Smiling isn’t sacred
As children of faith we come before God, just as we are. No matter how we are feeling…
Jesus wept. The prophets mourned the plight of their people through impassioned interpretation of God’s Word. Ezekiel went so far as to dramatically act out the suffering of his people. Jeremiah was nicknamed the “weeping prophet.” We all know that Job guy couldn’t keep his problems to himself. We have an entire book called Lamentations, for crying out loud! (Pun intended.)
So why, in 2019, is it still so dang hard to be open and honest about our feelings in church?
The incarnate Son of God wasn’t afraid to shed public tears of grief, and the most faithful saints of scripture didn’t try to hide their feelings. Yet I worry that often, when we come to church, we believe we must put on forced smiles. Perhaps it is because we are afraid to be vulnerable. Or perhaps it’s because we are under the mistaken impression that being a good, little Christian means being a happy Christian, that a faithful life is a happy life, etc., etc.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
So far, my summer has been chiefly spent in rooms devoted to pastoral care: home and hospital visits, grief counseling and funeral planning, prayer and support. One of the these summer spaces has been a coffee shop group that meets a couple times a month. This group meets to share and to support one another, lifting up experiences of personal loss. Mostly I just listen. Always I am humbled. Laughter, tears, and trust flow freely in this space. There is no façade, no pretense. And I wonder, what could be more Christian than this? A group of believers, leaning on one another in faith, knowing full well that it’s okay to stumble, that it’s okay not to smile.
There is nothing inherently sacred about smiling. Sometimes, the only truly faithful response to the world around us is to be angry and overwhelming sad in the face of so much pain and hate. Certainly, those of us who have been hurt in church communities know firsthand that showing vulnerability can be risky. Ironically though, as children of faith, we are invited to take that risk, to come as we are and to walk our journey of faith in community, among imperfect and sinful witnesses who are hurting right along with us. Our Savior leads us to come together and, as one, to lay our deepest suffering and innermost anguish at the feet of Jesus.
The very same Jesus, who wept.
In his Large Catechism, Luther’s vision of a faithful Christian life is plenty full of both joy and sorrow. For Martin Luther, the ups and downs of life itself point us to our baptism. The Christian life is “…nothing else than a daily baptism, begun once and continuing ever after (LC, 46).” Christians should “regard their baptism as the daily garment that they are to wear all the time. Every day they should be found in faith and with its fruits, suppressing the old creature and growing in the new (LC, 84–85).” Baptism’s sacramental waters are like a spiritual garment, washing over us as we meet the joys and challenges of each new day. With God’s help, we rise to greet our life in faith, with all its varied and continuous challenges. For Luther believes that each morning, we rise with the Old Adam, in the daily struggles of a broken and sinful world.
I, for one, am so fascinated that Luther compares our baptism to a piece of clothing. Clothes protect us from the elements. Clothes keep us warm and dry. I like to imagine that this sacramental garment we wear changes depending on the day. On a bright, sunny day, where we rise with hope and confidence, perhaps all we need is a light shirt. On a dreary, rainy day, maybe we need something heavier and more resilient, like a raincoat, to protect us from the outer deluge.
The Christian life is just as diverse as the Psalms. Some days we rise with a song of gratitude in our hearts, praising with the Psalmist, “Let everything that breathes praise the Lord!” Other days we awake to the news of more violence and destruction in our communities: yet another school shooting, yet another drug overdose. We lament with the Psalmist, echoing Jesus’ cry of dereliction, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Both are equally faithful responses. Our baptism is like a piece of clothing that gives us protection from both the outer and inner elements. By God’s grace, we are given help to withstand the howling wind raging outside, as well as the swirling torrent of distress inside of us.
Luther’s vision of the Christian life is a baptism that occurs daily because that’s what we need. We need the sacramental waters of baptism to wash over us in days of both gladness and sorrow. We need the grace of God to comfort and strengthen us continually, because both we and the world around us are continually changing. Luther reminds us that on both good and bad days, we are all clothed in our baptism. By God’s grace, those sacramental waters renew us, cleanse us, restore us; to meet each day with the fresh eyes of faith; and to laugh and to cry in our daily experience of the Christian life.
Being a “good” Christian does not mean always being a happy Christian. Far from it. Living a faithful Christian life means recognizing that all we have and all that we are belong to God, that it is only with God’s help and by God’s grace that we are here. All of us, clothed in the sacramental waters of our baptism, are in this together. Some days it’s easier to be here than other days.
And that’s okay. It’s okay not to smile.
