Fall of Jerusalem
Today’s Scripture story of the Fall of Jerusalem is a very hard story to listen to, and even harder to know how to preach about. The story is brutal and harsh. It is the final story in a whole history of the people of Israel, Judah, becoming unfaithful, having a series of kings who did evil in the sight of the Lord, and finally being defeated, conquered, destroyed and exiled into Babylon in 587 BCE, a follow up to the destruction of the Northern Kingdom of Israel in 722 BCE. It is a very specific story to a specific people. Last Sunday Don preached about the story of Josiah and the hope contained within as Josiah made reforms and initiated a massive commemoration again of the Passover. Yet, Don also named how Josiah could not turn things around for his people, could not bend the course of history, inviting us to lay down control and lay down our burdens. Now that downward spiral has reached its bitter culmination – the rebellion by the puppet king Zedikiah and the ruthless response by King Nebuchadnezzar, capturing the city of Jerusalem, tearing down the walls, burning the Temple, ransacking and looting its valuables, and exiling its people to Babylon. The Peace Table version skipped the lines about Zedikiah, being forced to watch the death of his sons before his eyes before blinding him, and then sending him by chains to Babylon. Israel has lost three things central to is identity – its king, its temple and its land. As Steven Schweitzer writes in the Junior Youth Shine Curriculum Biblical background, this is a ‘negative history – what not to do, how to fail. The few glimmers of hope, such as the righteous kings Hezekiah and Josiah, cannot prevent the destruction from coming.’ (Shine Session 7, October 12, 2025, p.42) This utter destruction is a pivotal point in Israel’s history, and it is only through the Prophets that the people begin to forge a new kind of identity and hope re-emerges. We will look at some of these Prophets in our worship after Thanksgiving.
As specific and particular as this story is, it is also so universal, repeated and repeated so many times in world history, right up until today. There continue to be rebellions and recriminations, power politics, violence, war and innocent people caught in the middle. Cities and countries and peoples continue to be utterly destroyed and caught in cycles of unending wars and brutal violence. The UN estimates at the end of 2024 that there were more than 42.7 million refugees and 73.4 million internally displaced people in our world (https://www.unrefugees.org/refugee-facts/statistics/), people who have been forced from their homes and find themselves in some form of exile – each with their own particular story of loss and horror. It is overwhelming! It can bring me to tears. The echoes of the Fall of Jerusalem are everywhere in our world, a world that sometimes feels like it is falling apart. The Shine Junior Youth Curriculum, in an effort to try to address this story and imagine its horror, suggested the youth play a game of Jenga, pulling out blocks with words on them like family, friends, church, food, water, safety, until the whole wooden structure collapses, or be given of list of possessions in your house, and having to pick only 6 items to grab as you flee your home, like so many refugees.
What do we do with this tough story, that is both particular, and yet so universal and mirroring of our world today? What is the ‘good news’ in this Biblical text, something we always look to as preachers? Our temptation is to ignore the challenges and revulsion of this text, or overlook it, disregard it, or spiritualize it, or move on too quickly. When Amanda and I met to plan, we really didn’t’ know where to go. Then we read the last little paragraph of Steven Schweitzer’s Biblical background where he points towards Biblical Lament, and that ended up shaping this whole service. He writes ‘We are used to offering prayers of intercession and thanksgiving. We do not often get a chance to truly lament before God—to cry out in anger and grief and fear and despair. To lament is to acknowledge the brokenness in the world without trying to fix it and without looking for a “silver lining.” Lament is a biblical practice that we can reclaim amid the violence and devastations of our own time.’ (Ibid, p. 42) That resonated with us. This is a story full of lament, and it gives us the opportunity ourselves to enter in a time of lament, which we will do together soon in this worship service.
Old Testament scholar Walter Brueeggemann, as we saw with the Psalms, invites us to enter into disorientation and lament, because that is so often the reality of what we see in our world. We cannot ignore that in our worship. He speaks of Biblical lament as a healthy, vital expression of protest and hope that insists God’s creation must change, fostering a deeper, more authentic relationship with God and driving social transformation. In a YouTube talk, he says that we can ‘lift up and call attention to the reality of human loss and human pain without making moral judgements about who is at fault. It is simply a given of human life that needs to be processed theologically… how the church learns to have faith in the midst of disorientation, pain and loss, and learns to pray in the midst of disorientation, pain and loss.’ (https://www.google.com/search?q=biblical+lament+brueggemann&sca_esv=70a532a702b7bdb6&rlz=1C1EODB_enCA533CA546&sxsrf=AE3TifOuLVWQcP6EZ9M_F3-ntatzZBbhHA%3A1758904504937&ei=uMDWaJr7OO-gwN4Py-HdoQc&oq=biblical+lament+bruegg&gs_lp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAiFmJpYmxpY2FsIGxhbWVudCBicnVlZ2cqAggAMgUQIRigATIFECEYoAEyBRAhGKABMgUQIRigATIFECEYoAFIgiNQyAVY4Q9wAHgCkAEBmAH7AqABwg2qAQcwLjMuMi4yuAEByAEA-AEBmAIHoAK6C8ICBBAAGEfCAgYQABgWGB7CAgsQABiABBiGAxiKBcICCBAAGIAEGKIEwgIFEAAY7wWYAwCIBgGQBgiSBwcxLjIuMy4xoAf0IbIHBzAuMi4zLjG4B6ALwgcHMi01LjEuMcgHRQ&sclient=gws-wiz-serp#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:9b8b28ac,vid:oxqmtft4WYM,st:0)
I do not go to Lament easily. And yet the world today feels so disorienting. I can get overwhelmed by the many tough situation in our world, and the hard things in my own life. Often for me, it is music that allows me to go places emotionally I would rather avoid. One example of that for me was in the Fall of 2020. We were half a year into the pandemic that changed so much at the time. We were a few months after the death of African American George Floyd at the hands of police officers in Minneapolis and all the turmoil and questions of racial injustice and misuse of power raised south of the border, but echoing here too. We were trying to figure out our on-line worship services. It was then that I came across a music video by singer Mark Miller, composer of several songs in Voices Together, with text by Adam Tice from that committee. The song, which we shared at that time, was in response to what was going on in our world and was simply entitled ‘Lament: My Heart is Breaking.’ That song helped me enter the laments of my heart, emotionally, spiritually, and still does when I hear it now. So I invite us to hear it now, as a way to catch the depth and spirit of lament, and to prepare us for an individual and communal time of lament together. After we hear the Lament, I will lead us into an unhurried and spacious time, of prayer and music and sitting with God, where we can first write down the laments of our hearts, of our lives, of our world and then come forward and offer them to God. Let us open our hearts to lament, but through lament to hope in the God who hears and turns our world around.
VT 695 – By the Waters of Babylon
Ritual of Lament (Mark)
We are invited now into a time of Lament. The children have already handed out little water tear drops and pencils/pens. As we listen to some music, you are invited to spend some time in lament. We will take our time for this and give it the space it needs. You may want to ponder and pray for awhile before writing anything down. When you are ready, write down a lament or several laments onto the tear drops. These may be laments about our world, about war and politics and divisions, about the environment, laments coming out of Orange Shirt Day, or they may be very personal laments of things you hold heavy in your heart – around health, or relationships or losses or griefs or fears. Or you may want to simply sit in silence without doing any writing. When you are ready, you are invited to come forward, pick up a little pin, and to pin your laments onto the some of the blue cloth surrounding Amanda’s wonderful swirling painting. Note that these laments will be visible for others to read and after the service, the painting and cloth will be placed in the upper foyer for the next weeks. There is also a glass vase below the painting where you can place your lament tears where they are received, but will not be read or seen later by others. When you have finished bringing forward your laments, return to your pews. You will know we are towards the end of this time, when you hear Darrel Martin share the song Precious Lord with us. We will conclude this time of Lament by singing together When Pain or Sorrow.
As we enter this time of Lament, let us pray together, words that will end with a prayer found in Voices Together 994.
God of Hope,
This morning we come to you in a spirit of lament. There is much in our world and in our lives that causes us to pause and wonder, to cry and grieve, to be angry about and shout out, to hold with sorrow and tears. We bring these laments to you in prayer, knowing you receive them. You listen to everything on our hearts.
Gracious God,
when there is nothing we can say,
we give you thanks
that your Spirit intercedes for us
with sighs too deep for words.
Loving God,
when there is nothing we can do,
we give you thanks
that you are working for good
in this world of struggle and pain.
Holy God,
when there is nothing else we know,
still we give you thanks
that nothing in life or in death,
nothing in heaven or on earth,
nothing in this world or the world to come
will ever separate us from your great love;
through Jesus Christ. Amen.
- Charles Kruger (clarinet) and Kristen Penner (piano) play music
- Darrel Martin to share VT 610 – Precious Lord, Take my Hand
- VT 612 – When Pain or Sorrow