Stories of Ecclesia: It Starts with Lamenting
Bob Hyatt
August 21, 2013

From Ty Grigg – pastor at Life on the Vine , Long Grove, IL

Angela stood up to the podium and pulled out a piece of paper.  Normally, during our worship liturgy, we watch an “icon,” that is, a short video or projected artwork that reveals something about the way the world is and the ways God reveals his glory in our world.  This Sunday, we would hear a story of lament from Angela:

My cry today, my lament today is for the Church , the bride of Christ to be a voice-a beacon of hope, a light, a refuge in this time. By this time, I mean post Trayvon Martin.

As Angela spoke honestly from her own experience of racism, I felt my heart softening.

This story of Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman re-opened wounds in America’s racial history that have not fully healed.  It opened wounds of knowing that when my brother was growing up, one of the lessons he quickly learned was DWB, driving while Black. It opened would of hearing my father, who is a highly respected physician, tell me of people who don’t want to see him as their doctor because of the color of his skin. It is the wound of not being shown homes in particular neighborhood because Black people are not supposed to live in certain communities. It opened the wound of a childhood friend asking me if I wished I were white, as if something were wrong with being Black.

In the act of communal lament, the Spirit was drawing me out of apathy and into conviction, calling me to leave the old ways of denial and minimization of racism behind and to follow the Spirit’s call into listening, lamenting, and engaging.

My brothers and sisters, I bring these wounds with me to Church. I don’t leave the sin of racism at the door. I bring it with me and lament over it. And I should not do this alone.

When Angela finished her story, she walked toward the back of the sanctuary.  As a pastor, I knew what was coming next; Juliet would lead us in a prayer of confession.  But suddenly I heard an older man to my left say loudly:  “Excuse me, but normally we pray for people when they share their story.”  He was referring to the practice of praying for a person when she or he shares a “story of wonder” at the beginning of our service.  This was something different.  Honestly, my first reaction was annoyance.  I was thinking, “No, we have a plan.  We are going to confess now.  We know what we’re doing here, don’t mess it up!”

Then I realized that he was right.  We needed to pray for Angela.  I found myself getting up from my chair and slowly walking to the back where Angela was standing.  My pace was deliberate and slow.  I felt the eyes of the room on me.  Reflecting later, it seemed significant that I was going to Angela, not calling her back up to the lectern – a grace.  The whole action seemed directed by God, I was merely caught up in it.

As I got closer, I felt my heart fill with deep love and sadness intermixed.  Angela stood up and walked toward me.  I gave her a hug and the only thing I could say was, “I am so thankful.”  She hugged me back.  I started to pull away after a few seconds but Angela didn’t let go – again, a grace.  I sensed a powerful movement of the Spirit.  It wasn’t just me hugging Angela, but I was hugging Angela as a proxy for the whole church.  A few others came and joined the hug.  When I replay this moment in my mind, the word that comes to me is simply ‘glory.’  God’s glory was breaking through in the midst of Angela’s vulnerable lament and our embrace of her lament.

When Juliet finally began to lead us into a prayer of confession, she began to openly weep.  Angela’s lament opened all of us up to a new depth of reality, a new depth of relationship with one another, and a new sensitivity to what God is inviting us into.  We are just at the beginning, but I hope we can look back on Angela’s story of lament and our response as a watershed moment of conversion for our church.

It is because the love of Christ compels me to speak up. Church, we can do better at standing against racism and fighting for justice.  The change that we desire to see in the world starts with us-it starts with us lamenting with one another, and praying with one another, and praying for one another.  True reconciliation happens between us when we listen to the pain of one another, when we are vulnerable with one another—when we start seeing Christ in one another.  And the walls that divide us will fall down.

It starts with lamenting.

 

By Bob Hyatt September 15, 2025
A New Ecclesia Network Benefit! 
By By Jim Pace September 15, 2025
In the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s shooting, social media has been filled with perspectives, as is typically the case. I am reluctant to add mine as there seems to be no lack one way or the other. To be clear, this is not just about Charlie Kirk, this is about violence across the board. I did not feel led to write this because it was Charlie Kirk specifically, but rather another in a long and winding line of acts of violence, that my ministering at Va. Tech gives me a bit of personal experience with. But as I have just finished teaching two classes on Christian Ethics, and as I was encountering again the spread of responses from my Christian sisters and brothers, I felt led to look at this event through that lens. Ethics, at its base, seeks to answer the question, “What is better or worse? Good or bad?” As a follower of Jesus, this is what seems right to me… 1. We never celebrate harm. Whatever our disagreements, rejoicing at a shooting violates the bedrock claim that every person bears the imago Dei (Gen 1:27). Scripture is explicit: “Do not rejoice when your enemy falls” (Prov 24:17); “Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you” (Matt 5:44); “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Rom 12:21). I don’t love blasting verses like this, but you cannot get away from them if you are reading the scriptures. 2. Moral responsibility sits with the shooter—full stop . Saying “his rhetoric got him shot” smuggles in a just-world logic that excuses violence. As a contextual theologian, I have an enormous amount of respect for the impact our various narratives have in shaping our understandings of the world around us. They are inescapable. But that is not what I am talking about here. Ideas can be wrong, harmful, or worth opposing vigorously, but vigilante ‘payback’ is never a Christian category. My primary gig is that of a consultant for churches and non-profits. Today, in my meetings and among friends, I have heard some variation of “He got what he deserved,” and “I vote for some very public justice for the shooter.” Both of these views speak of revenge; the follower of Jesus is called to lay these down as our Messiah did. Not asked to, told to. 3. Grief and outrage about gun violence are legitimate; schadenfreude is not . Channel the pain toward nonviolent, concrete action (policy advocacy, community intervention, survivor support), not dehumanization. Here are four thinkers who have had a profound impact on the Christian ethic I try to work out in this world. As I share them, three things are worthy of mention. One, I certainly do not claim to follow their guidance perfectly, and at times I do not even do it well, but they have all given me what seems like a Jesus-centered and faith-filled direction to move in. Second, I do not claim to speak for them in this particular matter; I am merely showing how my ethical lens has been formed. Third, clearly I am not dealing with all the components of our response to these types of violence, this is not a comprehensive treatment, merely the reflections in the moment. Stanley Hauerwas : “Christian nonviolence is not a strategy to rid the world of violence.” It’s part of following Jesus, not a tactic we drop when it’s inconvenient. Stanley Hauerwas, Walking with God in a Fragile World, by James Langford, editor, Leroy S. Rouner, editor N. T. Wright : “The call of the gospel is for the church to implement the victory of God in the world through suffering love.” Simply Good News: Why the Gospel Is News and What Makes It Good. In other words, we answer evil without mirroring it. David Fitch : Our culture runs on an “enemy-making” dynamic; even “the political rally… depends on the making of an enemy. Don’t let that train your soul.” The Church of Us vs. Them. Sarah Coakley : Contemplation forms resistance, not passivity. For Coakley, sustained prayer trains perception and courage so Christians can resist abuse and give voice against violence (it’s not quietism). “Contemplation, if it is working aright, is precisely that which gives courage to resist abuse, to give voice against violence.” Sarah Coakley, God, Sexuality, and the Self. Coakley would say that far too often we react before we reflect. This is the problem that Fitch is getting at in much of his writing, that our culture actually runs on antagonisms, the conflict between us. We need to find a better way.