Liturgy: “Dealing with Afflictions and Wanderings”

What is the King’s Liturgy? King’s Liturgy defines our experience together as a Christian community. It outlines the rhythms we celebrate with the Church at large: Scripture readings, Sabbath habits, and celebration of Holy Days and historical events.

This Week’s Lectionary Readings
Lamentations 1:1-6, 3:19-26
2 Timothy 1:1-14
Luke 17:5-10

This week’s liturgy is contributed by Jennifer Tharp, Director of Student Success:

How do you respond when you make mistakes?

In my class last week I shared a habit I’ve developed in response to times I’ve messed up, times when I’ve made a mistake or wish I’d done better. Instead of letting the situation circle again and again through my mind, I now 1) accept that it happened, 2) choose one thing I’ll do differently next time, and 3) move forward with some self-compassion.

This reflective practice helps when I say something I would have liked to have said more clearly or when I underestimate my commute and I’m late (again) to meet a friend. It’s helpful when I skip the gym or overspend on my coffee budget for the week. Essentially, it’s helpful when I have reason to regret. It moves the mindset from one of spiraling self-criticism to reality-acknowledging agency.

In one of the passages in this weeks’ liturgy, the author of Lamentations says to God, “Remember my afflictions and my wanderings” (3:19)—which occur apart from my control (afflictions) and which occur as a result of my shortcomings (wanderings)—and, “My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me” (3:20).

I’m reminded by the author’s comments to God that some of the regrettable realities within which we live are not simply changed by reflective practices. Some of our lived experiences are especially beyond our control. Some are the results of genetic or generational disorder, or maybe they result from an injustice that is not yet redeemed. Such realities are more appropriately mourned than reframed.

One grim truth within which we live is both fundamentally human and ultimate, even preceding our agency to act. It is the source of our greatest need. It is that in the state of our souls we are not like God, made unlike him by our inherited inclination to sin—which is to fall short of what we could be, of being like God. Similar to disorder and injustice, this truth about our lives will also rightly be responded to with mourning and great unease.

Therefore, perhaps we, similar to the author of Lamentations, would say to God, “Remember me. See me. I am bowed down. I see my great need, and I don’t have an adequate solution … apart from you.”

In verses 19 and 21, we see the author of Lamentations communicate to God his need, but he doesn’t stop there. He provides a framework we can follow. He provides a way in which we can respond well to our sufferings, galactic inadequacies, and the things we mourn.

What does he do?

After acknowledging the realities of his sufferings and shortcomings, he also acknowledges the just-as-real characteristics of God—who we know is not only our hope for a solution to our sin problem, but who became an actual solution himself. The author says:

But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:
The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;
His mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” (3:21-24)

The writer of Lamentations gives us an action that you and I can do today. It is a turning. The action is to turn in heart and mind toward God, acknowledging who He is. We turn to God because He is our hope, and He brings us life. God came to the world through Jesus so “that they may have life, and have it to the full (John 10:10b).” The more we pattern our lives after Jesus’s life, the better we will live amidst the realities we mourn. He is the portion that will not only save our souls, but satisfy them well.

Far surpassing the power of a reflective practice (though they are useful in building an intentional life), God offers us a relationship with Himself through Jesus. We all have brokenness in our lives, whether it results from our own actions or if it’s something that “just happened.” Through Jesus, God offers us love and grace to accept our realities and move forward, like the author of Lamentations, with hope in Him.