LAMENTATIONS 5

 TEXT FOR REFLECTION

Our ancestors sinned and are no more,

    and we bear their punishment.

Restore us to yourself, Lord, that we may return;

    renew our days as of old

unless you have utterly rejected us

    and are angry with us beyond measure.

LAMENTATIONS 5:7. 21-22

REFLECT

Lamentations 5 gives us a front row view of the torment of exile. The Jews' inheritance had been given over to strangers. Nothing was theirs anymore. They even had to pay for water and firewood. Their parents had been killed, and they had to witness their women violated. In short, there was no more joy and celebration. This chapter gives us an idea of how brutal their captivity was.

In the midst of the lament, we catch a hint of the lamenters' sense of injustice - this was the consequence of the sins of their ancestors who were no longer even with them anymore. "Our ancestors sinned and are no more, and we bear their punishment." An anguished cry. "We bear the sins of our fathers!"

"The sins of our fathers". This phrase evokes in me a sense of grave injustice. Why do we bear the sins of those who came before us? Our fathers sinned and we bear their punishment? Yet while absolutely unjust, it is a reality that is often acknowledged in the Bible. The truth is that our sin reverberates through many generations. What we do impacts our children and their children and their children's children. And what we are is very much a product of how our parents and their parents and their parents' parents lived. We bear the sins of our ancestors.

RELATE

I met Ah Gu in prison. He was in his forties but his furrowed and troubled face displayed a man 20 years older. He told me his story. Ah Gu grew up watching his father abuse his mother almost daily. As a child, he would observe his father return home in the evening drunk and penniless and looking for more money to go out and drink more. His father would then threaten his mother and demand whatever money she had earned for the day. And then beat her severely. One day, when Ah Gu was twelve, he felt he had to protect his mother and his siblings. As he watched his father beat his mother, he threw a cleaver at his father. He missed, but was permanently banished from his home. Ah Gu never went back. He escaped to a market further away from home and slept among the stalls, earning a few cents helping stallholders watch their stalls at night. Eventually he grew up, learned a trade, married and had a daughter whom he adored. His seemed like a story with a happy ending. So I was curious as to why he was in prison, when the ending seemed to be a good one. He told me. It was for repeatedly breaching a Personal Protection Order (PPO) brought by his wife for beating her. My heart broke. The sins of his father had been visited upon him. He bore not only the consequences of his father's sins, but was now perpetuating them.

I have seen this terrible reality repeated over and over again. That which we hated most about our fathers is carried over to us. Ah Gu swore he would never be like his father. And he saw himself becoming more and more like the monster that his father was.

Will this cycle ever end? Can one break free from this endless cycle of bearing the sins of our fathers and then laying these sins on our children who then perpetuate them? The Bible tells us (and I have observed in many lives) that God is the Father of the fatherless and of the children of abusive fathers (and mothers). 

I had a tense relationship with my father. He was a good man by most standards, but was exacting in his expectations of me. And I could never live up to any of his expectations. Thankfully I was introduced to God as Father from an early age in Sunday School. And God became my confidante. I also learned much about Him as Father from the Bible. And I discovered that while God had very high standards, He was also very patient and gentle when we failed to live up to His standards. I discovered that it was alright to fail; in fact, it was alright to fail repeatedly. Again and again. I learned that even if I failed 70 x 70 times, He would still love me and welcome me. He never tired of me saying "Father, I'm sorry." And He would never hold any sin against me. I discovered that knowing God as Father broke the cycle of harshness that had been passed down.

REST

 This is my Father's world:

The birds their carols raise,

The morning light, the lily white,

Declare their Maker's praise.

This is my Father's world:

He shines in all that's fair;

In the rustling grass I hear Him pass,

He speaks to me everywhere.

 This is my Father's world:

O let me ne'er forget

That though the wrong seems oft so strong,

God is the Ruler yet.

This is my Father's world:

Why should my heart be sad?

The Lord is King: let the heavens ring!

God reigns; let earth be glad!

From the Hymn This is My Father's World by Maltbie D. Babcock

Chiu Ming Li