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Lamentations
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March 3, 2025
harper ident 2024
Lamentation exposes national sins parading as greatness. This is the thread winding its way through the Book of Lamentations, and it is the final point of the fourth poem. God exposes faux greatness, the stock and trade of tyrants in the self-image they project and the actions they carry out.
God uses the same standards of judgment now as then: oligarchy, imperialism, and false religion are called out for the evil that they are, individually and as they operate in cahoots. God names the sins of egotism and ethnocentrism, showing the great harms done by “the dirty rotten system” (Dorothy Day) and making clear that nationalism’s claim to divine approval is bogus. God never blesses evil.
And that is exactly where we are today. Politicians and pastors are claiming that what they say and do is backed by God’s blessing. But it is a lie.
Lamentation cleans the lens, enabling us to see what’s going on despite the demagogues’ claims to the contrary. We are the fallen city, the nation in exile. We have collapsed through the actions our own hands. We are being judged by God, not blessed by God. Lamentation tells us so.