I preached on a sensitive topic a couple Sundays ago: suicide. I knew it could be an emotional service and I saw a few folks with tears in their eyes after I preached and I also knew there were a couple psychologists in attendance so during communion, I stealthily approached them and asked if they could be available to anyone who may need to talk after worship. They readily agreed so after the communion prayer, I mentioned their presence in worship and pointed them out.
Two days later, I was going through the roster of names at our site and came across the name of the one of the psychologists. And I groaned. I looked at her name again and realized that I had called her by the wrong name the previous Sunday when I pointed her out. I quickly sent her an email of apology and she was gracious and noted, “You have a lot of things on your mind!” which is true, but I’m usually pretty good with people’s names in church (outside of church is another story). It gnawed on me the rest of the day. How could I forget? (This may be a reason I like to collect my name tags from interesting conferences I attend!)
As many of you know, I like to encourage folks to explore the psalms to get the full breadth of the human experience. This includes the psalms of lament, passages that, as the biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann has noted, do not speak to a culture of wishful optimism, but reveals “faith in a very different God, one who is present in, participating in, and attentive to the darkness, weakness, and displacement of life.”
My occasional problem, though, is that I go to lament so quickly that I fail to engage in an act of remembrance. Psalm 77 is an excellent example of the power of remembering. Verse 2 in that psalm notes, “In the day of my trouble I seek the Lord; in the night my hand is stretched out without wearying; my soul refuses to be comforted.” I find going to God in days of trouble pretty easy to do. What I don’t do as often is verse 11: “I will call to mind the deeds of the Lord; I will remember your wonders of old.” It’s a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately kind of theology that isn’t particularly faithful.
When I do reflect on the deeds of the Lord and the times God has done wondrous things in my life, it’s pretty remarkable and often brings me comfort. That’s not to say that lament isn’t needed. But lament coupled with remembrance is what the psalmist is trying to do here and it’s a practice that is, well, worth remembering.