O God of my life,
I yearn for your light.
These people have lost sight of your face.
They stand tall in the valley and mask the sun's rays.
Their shadows are cast over me,
smothering me in near darkness.
I do not know from where the sun rises,
or to where it sets.
Without your light I am lost
and left sitting in my own disappointment.
And so, I await your wind of change
that blows where it will.
I await the old leaves that will fall at my feet.
I await the opening canopy above
and your warm rays tickling my senses once more.
And when the day is bright around me
remind me of the humility of being
part of the understorey.
Amen.
I have chosen to build my message for tomorrow's worship around the reading from Job. The Margaret River congregation has endured a tough year. Earlier in the year we had three members of the congregation die within six weeks of each other and a well-loved member move to Perth. Last week another treasured member passed away and we have a few fighting illness and their own personal issues. All of this takes it's toll and we, as a community, are left wondering when the pain will end.
So, to talk about Job and his suffering has come at an opportune time. Towards the beginning of the service I am going to invite the people to create, on the spot, a Psalm of Lament. There are at least fourteen psalms of lament in the Bible. Perhaps the most well-known is Psalm 137 - By the Rivers of Babylon. Some of them are communal, some are personal. Some are lamenting things the writer has done and some are about the injustice they are experiencing. I can recall a time in my life when I literally yelled a psalm of lament to God. I was a lot younger and felt a huge injustice had been brought upon me. I now know I brought it upon myself. However, my little rant out to the ocean telling God how unfair life was helped.
I don't think we allow ourselves to lament enough. Somehow we have a perception that life should be all rosy and nice when we are a Christian. Well, we all know that is not true. While looking at the psalms of lament in the Bible I have found a section that I am going to claim as my own for today.
Psalm 38: 9-15
"All my longings lie open before you, O Lord;
my sighing is not hidden from you.
My heart pounds, my strength fails me;
even the light has gone from my eyes.
My friends and companions avoid me because of my wounds;
my neighbours stay far away.
Those who seek my life set traps,
those who would harm me talk of my ruin;
all day long they plot deception.
I am like a deaf [woman], who cannot hear,
like a mute, who cannot open [her] mouth;
I have become like a [woman] who does not hear,
whose mouth can offer no reply.
I wait for you, O Lord;
you will answer, O Lord my God."
