Lament but grow

 We all know that it is sometimes extremely cathartic to lament as David did over the death of Jonathan (2 Sam 18-27). Indeed the whole of Lamentations is an extreme moment of cathartic liberation. But what comes afterwards? Once we have finished our moment of lament how do we get back into the moment and begin again or rather continue doing that which we have discerned as being the forward movement of the church, our community or ourselves. Sometimes it seems that as an organisation, that is the church, we tend to live in the moment of lament and ask all of those around us to be there with us rather than moving on into the light of Christ in the community.

Paul in his encouragement to the Corinthians speaks about our willingness to begin anew and start something but then comes his most important words "Now go on and finish it" (2 Cor 8.11a). We are just as likely to fall back into the moment of lament as we are to move forward with the understanding of Christ is by our side. Even in the most inauspicious moments in our lives when we believe there is no hope Christ is there to bring hope. Once we have begun something we need to finish it. We began at baptism with our lives in Christ and as soon as we begin to move into the world we tend to forget our commitment and lament our losses rather than continue on in the commitment to Christ. This falling away is both institutional and personal as we swirl in the crowds of everyday life forgetting that Christ is close to us. It takes courage to reach out in the midst of our despair to try and touch the fringes of the Christic presence. We become discouraged and loose ourselves in the apparent safety of the crowds rather than finding the courage to stretch out and touch to be made whole. Just like the hemorrhagic woman in Mark's gospel (5.25-34) we need the courage of our convictions and not the voice of the crowd.

Have we the faith to reach out from the midst of lament?

In or institutions what happens is that we are set on a way forward onto a path and then when our leader / inspiration moves into another role / life / place we look for another to take their place. Yet, what happens is that another comes and replaces our visions with new ones so that we have to begin again lamenting once more the past. What we are failing to do is grab hold of our vision and running with that vision of Christ by our side to the fulfilment of God's design. Its not you or me it is all of us collectively as Christians. We are like the leader of the synagogue in Mark's gospel that the hemorrhagic woman's story interrupts. We see the death of something we have given birth to or rather we see its imminent demise and believe that that is the end. What if it is not, what if like the daughter in the story the idea is just sleeping deeply only to be woken by Christ's presence (Mk 5.39-43)? So often we believe the professional mourners and do not have the courage to see the spark of life that is Christ in our midst.

We have a tendency to laugh at the ideas of others that would like to take on the path that Christ has walked rather than join with Christ in the walk and be lights along the way. Hope is so easily besmirched and its light hidden by the callousness of modern society. This is especially the case when we involve ourselves in lament. There is a time and place just as David understood but then we must re-visualise the hope that Christ gives us by standing within our midst and healing the old injuries and bring back into the light and joy of love the dead dreams that we put to the side to lament. We need to remind ourselves not to fall back but to continue God's design. In the next year Melbourne is going to enter into this sort of change with the Archbishop laying up his staff and the question is will the vision remain or will it be changed once more to suit our designs and not God's design.