Against Spiritual Ibuprofen

Some fragmented thoughts on lament, the ugly riots at the U.S. Capitol, rage, hope, prayer, and oysters

The 218th Day after Coronatide*
Grand Rapids, Michigan

Dear reader,

There it was when I turned to social media this morning... I knew it wouldn’t take more than a couple of swipes to find. “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness,” a Christian influencer had posted, citing Lamentations 3:22-23. It was Scripture served up as spiritual ibuprofen.

The Book of Lamentations contains five lengthy poems bursting with brutal, visceral depictions of suffering. It accuses God. It weeps. It begs. It rages. And tucked midway through the book are those glimpses of mercy, those brief words of hope. 

Detail from Jeremiah’s Lamentations, Marc Chagall

Don’t misunderstand me: I like hope! It’s one of the main reasons why I write you every week, to try to cultivate some hope together. Yet you gut the power of those words of comfort if you haven’t first sat in the ashes of lament, and the temporary relief does nothing to address the true source of the pain. This is what so much of the American church has become and wants still to be: a temple to personal comfort and a sanctuary where so many coddle themselves into a false sense of safety.

Yesterday, I sat in front of my laptop, watching in tears as rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol. The intruders brandished Trump flags and wore MAGA hats, ascending the Senate dais in ridiculous cosplay and riffled through the contents of the desks of members of Congress with impunity. A looter grinned and waved at a photojournalist as he strolled toward the door, a podium bearing the seal of the Speaker of the House cradled in his arm. In a nation where so many people of color fear trying to return something to Walmart without a receipt, the image was striking but not surprising. 

One of the things that troubled me most was how Christianity was woven into the rhetoric. Even as they shouted, “USA! USA!” rioters carried signs that said, “Jesus saves.” One man wandered onto the floor of the House of Representatives with a Christian flag. I know that flag well. As a kid attending Christian school, we said the pledge to that flag every Friday in chapel: “I pledge allegiance to the Christian flag, and to the Savior for whose Kingdom it stands; one Savior, crucified, risen, and coming again, with life and liberty for all who believe.” (Yeah, it was weird.)

In the hours that followed, some of the kids who recited that pledge alongside me flocked to Facebook to defend the rioters as patriots. I’ve watched as they have gone full Trump over the past four years, absorbing disinformation and amplifying it as truth. They trot out racist tropes and belittle people of color. They cry, “Freedom!”

Others have distanced themselves from the ugliest rhetoric of this regime. Yet they dismiss the idea of systemic injustice, propping up a false gospel of individual responsibility in place of the Christian ethic of mutual love and fixating on the use of a term that offends them without questioning why the words might have legitimacy. They express more concern about broken windows than broken bodies, crushed spirits, and shattered souls. 

All of this—what we saw yesterday, online and off, as well as what I’ve heard from so many Christians over the past four years—is the bitter fruit of a long season of cultivation. Seeded by lies. Fertilized by cynicism. Nourished by hatred. Aided by congregational idolatry of comfort. Abetted by pastoral cowardice. Fed by selfishness. Fattened by lust for power and a lack of faithful discipleship. Grown through a refusal to listen well and to love sacrificially, especially among people who claim to follow Jesus and who should know better.

Lamentation, William H. Johnson. Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Since 2016, I’ve been questioned repeatedly by people who are uncomfortable with my words about the ruling regime: Haven’t you and your family done well in America? Why the fear-mongering? Don’t you think you’re exaggerating? Why are you always so negative, so filled with hate toward a country that has been so good to you?

I’m typically not prone to rage—I guess it’s something that my good Chinese parents and grandparents disciplined out of me. But I’ve felt more ragey in recent days than perhaps ever before. And as I wrote this to you, because honestly I had no idea where I was going with this, I began to realize that perhaps rage could be a sign of hope.

Hope springs from the anger and the rage, because the anger and rage testify that we still believe that there’s something better for us and in us than this.

Hope finds new life in lament, because lament trusts in a greater force beyond us and our fears and our hatreds. 

Hope builds in our hearts through the steadfast solidarity of so many who also cry out, reminding us that we’re not alone.

Hope grows from the shock and surprise that some of our neighbors are experiencing; that shock and surprise might jar them into empathy or listening.

Hope is watered by tears, because the body knows how to gather itself amidst sorrow.

Hope draws strength from grief, which signifies that love endures underneath it all.

I love my country, even if it is a difficult love. But my hope is not in America, nor in some fantasy arc that bends itself toward justice. Martin Luther King Jr. never thought that America was destined to make itself good; he knew that it would need divine help, that it would be God who ultimately does the bending and invites our participation. And I’m not sure I know anymore what it means to ask God to bless America. From my vantage point, it seems as if we’ve exhausted any claim to any blessing, and I certainly don’t believe that this is a chosen nation in the eyes of the Almighty. 

Instead, my hope is in a God who has never been a tit-for-tat God or a God who keeps a strict tally sheet. The God I believe in—the God of the compost pile, the God of second chances, the God of life and death and resurrection—is a God who restores justice and who forges peace, a God who can work through us and also despite us, a God of ridiculous grace and a God of otherworldly love. 

Sometimes it’s hard for me to hold onto that God, yet I tell myself the story because it’s the one that I want to believe in. That’s the God I pray to today, and that’s the God I prayed to in chapel at seminary on the day after the election in 2016. My friends and I had to lead worship that day. I went back this morning to re-read the prayers I wrote for that morning, and I think the words fit this moment as they did that one, even if the day’s contours are slightly different. 

On my use of the word “we” in the prayer: God’s gathered people are diverse in many ways. When we pray together, we might not feel that every word, every sentence, applies to us; that’s okay. If something doesn’t sit right, sometimes we need further self-examination. If something hits a nerve, it might be because we find ourselves unexpectedly praying for our enemy in that moment—and sometimes that enemy might even be ourselves. If some words don’t ring true for us, then we might muster the strength to pray in solidarity with someone else for whom they do apply. 

If you’re the praying kind, the litany is at the end of this email—and I invite you to add your own prayers in the comments below. They don’t have to be good or right or articulate words; I believe God can handle whatever we have to say in sincerity. Grace abounds. So please join me—in lament and in hope.

What I’m Cooking: At first I felt as if it would seem superficial to talk about food. But we need to eat—and not just for the calories. For some of us, the kitchen is a place where we can remember what it means to create, not to destroy, and the table is where we can be reminded of beauty and sustenance amidst ugliness and greed. Yesterday, a box showed up at our door: oysters, sent by my sister and brother-in-law as a Christmas gift that, aptly, arrived on Epiphany. I texted her once I’d counted the oysters: 50! “Is that a lot?” she asked. Yes, it’s a lot—a beautiful, generous, life-giving lot—and we were grateful for a taste of goodness during yesterday’s grief. I hope you’ll eat something that nourishes both body and soul today too.

What I’m Reading: In this season of grief upon grief, Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland lost his son, Tommy, to suicide. A few days ago, Raskin and his wife, Sarah Bloom Raskin, released a heartbreaking, gorgeous tribute. I read this as someone who has battled depression; who has struggled to see any beauty in myself; and who had, for a season, serious suicidal thoughts. You might have as well; if that’s you, remember that you are loved. If you haven’t, you surely know someone who has; let your beloveds know that they’re loved.

Today, I also re-read Langston Hughes’s Let America Be America Again. He knew.

That’s all for this week. I’m so glad we can stumble through all this together, and I’ll try to write again soon.

Yours,
Jeff

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(These prayers were originally given at Princeton Seminary Chapel on Wednesday, November 9.)

All-wise God, what have we done? Many of us come to you this morning in grief, in pain. Many of us are crying out to you in fear and lamentation. Many of us are just crying, because we feel incapable of prayer. God, we can hide nothing from you, so let us speak candidly; we know that, sometimes, shit can do wonders as we work the soil, but this? Many of us aren’t seeing it. What have we sown in this nation’s soils? What will we reap? Show yourself, God, and in our silence, help us to see the folly of our ways and the glory of yours.

Constant God, quiet our voices. Trouble our hearts in the ways they need to be troubled and soothe them in the ways they need to be soothed. In our silence, let us hear you whispering your reminders about life, death, and resurrection through the wind rustling autumn leaves. Tell us again, through Twitter pictures of cute puppies and the cries of newborn babies, about how you breathe new life into this world. Tell us again, through birdsong and rainstorm, about your incomparable faithfulness. Tell us again, through starlight and humanity’s colorful diversity, about your unfailing, life-giving love. Speak to us, God, and in our silence, help us to hear you. 

Gracious God, we confess that we have done evil in your sight. We’ve succumbed to fear. We have sought earthly kings and queens. We have told ourselves that the ends justify the means. We have withheld love from those with whom we disagree. We’ve claimed blindness to injustice when, actually, we’ve willfully closed our eyes. We’ve been silent in all the wrong ways—mute when we should have spoken, speaking when we should have listened. We’ve sat on our hands, then lamented the inaction, and then, audaciously, we’ve wondered whether your hand is really moving. Through our failures—white supremacy, misogyny, homophobia, ableism, all forms of prejudice, which is as varied as your diverse creation—we have hated what you have made: this good earth and the bodies, spirits, and souls that inhabit it. We have hated you. Receive these confessions of our sins, God, and in our silence, embrace us with your grace.

Loving God, grow our trust and gratitude, even amid division and trial. We thank you that when we don’t know how to pray or even believe the words, you meet us there. We thank you for answering our despair with your hope. We thank you for friends to hold hope for us when we can’t hold it ourselves. We thank you that you define victory and loss differently from how our broken world does. We thank you that you move ahead of us, walk alongside us, and come behind us to clean up our messes. We thank you that, as surely as the sun greets the earth each morning, you greet our confessions of sin with your reassurance of acquittal. Soften our hearts, God, and in our silence, help us to know all that you have done and all that you’re doing for us and in us.

Merciful God, we take comfort in your diverse character—a mother’s strength, a father’s tenderness, a friend’s faithfulness, a servant’s humility, the power of the Almighty, the imagination of the Creator, the wisdom of the most Wonderful Counselor. Return us regularly to holy silence so that we may better know your ways. Help us be attentive fellow travelers—companions to the lonely, compassion to the hurting, joy to the downhearted, solidarity to the downtrodden. Humble and bless this community. Humble and bless this land. Humble and bless our leaders. We draw courage from your mercy, God, and boldness from your love. We offer these prayers in the precious name of Jesus, the one who saves us from ourselves. Amen.

*Overshadowed in all this madness: We’re still in the midst of this pandemic, and I’m still counting the days from June 1, when my governor, Gretchen Whitmer, lifted Michigan’s stay-at-home order. Please stay safe!