The Day After Epiphany: lament or be cursed
Today is the day after Epiphany, when we remember the story of the wise men, who followed a wild hope across the desert to find a two-year-old kid with his mama instead of a king. We remember how these men, and the family they visited, had to flee under the cover of night, and the infantacide Herod carried out because he was so afraid of losing his power. We remember the lament of the mothers of Bethleham, who took up a voice so loud it could be heard across the city.
This grief practice— wailing— is still a practice in Eastern countries. When tragedy occurs, there is an audible, collective cry of mourning. It isn’t buried. It isn’t ignored. It is expressed viscerally.
This practice isn’t outmoded or primitive. Modern neurobiology is exposing how untended emotions — particularly grief — roots itself down into the pysche, like a disease — of both the individual body and in the cultural consciousness. From this buried place, it acts a slow poison that destroys, pysically, pyschically, spiritually. It might not be visible on the surface, but the destruction it wreaks is starkly, literally, tangibly real.
Amos 5 is a lament. By its own admission, it is also a call for repentance for those who claim to be God’s people. It doesn’t mince words. It is scathing. It is raw. It speaks directly to the horror and reality of today’s events.
Christians who claim an inerrant bible that must be taken in its entirety and not ignored piecemeal, today is a time to heed Amos 5. It’s time to heed it’s call to lament and repent. There are words for each of us. Who has ears to hear, let them hear:
To those who insist that the political stance of conservatism is married to your faith, who enjoy the blind privileges of capitalism without being willing to acknoweldge its roots of exploitation, Amos has choice words for you:
“How you hate honest judges!
How you despise people who tell the truth!
You trample the poor,
stealing their grain through taxes and unfair rent.
Therefore, though you build beautiful stone houses,
you will never live in them.
Though you plant lush vineyards,
you will never drink wine from them.
For I know the vast number of your sins
and the depth of your rebellions.”
To those of you who worship visages of Power and its effigy in the form of a leader, instead of the embodied reality of God-With-Us, Amos has choice words for you:
“When a city sends a thousand men to battle,
only a hundred will return.
When a town sends a hundred,
only ten will come back alive.”
To those of you trying to cover the voices of the oppressed with so-called “praise” and “worship,” Amos has some choice words for you:
“Away with your noisy hymns of praise!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.
Instead, I want to see a mighty flood of justice,
an endless river of righteous living!”
For those of you saying “Jesus is the answer” to the madness underway right now, and that we can simply wait and feel at peace for the hope his kingdom to come, Amos has some choice words for you:
“Woe to you who long
for the day of the Lord!
Why do you long for the day of the Lord?
That day will be darkness, not light.”
To those of you using your so-called authority as a theologian, as an elder, as a man, as an academic, as a rationalist, thinking it’s easy to talk over the voices begging to be heard, to dismiss them with a wave of your educated hand, — Amos has some choice words for you:
“You twist justice, making it a bitter pill for the oppressed.
You treat the righteous like dirt.”
For those of you speaking mildly and hesitantly, calling for balance and who fall back on trite platitudes like “everybody sins” and “no one is perfect” to make a poor apology for the evil order currently in place, or are silent completely about what’s going on in the name of your God — the evangelist John, this time, has some choice words for you:
“Whoever says, ‘I know him,’ but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person.”
If you call yourself a Christian, today is a time to lament. Today is a time to wail. Today is a time to rage. Today is a time to hurt with the hurting, to tear our clothes and sit in sackcloth.
Not quietly. Not timidly. Not with qualifications, or attempts at “balance.” If you can’t say it with your own voice, STAND ASIDE and let someone else take your place to shout the truth.
Lament is a proper and vital expression.
It is telling the truth with our bodies.
It sets us free — to act. To put tooth to our confession of faith. To repent and turn around. Where the words are not taken up as lament, it turns into a curse.
“Hate evil and love what is good;
turn your courts into true halls of justice.
Perhaps even yet the Lord God of Heaven’s Armies
will have mercy on the remnant of his people.”
Lament, or be cursed.
