Category: preaching

Words on the Word Interview with Leslie C. Allen, Author of Liturgy of Grief

Not long ago I reviewed Leslie C. Allen’s Liturgy of Grief: A Pastoral Commentary on Lamentations. The book gently yet steadily coaches the reader in processing grief, expositing and drawing on the rich Biblical tradition of lament. I interviewed Dr. Allen this week.

You write, “Contemporary Western culture provides little space for grief.”  Why do you think this is?

A very good question. Perhaps, in reflection of a technologically advanced and relatively stable society, our culture expects comfort, convenience, and control, and won’t face up to anything contrary. Medication is assumed to be the answer to psychological as well as physical ills. So we feel embarrassed by grieving (and dying) people.

How can churches and worshiping communities better attend to the grieving processes of their community members? In addition to Lamentations and the rest of the rich Biblical tradition, are there other resources available to worship leaders and liturgists to better help them guide their communities through experiences of grief?

One example comes to mind. When I moved my home and started attending a new church some years ago, I found the associate minister’s morning prayer each Sunday was prayed on behalf of those present who were suffering in various ways. It was a different prayer each week, always wide reaching and beautifully crafted. I (and doubtless others) appreciatively felt she was praying for me, at a time when I needed prayer but found it difficult to pray.

You say, “‘Why?’ in the complaint psalms is never an intellectual request for information but a loaded rhetorical question that conveys emotional bewilderment and protest.”  Is there ever an appropriate time for the pastor/chaplain to address questions like “Why did this evil happen?” through a more deliberately theological-philosophical lens?  If so, how does the chaplain discern if and when it’s appropriate to go there?

C.S.Lewis’s The Problem of Pain evidently brought him no help as he penned A Grief Observed. Lamentations felt free to eventually tackle theological issues, using prophetic revelation as the guideline, whereas we and those we try to help are not living in the immediacy of such a situation when prophecy was being directly fulfilled. And Lamentations is able to give a variety of answers, perhaps in the hope that some at least would be found helpful. If a grieving person truly seeks an intellectual answer, one may tentatively broach some thoughts to be tried on for size. Otherwise, it is better considered when the emotional passion of grief does not intrude.

You mention the New Testament story (Mark 4:35-41) where Jesus’ disciples ask, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”  Especially given Jesus’s reply (“Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”), how can we who worship God know when it’s appropriate to lament or complain in prayer and when it’s not?  This is the “how far is too far?” question with relation to lament and prayer!

If our prayers are to be real, we must pray from where we are, emotionally and in other ways. We miss a tone of voice in the written form of biblical revelation. I suspect Jesus’ reply was mainly meant as reassurance, rather than rebuke, like the examples of “Do not fear” in Isaiah 40:9; 41:13, 14; 43:1-2; 44:2, etc.

I happened to read Allen’s book just before the Colorado movie theater shootings. Reading it inspired me to find and pray two lament prayers in response (here and here). As a Professor of Old Testament and hospital chaplain, Allen in his book provides the reader with good space for grief and Biblically-inspired means to lament.  A Liturgy of Grief is available here.

Another prayer of lament in response to Aurora, Colorado mass shooting

AP Photo/Barry Gutierrez

Yesterday I posted a prayer of lament for the victims and families of victims of the shooting at the Dark Knight showing in Aurora, Colorado the other day. Here is another lament prayer, compiled by Laurence Hull Stookey from a collection of Scriptures.

Christians do, after all, have a rich Biblical tradition from which to draw in expressing our mournful prayers of lament to God. Below the prayer are citation information and a link to a formatted, print-friendly pdf of the prayer.

If I were leading a congregation in unison prayer or offering a pastoral prayer tomorrow morning for all those affected by the shooting, I think this is what I would use. It’s good “lament liturgy.”

Prayer of Lament

O God, you are our help and strength,
our refuge in the time of trouble.
In you our ancestors trusted;
They trusted and you delivered them.
When we do not know how to pray as we ought,
your very Spirit intercedes for us
with sighs too deep for words.
We plead for the intercession now, Gracious One.

For desolation and destruction are in our streets,
and terror dances before us.
Our hearts faint; our knees tremble;
our bodies quake; all faces grow pale.
Our eyes are spent from weeping
and our stomachs churn.

How long, O Lord, how long
must we endure this devastation?
How long will destruction lay waste at noonday?
Why does violence flourish
while peace is taken prisoner?
Rouse yourself! Do not cast us off in times of trouble.
Come to our help;
redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love.

For you are a gracious God
abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

By the power of the cross,
through which you redeemed the world,
bring to an end hostility
and establish justice in the gate.
For you will gather together your people into that place
where mourning and crying and pain
will be no more,
and tears will be wiped from every eye.
Hasten the day, O God for our salvation.
Accomplish it quickly! Amen.

From Let the Whole Church Say Amen! A Guide for Those Who Pray in Public by Laurence Hull Stookey, pp 94-95 (Copyright 2001 by Abingdon Press). Reproduced by permission. Formatted print-friendly pdf of prayer here.

Scriptures from which the above prayer comes are: Psalm 124:8, Psalm 37:39, Psalm 22:4, Romans 8:26, Isaiah 59:7, Job 41:22, Nahum 2:10, Lamentations 2:11, Isaiah 6:11, Psalm 91:6, Psalm 44:23, Psalm 44:26, Exodus 34:6, 1 Corinthians 1:17, Ephesians 2:14, Amos 5:15, Revelation 21:4, Isaiah 60:22.

Good Grief (a review of A Liturgy of Grief)

There is a Yiddish proverb that calls tears the soap of the soul. The release, rather than the bottling up, of inarticulate emotion is a valuable first aid to be applied over and over again to the raw wounds of grief.

—A Liturgy of Grief, p. 2

My boss and I have recently lamented together the lack of good lament liturgies for the Church. Worshiping communities seem to be good at celebration and constant in intercession–maybe even at times confession–but lament? We’re too scared or too complacent to adopt that difficult posture. We may think that even if we wanted to lament, we don’t have the words with which to do it. “Contemporary Western culture,” Leslie C. Allen says in his Liturgy of Grief, “provides little space for grief.”

And yet we do have resources, scripts to help us unbottle the anguish and woe we inevitably experience. Allen, whose book is aptly subtitled A Pastoral Commentary on Lamentations, writes, “The book of Lamentations is best understood as the script of a liturgy intended as a therapeutic ritual.”

A Liturgy of Grief is a unique kind of commentary. Though Allen has written technical commentaries and contributed to commentary sets (a few are here), this book is a monograph, a singular contribution to Lamentations commentaries. Baker Academic publishes it, but it is not so academic or technical so as to exclude readers who have only a passing familiarity with Lamentations or the Old Testament.

The book includes the full English text of Lamentations, in Allen’s own translation. Though he often references the Hebrew he translates, he rarely lists the Hebrew words themselves. Language and translation buffs, however, will be happy to see nine pages of translation notes in an appendix. (This language buff appreciated that Allen saved his longest translation note for the single English word “but” in the last verse of Lamentations.)

Allen has written lengthy technical commentaries, yet this is not that, nor is it intended to be. However, Allen does not neglect to thoroughly elucidate the text. He understands the five chapters of Lamentations as “five poems,” each with their own distinctive theme and contribution to the larger book. The climax of the book comes in the fifth poem. Here the grieving community, having heard the model prayers of a pastoral mentor/liturgist (Allen calls him “the reporter”), at last can pray to God in their grief.

Allen weaves together narratives past and present, from the 6th century B.C. to today, in order to guide the reader section-by-section through the book of Lamentations. In addition to being Senior Professor of Old Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary, he is a hospital chaplain. Nicholas Wolterstorff comments in the foreword, “[Allen] brings to his commentary an understanding of grief that was already deeply informed both by the contemporary literature on grief, all of which he seems to have read, and by his own activities as a hospital chaplain.” In reference to the repeated expressions of grief in the first poem (chapter 1 of Lamentations), Allen writes:

For those who grieve, but not for their regular hearers, the old story is ever new, always filling their consciousness and needing to be told once more, as intensely as it was the first time. Patience is the prime virtue that empathy requires.

Any preacher, liturgist, or worship leader will appreciate Allen’s commentary. He gives attention to the approach and words of “the reporter”/liturgist in Lamentations, drawing important conclusions that can guide today’s liturgist in helping a community deal with grief:

In this [third] poem a wounded healer offers his knowledge of God’s ways and his experience of them in a context of suffering. At beginning and end he ministers out of his own suffering and presents himself as an object lesson. A fellow sufferer, he points the congregation forward to a new wholeness that both he and they yearn to attain. In turn, we readers who are wounded have the potential to be wounded healers.

A Liturgy of Grief is a special book and a gift to the Church, both its leaders and its members. Contrary to lament-free churches or a Western culture which knows not how to grieve, Allen opens up a space for readers to recall and feel their hurt and the hurt of others. The commentary is “pastoral,” just as it promises, with Allen a pastor to any who will receive the ministry he has to offer through this book. “When believers find themselves in such a fearfully dark valley,” Allen concludes, “the biblical tradition is there, providing challenging words for souls in pain to use.” In addition to Lamentations, Allen evokes the biblical traditions of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Joel, and makes reference to numerous lament Psalms.

Allen illuminates all these “challenging words” of Scripture beautifully. His final chapter perfectly matches the surprising ending of Lamentations. (No spoilers here, but I will say that all I could write in the margins was, “This is real, true, holy.”) I finally realized hours after finishing the book that, all along, Allen as author plays the same role to reader as “the reporter”/liturgist in Lamentations did to his 6th century B.C. worshiping community:

He mentors members of the community by giving expression to the grief he and they have in common, turning incoherent feelings into words and explaining the experiences they have all been through. …He is also interpreter of their loss…. and finally involves them in a creative response of their own that they are ready to make in the final poem…

…that of prayer to God. As a result, A Liturgy of Grief serves as its own sort of book of Lamentations for the 21st century, with Allen “giving expression to the grief” of his readers, interpreting their loss and–finally–guiding them into a response of prayer.

I offer my thanks to Baker Academic for providing me with a free review copy in exchange for an unbiased review. A Liturgy of Grief is available at Amazon.

UPDATE: I interview the author here.

Junia is Not Alone: Review of Scot McKnight

In Junia is Not Alone, Scot McKnight asks, “Why are we so obsessed with studying the ‘subordination’ of women to men but not a woman like Deborah, who subordinated men and enemies?” And, “Why is there so much silence in the church about the women in the Bible?”

Noting how few of his students (i.e., none) had heard of Junia and other women in the Bible, he dedicates his short ebook to “ending the church’s deafening silence on women in the Bible.”

Junia “appears innocently enough” in just one verse of the New Testament, Romans 16:7, “alongside her husband, Andronicus.” (See my Junia post here.) McNight goes on to say that Junia “had no idea she would someday be the subject of endless discussions,” although unfortunately his own discussion of her ends pretty quickly.

On the bright side, McKnight does what often goes undone in conversations about the apostle Junia–he explains what the term “apostle” means in Romans 16:7. He writes,

So, we conclude that there was a first-century relative of the apostle Paul named Junia; she entered into Christ before Paul did; and this Junia was an apostle. Which means (because this is what apostles did) she was in essence a Christ-experiencing, Christ-representing, church-establishing, probably miracle-working, missionizing woman who preached the gospel and taught the church.

Nice. Unfortunately, however, readers who are looking for anything else about Junia will be disappointed. Of course there is only the one Bible verse that mentions her, and no other first century documents where she is known to appear (although someone please correct me if I am wrong?). But there is a long history of interpretation and textual criticism around “Junia” and Romans 16:7, which I would have liked to see McKnight delve into a bit more. As it is he merely favorably summarizes the conclusions of Eldon J. Epp (the text does read “Junia,” not a male “Junias”; she was an actual apostle).

In addition to Junia, McKnight mentions other women in the Bible–Priscilla, Mary, Phoebe, Deborah, Miriam. Although his listing these women and briefly discussing their ministry is helpful, he says very little about each (Miriam: led Israel in song). Perhaps this is due to the nature of a deliberately short ebook, but I was left wanting more.

McKnight helpfully traces the history of the Greek New Testament editions, and how “Junia” became “Junias.” But his conclusion feels dramatic:

The editors of Greek New Testaments killed Junia. They killed her by silencing her into non-existence.

All I could think about after reading that line was Dan in Real Life, where one of Steve Carell’s teenage daughters (whose romantic relationship he is trying to end) storms off and says, “YOU!  ARE A MURDERER… OF LOVE!”  McKnight again: “They murdered that innocent woman by erasing her from the footnotes” (my italics). A bit much.

But I’ll give McKnight that even Bible translations can be “political” and motivated by other external factors. He says it better here: “Who says New Testament texts and translations are not political?” Some editors/translators think that a woman couldn’t hold the office of apostle, so they essentially tamper with the text… if he’s right that that has been a common motivation for reading “Junias” and not “Junia,” then I agree; it’s poor form. Actual textual evidence for “Junias” would be a good reason to read “Junias” in the text, but there is not much. All the same, the charge of murder seems harsh.

In the end McKnight asks about Junia, “Do you hear her voice?” But ultimately the God who calls, gifts, and equips women and men alike for ministry is the one whose voice we ought to be listening for. McKnight knows this, and I get his point, but I think his appeal could have been strengthened by calling the Church to hear and heed Junia’s example and to let her significant ministry as an “outstanding apostle” inspire us. Junia didn’t write anything (at least that we have today), so what “voice” are we to listen for, and how? It almost sounds like she is supposed to speak to me from the grave or via some warp in the space-time continuum.

I’d wager that’s not what McKnight is getting at, however. I think he simply wants the “silence” about women in the Church to end. Although the preponderance of Biblical heroes are male (for cultural but not theological reasons, in my opinion), there are some pretty significant ministry roles that women play in both testaments.

And my criticisms notwithstanding, I’m with McKnight–those women’s stories need to be told more often and more fully as preachers and teachers expound the whole Bible to their congregations. Where there is silence about how God has used and continues to use women to spread his Gospel, the silence should end. I just wish McKnight himself –as someone fully qualified to do so–had made more noise about Junia and the other women who join her in the pages of Scripture.

The “Preacher’s Trash Bin” (A Review of What Not to Say)

Here is some great preaching advice from my mother-in-law, a pastor: Never say from the pulpit that a certain idea came you to while you were in the shower.  Because who wants to think about their pastor in the shower?

Or as John C. Holbert and Alyce M. McKenzie put it, “Don’t tell stories that involve listeners picturing you naked. …So you received an insight into the cleansing power of God’s love in the shower on the mission trip as the cleansing and healing water cascaded over your body. Find another setting to tell about your epiphany.”

I set out to read What Not to Say: Avoiding the Common Mistakes That Can Sink Your Sermon, thinking that the book would be full of practical ideas like not sharing shower epiphanies as having taken place in the shower. Yet Holbert and McKenzie also write with theological depth and care as they coach preachers on what not to say and do in the pulpit.

Their chapters cover what not to say (and what to say): about God, about the Bible, at the sermon’s beginning, about the congregation, in the middle of the sermon, about yourself, in stories, and at the end of the sermon.

The goal of the book is “to give very direct advice out of the store of [the authors’] combined sixty years of preaching and over forty years of teaching others how to preach.”  They write, “It’s important in preaching to be as clear about what we are not saying as we are about what we are saying.” Here is where the theological depth of the authors comes to the fore, right in the first chapter: “First, affirming the sovereignty of God is not the same as insisting that everything that happens in my life and the world is directly the result of God’s actions.” The authors have a high view of God’s sovereignty, yet caution preachers against saying or implying, “Everything happens for a reason… and that reason is God.” Especially in a funeral sermon, for example, they say it’s theologically misguided for the preacher to say that God just “needed” the deceased’s voice to join the heavenly choir, or wanted “another flower for his heavenly bouquet.” God is sovereign, yes, preachers should affirm, but did he really cause a drunk driver to kill your daughter? No, the authors would say; free choice gone awry (i.e., stupidity) caused that. But preachers have to be careful that their words don’t somehow affirm that God’s sovereignty means He somehow took away that life. He may have allowed it; he didn’t ordain it.

Though the reader may not always find herself or himself in lock-step with the authors’ theology (I think the Bible is more of an “answer book” than they seem to indicate, and I respectfuly disagree with their interpretation of Romans 1, that Paul didn’t really understand the nuances of homosexuality), the reader will certainly appreciate their theological, Biblical, and homiletical care that grounds the eminently practical advice they give. The authors’ love of the Gospel, of the Church, and of preaching is on full display in these pages… and it inspired me as I read.

A few more highlights ought to convince anyone with an interest in preaching or public speaking to read this book:

  • The authors say the preacher should ask herself or himself this question honestly: “Do I habitually base my sermons on my favorite passages and avoid others I know little about or that may prove difficult?”
  • “Preachers throughout history have known that it is as important to exegete the congregation as it is to exegete the text. Jesus certainly did….”
  • “Sermons these days need to teach biblical and theological themes to often biblically illiterate listeners.”
  • “When we stir up people’s emotions without tying them to a biblical and theological message, what are they to do with their stirred-up emotions?”
  • Holbert and McKenzie want the preacher to ask: “Does the sermon tell the truth of the Gospel, not a domesticated version I assume the congregation would prefer to hear?”
  • On bad preaching habits (verbal filler, overused non-verbal gestures, etc.), they say: “Anything you do in the pulpit again and again will become over time the source of boredom and finally ridicule. When the youth sit in the balcony and count the number of times you say or do a certain thing, it is time to take stock of your preaching patterns.”
  • “Never make yourself the hero or heroine of your sermon” by using yourself as a positive example of how to apply a certain Scripture. “The sermon is not about us; it is about God.”
  • “Never use any of your children as sermon examples.” (Whether the reader finally agrees with this or not, the authors make a good case for it.)
  • Ask anyone for permission to talk about them in a story, even if that story shares something positive about them: “There are people in your church who would immediately transfer their membership if you thanked them publicly or singled them out in a positive way.”

It would be easy for me to go on about the helpful things I read in this book. I highly recommend it to all who preach or teach, in the Church or elsewhere.

The book is out now through Westminster John Knox Press.  (I am grateful to have received a digital galley of What Not to Say for review through Net Galley.)

I’ll give the authors the last word:

Preachers and teachers of preaching like to talk about the preacher’s toolbox. That is a positive metaphor. It signifies a repertoire of useful, effective sermonic strategies. There is also a preacher’s trash bin, a receptacle where we ought to put all the ineffective sermon strategies we don’t ever want to use again.