Wednesday of holy week 2012...

Last night, after a demanding band practice for Good Friday, as I was reading my mystery novel before going to sleep I had a long and deep weeping jag.  It was totally unexpected but set off by holding two friends in prayer - a band mate with excruciating pain and a young friend from Tucson whose father just died very unexpectedly - and before I knew it, the tears were flowing and would not stop.  They poured out for 30+ minutes in the wee hours of the morning as one sorrow bled into another - soon all the sorrows and pain of those I love (and so many more who are strangers to me) gave shape and form to my prayer until it began to feel like Psalm 22.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?
O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer;
and by night, but find no rest.

Yet you are holy,
enthroned on the praises of Israel.
In you our ancestors trusted;
they trusted, and you delivered them.
To you they cried, and were saved;
in you they trusted, and were not put to shame.

But I am a worm, and not human;
scorned by others, and despised by the people.
All who see me mock at me;
they make mouths at me, they shake their heads;
‘Commit your cause to the Lord; let him deliver—
let him rescue the one in whom he delights!’

Yet it was you who took me from the womb;
you kept me safe on my mother’s breast.
On you I was cast from my birth,
and since my mother bore me you have been my God.
Do not be far from me,
for trouble is near
and there is no one to help.

Many bulls encircle me,
strong bulls of Bashan surround me;
they open wide their mouths at me,
like a ravening and roaring lion.
I am poured out like water,
and all my bones are out of joint;
my heart is like wax;
it is melted within my breast;
my mouth^*is dried up like a potsherd,
and my tongue sticks to my jaws;
you lay me in the dust of death.
For dogs are all around me;
a company of evildoers encircles me.
My hands and feet have shrivelled;^*
can count all my bones.
They stare and gloat over me;
they divide my clothes among themselves,
and for my clothing they cast lots.

But you, O Lord, do not be far away!
O my help, come quickly to my aid!
Deliver my soul from the sword,
my life^* from the power of the dog!
Save me from the mouth of the lion!

From the horns of the wild oxen you have rescued^* me.
I will tell of your name to my brothers and sisters;^*
in the midst of the congregation I will praise you:
You who fear the Lord, praise him!
All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him;
stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel!

For he did not despise or abhor
the affliction of the afflicted;
he did not hide his face from me,^*
but heard when I^* cried to him.
From you comes my praise in the great congregation;
my vows I will pay before those who fear him.
The poor^* shall eat and be satisfied;
those who seek him shall praise the Lord.

May your hearts live for ever!
All the ends of the earth shall remember
and turn to the Lord;
and all the families of the nations
shall worship before him.^*
For dominion belongs to the Lord,
and he rules over the nations.
To him,^* indeed, shall all who sleep in^* the earth bow down;
before him shall bow all who go down to the dust,
and I shall live for him.^*
Posterity will serve him;
future generations will be told about the Lord,
and^* proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn,
saying that he has done it.

There is an rhythm to this Psalm that honestly expresses both emptiness and trust - lament and gratitude - and I have come to know them both in pastoral ministry and the wisdom of Holy Week. I know a lot of people who are feeling this despair right now - and I've been their myself.  What's more, I have come to believe that pastors can't just go through the motions - we have to truly let down our defenses and simply feel the pain and fear and agony in the lives of those we serve in the church - from time to time. Any thing less isn't ministry.  Simultaneously, we have to maintain clear internal boundaries that both entrust our people to God's care and make certain we don't violate an other's journey into the shadows or confidence.

Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon writes about Psalm 22:  Whatever is to be said (of the story that Jesus silently prayed this Psalm upon the Cross) there is no doubt about the importance... in reference to the Lord's suffering and death. Not only did Jesus pray this psalm's opening line on his gibbet of pain; other lines of it are also interpreted by the Church, even in the evangelists themselves, as prophetic references to the details of Holy (Good) Friday.

Today, as I followed up on my friends and celebrated Eucharist, this Psalm haunted me as did their sorrow.  The whole day drew me closer to my Lord's own pain and alienation as he journeyed by faith from betrayal to shame and death.  And like Psalm 22 itself, I both hate and treasure this intimacy with Jesus and the people I love in my congregation. It is a beautiful, frightening, demanding and sometimes overwhelming load. Fr. Ed Hays once wrote that the prayer of our tears is the most intimate expression of our love and solidarity we can express.  I think he was right.