Sacred Feasts – Lamentations 1:4
The approaches to Zion mourn, for no pilgrims attend her sacred feasts; all her gates are desolate. Her priests groan, her maidens are made to suffer. How bitter is her fate!
The Revised English Bible (Cambridge; New York; Melbourne; Madrid; Cape Town; Singapore; São Paulo; Delhi; Dubai; Tokyo: Cambridge University Press, 1996), La 1:4.
I’m following my meditations in writing these posts, and the second line of this verse caught my attention. The main reason it did so is that it is one thing I hear commonly as a lament. I, and many people I know, frequently complain about low attendance. People aren’t in church. They aren’t in Sunday School. They don’t show up for church educational events or projects. Here we are making “stuff” available to them, and they don’t show up. The church is dying. Start preparing the funeral.
The situation in Judah and Jerusalem was worse than anything I complain about. The people were in exile. They were gone. But what was happening before?
I hate, I reject your feasts.
Amos 5:21 (my translation)
I will not accept your assemblies.
When the assemblies were going strong, they weren’t actually going strong. Nobody was lamenting when people were all showing up. Well, God was lamenting and letting the prophets know that things weren’t going well.
One of the most embarassing moments I’ve had in educational ministry was when, in response to questions around the church, I invited a friend who was a pastor in the Presbyterian Church in America. People in our Methodist/Wesleyan congregation were asking me about Calvinists,, and I thought providing them with a Calvinist speaker would meet the need.
Nobody showed up. Nobody. I was the only one there to meet him.
He was extremely gracious, and what was more we sat down to discuss ministry, theology, and education, and possibilities for doing more ministry. Here he was, with the person who had invited him to an empty room, and he took up the time to discuss how we, together, could serve the Church from our respective churches.
We even joked that God must have ordained our meeting. Then we looked at each other and said, “All joking aside, that was true.” Without the numbers I desired, God was still working.
Here’s a potential problem with lamenting. We can lament the wrong things. When your church or your meeting is empty, provided God has not ordained a one-on-one meeting as a surprise, there was probably something that needed to be lamented before.
… Christianity was the revelation and the gift of joy, and thus, the gift of genuine feast. Every Saturday night at the resurrection vigil we sing, “for, through the Cross, joy came into the whole world.” This joy is pure joy because it does not depend on anything in this world, and is not the reward of anything in us. It is totally and absolutely a gift, the “charis,” the grace. And being pure gift, this joy has a transforming power, the only really transforming power in this world. It is the “seal” of the Holy Spirit on the life of the Church-on its faith, hope, and love.
Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World, 45-46 (Schmemann was an Orthodox theologian)
Maybe we’ve had a feast without the joy, the joy that only God can give. If we thought to lament this, perhaps we would have less physical emptiness to lament.
(Featured image generated by Jetpack AI.)
