There Is a Balm in Gilead: A Call to Lament Together

By Emmett G. Price III

This important work is an excerpt from the book A Time for Sorrow: Recovering the Practice of Lament in the Life of the Church (Hendrickson Publishers, 2019). Following the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, many in the United States and around the world are crying out for justice for our African American brothers and sisters. Emmett G. Price III, director of the Institute for the Study of the Black Christian Experience at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, offers this essay to inspire and challenge Christians around the world to join our hearts and our minds together as one to petition, hear, praise, heal, and be with God and with one another. It is here, in worship, that we lament.

The communal need for lament is inherent to the human condition. This chapter aims to challenge the church of the twenty-first century to reimagine and reengage in the sacred practice of lament as a spiritual discipline—not merely as an individual transactional practice to assuage traumatic moments, but as one that displays our intentional love for each other. It is our hope that this essay will cause the arc of justice to move at least one degree in the direction of “liberty and justice for all.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers
• Release date: May 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9781683073406

Book preview

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There Is a Balm in Gilead: A Call to Lament Together (ebook edition)

© 2020 by Emmett G. Price III

Published by Hendrickson Publishers

an imprint of Hendrickson Publishing Group

Hendrickson Publishers, LLC

P. O. Box 3473

Peabody, Massachusetts 01961-3473

www.hendricksonpublishinggroup.com

ebook ISBN 978-1-68307-340-6

This essay is exerpted from A Time for Sorrow: Recovering the Practice of Lament in the Life of the Church, edited by Scott Harrower and Sean McDonough, and published by Hendrickson Publishers in 2019. Used by permission.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or trans­mitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photo­copying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Due to technical issues, this eBook may not contain all of the images or diagrams in the original print edition of the work. In addition, adapting the print edition to the eBook format may require some other layout and feature changes to be made.

First ebook edition — June 2020

Cover image:

Vincent van Gogh (1853–90)

Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen

Nuenen, January – February 1884 and autumn 1885

oil on canvas, 41.3 x 32.1 cm

Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)

s3V1962

F25

Contents

Copyright

Dedication

Preface

There Is a Balm in Gilead: A Call to Lament Together

Acknowledgments

Bibliography

About the Author

Dedicated to

Atatiana Koquice Jefferson (1990–2019)

Ahmaud Marquez Arbery (1994–2020)

Breonna Taylor (1993–2020)

George Perry Floyd Jr. (1973–2020)

David YaYa McAtee (1967–2020)

and to so many more beautiful people

whose lives were not lost but were taken.

May your eternal rest be the catalyst for sustained healing and renewed hope.

Preface

At the time of the original writing of this chapter, "There Is a Balm in Gilead: