My God Who Weeps: Lament & Grief, the Gospel, and Pastoral Ministry

 

    During my seminary years, one of the most important courses I took was grief counseling. Although only an elective, grief counseling was healing for myself and helped me understand how pastors and ministry leaders have an important call to provide care for people who have experienced loss in our congregations. For me, grief refers to the process of experiencing the physical, psychological, behavioral, and social reactions to the perception of loss (Rando, 1993). Attune to this calling for myself, I could see all over social media that people were grieving in some manner because of the pandemic. 

    Towards the end of 2020, I saw a particular social media post from the parent of a former student who was expressing her frustration over the postponement of student athletics in the Central Valley and the toll it has had on all of her teenage kids. This made me begin thinking about the loss both 2020 graduates and 2021 graduates have experienced because of the pandemic: loss of social rite-of-passage experiences, loss of stable community, loss of security, etc. Undoubtedly, whether students show it or not, these losses have an effect on the human psyche/soul. So naturally I began thinking about the other types of losses people have experienced because of the pandemic and how the Church can help care for people who may be grieving because of such losses.

These thoughts led me to post the following status on Facebook:
"As church leaders we can’t expect or tell people to place their hope and trust in God during 2021 if we haven’t helped them name their grief and loss during 2020." For the most part people were receptive to the post (probably because Facebook is an echo chamber haha). One of my former students though (bless his heart) decided to push back and ask if addressing grief is necessary to preach the gospel. In retrospect I realize we were looking at my status from different perspectives and he interpreted my words as sharing the Christian gospel message to unchurched people or non-Christians. Nevertheless, he helped me realize that there is a subset of Christians who think that the most effective way of preaching the gospel is telling people that they are sinners and they need to repent. And, if I understood him correctly, pastors and leaders do not need to help people see what they have lost or what they are grieving because that is the work of the Holy Spirit.

    As someone who has come to value pastoral care and who have sat with people as they've grieved losses, I scratched my head after reading that statement because it didn't make sense to me! From my point of view, it seems uncaring to continually to tell a non-Christian to believe and repent if they are not in the place to hear that type of message yet, especially if they are struggling with grief and loss. Although his understanding of the gospel and evangelism is true, I have come to learn that the traditional evangelical approach is not the only way. For me, the gospel of salvation is rooted in grief and loss and--when appropriate--I contextualize the gospel for people who need to understand it in this manner. Jesus himself experienced grief and loss before being crucified on the cross. How so? 

    One instance of Jesus expressing grief is in the gospel of John as the author narrates the death of Lazarus, the brother of Martha and Mary. After the crowd leads Jesus to Lazarus' tomb and Jesus seemingly sees Lazarus' body in the tomb (11:33), the author simply writes edakrysen ho Iēsoús, or Jesus wept. In this moment we see the humanity of Jesus come through as he physically expresses grief via weeping at the loss of his friend. 

    Another instance of Jesus expressing grief occurs in the Garden of Gethsemane right before Jesus is arrested. In his gospel, Luke accounts that while praying to God about the upcoming crucifixion, in his anguish or agōnia Jesus begins to seemingly sweat blood. Whether Jesus actually sweat blood or not (NIV now translates it as a simile), Luke conveys the humanity of Jesus by showing that Jesus experienced a great amount of anxiety and pain over his impending torture and death. What was at stake for Jesus the human? Jesus the human risked loss of his own life, loss of agency, loss of freedom, loss of community, and--most importantly--loss of connection to YHWH. In our modern context, such anxiety/anguish over an impending loss is attributed to anticipatory grief. Therefore, as I read these words from Luke, I read a Jesus who is grieving. Jesus had to lose everything and experience grief before there could be hope and salvation. Therefore, I think it is extremely important for pastors and ministry leaders to help people grieve their losses well if we want them to continue to hope in Jesus.  

    If the gospel of Jesus and hope of salvation is rooted in grief and loss, then our ministry as Christians and the way we care for our neighbors (Christian and non-Christian) should be informed by grief and loss. To help frame this conversation, I reached out to a friend and former ministry partner of mine--Patty Behrens--who is a licensed marriage and family therapist that specializes in grief counseling and started a widows/widowers support ministry at my former church. Below you will find my brief email conversation with her about grief in the church setting and therapeutic setting.

Josh: Based on your personal experience with grief, how did grief and loss impact your faith and hope (positively or negatively) in Christ? 

Patty: On a personal basis my hardest situation was the sudden death of my husband that occurred 8 months after my father had died from cancer.  My faith in God was my anchor and something I had to hang onto tightly to make it through the days, months and years ahead.  My life seemed torn into pieces so God was my steady, the one aspect in my life that stayed the same.  My relationship with God grew closer and heaven no longer seemed far away.  I relied on God to carry me through each and every day.

J: Based on your experience as a professional, how have you seen grief and loss negatively impact people—especially in regards to spirituality? 

P: As a professional specializing in grief and loss, I have seen grief open doors for those wondering about life after death along with others closing the door on their faith for “taking” their loved one.  Some have been unable to go to church, read the Bible or pray. Several would be angry with God which I don’t see as a problem as they are still in relationship with him.  Some of the biggest questions have been “Why God?” and “How could you allow this to happen?”

J: What are potential effects of unresolved grief?

P: Unresolved grief creates conditions for grief to come out in other problematic ways such as physical conditions, isolation, stuck in life and mental illness which exacerbate the situation.  Many people believe time alone will resolve their grief which it doesn’t. It takes some intentional work and care.

J: What is the church’s role in helping people grieve well? How can the Christian gospel message help address people’s grief (if it can)? 

P: The church can have a significant role in helping people in their grief, but also can have a negative impact. Christian cliches of “He/she is in a better place.”, “You should be happy he’s in heaven.”, “If you really believe, you wouldn’t be grieving,” and so forth. I believe the church should come alongside widows and those grieving in some supportive fashion without a timetable of how long their grief should last.  The ones who grieve well have a supportive community that tends to then needs for the long haul, (after the first 3 weeks after death.” Education of the church body on grief is needed to help members understand what helps and what hurts. The church can address physical needs and emotional needs especially in the first two years after a significant loss.  Having a trained group that contacts those who have losses in the church, having a list of community resources and periodic check-ins or a mentor to come alongside for those first two years. 

Spiritualizing grief does not help but showing love and care does.  The Gospel message can be shown through action which I have seen time and time again an avenue where non-believers come to a faith in Christ and believers hang onto their faith. “Look after orphans and widows in their distress.”  “Faith without actions is dead.”

    Patty's experience with grief and loss is just one of many testimonies I have heard within the church. Fortunately for her, after the unexpected death of her husband, she had a small tribe of people that surrounded her with love and support while she grieved the loss of her husband and adjusted to life as a single mother. Even more, her experience with grief and loss strengthened her faith in God. As she mentions though, grief and loss can have a negative effect on people's faith as some people become angry with God and are unable to attend church, read the Bible, or pray.

    My experience with grief reflects similarly to the negative conditions after the unexpected loss of my maternal grandmother after complications from a dental procedure. After my grandmother's death, I became angry with God, stopped praying, and cared little for my faith. I still attended church and read the Bible for Awana and Sunday School purposes, but my internal grief created an ugly space in my soul. The result of this unresolved grief in my own life ultimately resulted in a very shallow faith and the construction of emotional walls that prevented me from forming deep connections with friends. Fortunately, I am in a place now where I have no issues forming deep friendships and trusting people, but it took almost twenty years of self-work and therapy to come to this place. I am still on my grief journey, but I am in a much better place than I was when I was ten years old.

    My story, Patty's story, and stories of other people I have met while in ministry is why I am so passionate about pastoral care and why I think it's important for pastors to address grief and loss in the community context. Many of the psalms in the Christian Bible serve as a reminder for me that community lament (verbal expression of grief) is a practice that has been lost in many churches. As the leaders of their own community and tribe, pastors hold the responsibility to understand the grief their tribe may be experiencing and verbalize it in a way that can help lead to healing. If people are experiencing negative effects of grief, then no amount of hope-talk from the pulpit will be helpful to them because their minds are still focused on the loss. Therefore, as Patty mentioned, pastors and all Christians alike should be compassionate, empathic listeners before trying to spiritualize the loss and push people towards hope when they may not be ready. Like Jesus, pastors and Christians are called to sit in the mess of people's lives and embody hope via our presence, our actions, and--when necessary--our words. My prayer is that--after the events of 2020--we become a people who learn to sit with people in their grief, lament with them, and care for them in the ways they need to be cared for. May we be embody the presence of our God who weeps for us and with us.