it away, ignore it, or pretend things are fine. Just like it takes courage to say, "The emperor is wearing no clothes," or "This is not OK--this is not normal," it takes courage to be able to be sorrowful over the days when Babylon wins, the times when the vulnerable are stepped on, or the moments when all we feel is loss.  Denying it is just giving the fear more power.  But allowing sad faith to be sad stares that fear down face to face.

The psalmist in today's verses turns out to have a very deep faith--and a deep allegiance to the God who is an alternative to the gods of Babylon.  But ironically, when the powers of the day asked the band to play an upbeat number to dance to, the psalmist responds with a song... but not a two-minute tune of bubble gum pop.  The psalmist sings the faithful blues--blues, in the sense that they lament the pain of living through times that feel like the bad guys won the day, but faithful in the sense that the poet still pledges allegiance to the defiant hope of how things are meant to be, and how they yet might be put right.

Today, don't let anybody tell you that a living faith has to wear a fake smile.  It doesn't.

Today, don't let anybody try and rush you out of a sadness that is honestly yours today.  Own it.

Today, don't let the taunting voices of Babylon make you forget, "This isn't how it's supposed to be."  Remember--and hope--how all things are to be put right.

Today, don't let anyone say that Christians aren't supposed to shed tears.  Rather, let your tears be the insistent reminder that God will not rest until every last tear is wiped away... but that we are not there yet at that day.

Today, don't let anyone fool you into accepting that myth of toxic toughness.  If your heart is in a place to be sad over something that is broken, hurting, or lost in this life, let it be honestly sad.

Like the old prayer goes, "Let my heart be broken by the things that break the heart of God."  Let us dare to be freed from the fear of sadness... and to let lament be the beginning of a protest of hope.

Lord God, break our hearts where they need to broken rather than complacent, and give us the freedom to be sad as well as joyful with honesty..