Thoughts on Lent and Required Optimism

Recently, I was called solemn. Plus, I found myself in the midst of a minor flare-up among clergy recently. Like many older Protestant churches, we rediscovered the seasons of the church year, including Lent. It was imposed, more than worked through, in the older Protestant churches, so after more than a generation, it still feels “foreign” to many. .It is a season of reflection, and that includes a senses of contrition for one’s sins. In a discussion of worship styles, they oppose the very notion of a penitential season. It is a symptom of our cultural insistence that everything, religion included, be uplifting, positive, and even sweet. When funerals become celebrations of life, we are witnessing a refusal to grieve in church.If we have seasons in life, winter is one of them, where we feel the cold chill of dealing with hardships..

Some years ago Neil Postman published Amusing Ourselves to Death.  He argued that entertainment values have become paramount in how we present and how we consider events. I suspect that many churches are following the amusement script  with a number of unspoken rationales. We may not wish to face the difficult questions of theodicy, the issue of God and human suffering. Second, we do not wish to  be candid with God. Third, we seem to wish to either shield ourselves from the troubles we all face, or treat people as if they are incapable of facing them. It has a sense of protecting a child form that which is beyond the ken of a child. Indeed, it is an outgrowth of seeing the church as just another player in the market who is to give people what they want.

I fully grasp that some people come to church seeking uplift and solace in a difficult world. I part company with the current insistence on emotional uplift is the sole liturgical impetus and content. To me, liturgy in church tries to embrace the entire human condition, and that includes suffering and sadness. At root, worship is prayer, and prayer, at its best, encompasses the whole of life.

The prayers a of the people are almost always prayers for some crying, even desperate need. I am truly afraid that we are disenfranchising the validity of the troubles people carry with them in light of the command to be upbeat. The church welcomes all within its worship. that includes people who are hurting but are fearful of even admitting it and have no way to express their suffering.

The Psalter is our biblical prayer book of 150 prayers. it is noteworthy that a plurality of psalms fall in the lament genre. the psalms quote dint the gospels tend toward these types of prayers, and Jesus himself quotes the beginning of Ps. 22 in his cry of dereliction on the cross. Even churches that use the three year lectionary cycle give shortened attention to these laments.

If we are to lighten our darkness we must be willing to admit that it continues to haunt contemporary life. As Lewis so boldly says, the conclusion of Lent, Holy Week, ends with the Incarnate One interred, with God in the grave. Douglas John Hall calls North American culture “officially optimistic” and “imprisoned by optimism.” He is not being complimentary. If the church becomes an Easter only proclamation, then we lose the depth of Good Friday. A culture that blithely terms everything to be a blessing, that insists that a cheery outlook can cure disease, is one unable to face reality, both positive and “negative.” When worship faces life as a whole, its glories and its dejections, its personal and social aspects together, we move toward an honest, even courageous look at the human condition.