Two
Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday May 3, 2026 – Mental Health Sunday
Scripture Readings: Lamentations 5:15-22
and John 13:31-35
So… Lamentations… probably not the most popular book in the bible. When I was putting together today’s service,
I actually had to look it up in the table of contents – I thought that it was
closer to the Psalms, but it is there in the midst of the prophets, right after
Jeremiah.
Though if I had thought about it a bit more, I might have been able to guess
where it is found, because we looked at Lamentations in bible study a couple of
months ago; and I if I had remembered the context for this book, that would
have given me a hint.
Lamentations is a collection of five laments, each one presented as a different
chapter, lamenting the destruction of Jerusalem and the destruction of the
temple after the invading Babylonian army came through. And since Jeremiah was prophesying at the
time of the fall of Jerusalem, it makes sense for Lamentations to be the next
book in the Old Testament.
When we lament, we cry out to God. We
complain about the unfairness of the world.
We rage at the injustices. We ask
God, “how long? How long until you will
make the world right? How long until you
will answer our prayers? How long will
you be silent? How long will you ignore
me and my cry? How long?”
The people of ancient Israel have every cause to lament at this point in their
history. They have been taken away from
their land, from the Promised Land, from the land that Moses had led their
ancestors to after escaping slavery in Egypt and wandering in the desert
wilderness for 40 years. This promised
land has now been taken from them. And
the temple too – the temple where they used to offer their sacrifices to God,
the center-point of their religious life, the very home, the dwelling place of
God – this temple has been reduced to rubble.
And the people lament. They cry out to
God. God, why have you forgotten
us? Our hearts are sick, our joy is
gone, our dancing has been turned into mourning. Why, God, have your forgotten us? Why, God, have you forsaken us?
The purpose of lament isn’t to try and justify suffering. There often isn’t any explanation for
suffering, or way to justify it. The
sole purpose of lament is to let out the pain, to let out the rage, to let out
the grief. And sometimes, just
sometimes, by letting it all out, there is some relief felt because we are no
longer keeping it all bottled up inside.
And if you think about it, lament is an act of deep faith. Because if we didn’t believe that God could
hear us, then there would be no point to it.
When we are yelling at God, when we are pouring out our anger and our
pain, we are trusting that somehow, somewhere, God hears us.
I am going to circle around to our theme for today, which is Mental Health
Sunday. And I chose to read a lament
today because sometimes lament is the only appropriate response to things.
In our world today, mental health disorders tend to be the illnesses that come
with the most stigma attached. Our
society tends to downplay the impact of mental health challenges. We wouldn’t say to someone with cancer, “Oh,
you don’t need to see an oncologist. You just need to think positive thoughts
and you will get better.” And yet people
think that it is OK to say to someone with an anxiety disorder, “There’s
nothing wrong with you that a little optimism won’t cure.” Likewise, we wouldn’t say to someone with a
deadly infection, “You don’t need antibiotics – prayer will cure you.” And yet people think that it is OK to say to
someone with depression, “Medication won’t help you – you just need to pray
harder and you’ll feel better.”
Society tends to blame people for mental health disorders, and fear people with
mental health disorders; and as a result, people who are struggling can find it
difficult both to admit that they are struggling, and to seek out help. People with severe mental health conditions,
whether it be schizophrenia or an addiction, can find it difficult to access
other services not related to their mental health. And all of this can lead to isolation.
And sometimes, the only appropriate response is to lament. We lament the stigma in our world towards
mental health disorders. We lament the
underfunding of mental health treatment programs. We lament all of the barriers to access help.
And for those of us who have struggled or continue to struggle with our mental
health, the words of a biblical lament might also apply. How long, O God? How long am I going to have to suffer? Why, O God?
Why do you feel so far away? Why
have you abandoned me? Why have my friends
and family and neighbours abandoned me?
But you may have noticed – and since you have been here for the past half hour
or so, and, I assume, have been paying at least a little bit of attention – you
probably noticed that we didn’t just hear from Lamentations. We also heard a reading from the Gospel of
John.
And the reading that we heard is probably best known as one of the readings on
Maundy Thursday. This is a section from
what is often called Jesus’s Farewell Discourse, running from chapter 13 to
chapter 18 of the Gospel of John. Jesus
is saying goodbye to his disciples, his beloved friends, and leaving them with
his final teachings.
And he says to his friends, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one
another. Just as I, Jesus, have loved
you, you also should love one another.”
This is the heart of who we are as a church.
We are a community that loves. We
love one another. We love God. We love our neighbours. We love the world that God created. We know that we are loved; and we know that
we are called to love.
It was an intentional pairing today, bringing together this teaching with
Lamentations on Mental Health Sunday. I
said that lament alone won’t cure anything, but it can make things easier to
bear when we aren’t keeping our feelings bottled up inside us. In the same way, a loving community won’t
cure all mental health struggles, but a loving community can make those
struggles easier to bear.
Because we are not alone. We don’t need
to navigate the world alone. We know
that God is with us; but even at times when it is hard to sense God’s presence,
we have the love of this community, the love of this church, always surrounding
us. And that love can make it a bit
easier to put one foot in front of the other as we navigate our struggles.
In a minute, Natalie is going to be talking about something that we, as a
church, can do to share the love of this church with the wider community; but I
hope that the ultimate take-home message from today is a message of love. God loves you. Even when you are struggling, God loves
you. Even when you are pouring out your
lament, God loves you. And this church
loves you too. No matter what you are
going through in your life, this church loves you and will travel every step of
the way with you.
For just as Jesus loves us, we are called to love one another. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Operation White
Heart was started by Gary Brown Sr.
in 2022 in New Brunswick after losing a friend to suicide.
Each heart gives a message of:
“You are not alone”
“We care”
“It’s OK not to be OK”
“You matter”
After today, there is now a white heart in front of both
Westfield United Church and Summerville United Church.
