READING:
1 Timothy 2:1–7
Jeremiah 8:18–9:1

Lament is not Despair

• I wonder… what situations fill you with despair?
• I wonder… how does that despair feel in your heart and body?

For adults in places like Gaza, unable to feed their children, despair must be crushing. For us, so many things in the daily news can weigh heavily: war, hunger, injustice, division. The prophet Jeremiah knew this weight too.
The passage we have just heard is one of the most haunting in all of scripture. The prophet does not give us easy answers, neat religious platitudes, or quick comforts. Instead, he gives voice to grief. Personal grief. Communal grief. Even divine grief.

• I wonder… what it means to you to hear God say:

“For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt, I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me.”

This is not the image of a distant, punitive God. Jeremiah’s lament reveals a God of solidarity, a God whose heart breaks with those who are broken. His words blur the boundary between divine sorrow and human anguish. God is not the cause of suffering, but the companion within it.

The cry, “Is there no balm in Gilead?”, echoes through history. It is a cry of longing: for healing, for justice, for restoration that never seems to arrive. And yet, even asking the question becomes an act of faith.

• I wonder… how does your own longing for change, for justice, become a kind of prayer?

Lament, you see, is not despair. It is hope’s shadow, whispering that things should be otherwise.

Jeremiah’s tears slow us down. They remind us not to rush past grief, not to silence the cries of the poor, the displaced, the war-torn, and the forgotten. His weeping calls us to sit with suffering, to learn empathy, to practise presence.

• I wonder… where do you see signs of God’s “balm in Gilead” today?

Could it be glimpsed in acts of compassion, in communities of care, in movements for justice that embody God’s healing presence here and now?

Tears, Jeremiah shows us, are not weakness. They are testimony. They declare that injustice is intolerable, that healing is necessary, that God’s story with humanity is not yet finished.

This lament does not offer closure. It offers permission to grieve – and summons us into solidarity. It is, at heart, God’s own yearning for a world healed, reconciled, and whole.

When we trust that God is with us, we begin to see that God’s deepest gift is not to fix or control, but to share our pain. Jeremiah’s grief is God’s grief. The prophet is not apart from his people but utterly with them, just as God is utterly with us.

• I wonder… how might you let yourself believe that God’s tears mingle with yours?

The balm of Gilead is not a cure that wipes away pain. It is the presence that makes suffering bearable and transforms it into communion. In Christ, this is fulfilled: God does not erase the tears of Gethsemane or the cry of the cross, but inhabits them with us.

The gospel here shines through.  It is not about fix-ness but about with-ness.

Jeremiah’s lament is love expressed through grief: God’s refusal to abandon, God’s willingness to be pierced by the pain of the world, God’s invitation to us to share in that compassionate solidarity.

And in today’s second reading from Timothy we hear the call to prayer. A  sweeping, generous call to pray for all people: rulers and citizens, neighbours and strangers, friends and enemies. Prayer stretches us beyond our boundaries.

The same reading goes on to  mention praying for  “kings and all who are in high positions”. This  might feel remote or even uncomfortable for some people today and in certain parts of the world , particularly in societies that rightly question authority and resist oppressive structures. Yet the text can be read less as an endorsement of hierarchy and more as a reminder that those who wield power most affect the vulnerable. To pray for leaders is to pray that their decisions serve justice, peace, and dignity for all people. It is also a subtle act of resistance: interceding for rulers places them, too, under God’s scrutiny and subject to God’s higher call.

• I wonder… who is hardest for you to pray for?

What happens in you when you try?

The power of lament, joined with prayer, is that it opens us to God’s solidarity and God’s embrace of all. It draws us into a practice of hope, rooted in justice and compassion.

So lament is not despair.
It is a holy refusal not to give up on God’s healing, God’s presence, God’s dream for the world.

Photo Credit: Salah Darwish (Unsplash.com)