Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
Emotion Tone
Anger
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Disgust
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Fear
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Joy
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Sadness
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Language Tone
Analytical
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Confident
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Tentative
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Social Tone
Openness
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Conscientiousness
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Extraversion
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Agreeableness
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Emotional Range
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Tone of specific sentences
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Anger
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Whining
I didn’t sleep much last night.
Just the worst.
And… when I woke up, my air conditioning was on too high, and it was a touch chilly.
But on the walk from the air conditioned car to the air conditioned church… well, it was a bit toasty.
Just the worst!
Let’s get some things off our chest.
On the count of 3 lets all say something annoying you right now.
Everyone say: “Pastor Dusty”
Ouch.
That’s really harsh.
Now I can whine about that, too!
I’ve told lots of stories about my kids just falling apart, whining over the silliest things.
Dylan comes to mind, sitting at the dinner table for hours until he would try his mashed potatoes and meatballs.
I don’t tend to have a lot of sympathy, when it comes to those moments.
I’m going to out-stubborn my children.
For a kiddo, that really could be the “worst thing that ever happened to them.”
As you get older, you get a little more perspective.
You encounter deeper pains, more profound disappointments… so when you look at the kid crying over dinner.
“Seriously?
Get over it!
Stop whining!”
(That’s kind of a dismissive phrase, isn’t it?)
We don’t call it “whining” when we think someone’s pain is legitimate.
We call it “mourning” or “grieving” or “sorrow” or “lament.”
But from God’s perspective… does it all sound like whining?
He sees the beginning from the end, He sees the victory, He sees the beauty from ashes.
While we are sitting in the ashes.
Does God put up with our “whining?”
Does He roll His eyes at me like I do with my kids?
Seriously?
We will be there in 5 minutes!
The Fall of Jerusalem
In our series through the prophets, mostly focusing on the “minor” prophets, we took a brief look at this guy Jeremiah.
The “weeping” prophet.
He was chosen by God, a hero in the making, crafted in his mother’s womb… and pretty much saw nothing but failure his entire life.
The thing he warned about for 30-40… Judah didn’t repent and, sure enough, Babylon came.
Besieged Jerusalem for 30 months.
And then took most of the people off into captivity.
So Jeremiah weeps at the coming destruction, and at the reality of the destruction.
So we have this book, Lamentations.
Tradition has this as the work of Jeremiah, the prophet, though we don’t know for sure.
It is the work of a poet writing shortly after the fall of Jerusalem.
Heart-broken.
Grieved.
Wounded.
Angry.
Maybe doubting God, here and there?
This is kind of a weird thing to be in the Bible.
And it’s kind of weird to be preaching on it.
But I believe God has brought all these books together, works of literature by human hands, but God-breathed, God-inspired, God preserved these words from almost 2600 years ago…
...to teach you and I something about who He is
…to teach us how to know Him, how to worship Him.
What can that possibly mean with a book called “Lamentations
Lament - The Poetry of Grief
To “lament” is a passionate expression of grief or sorrow.
Acrostic
It is poetry, poetic structure.
Aleph, Bet, Gimel
It feels kind of like “come up with something that bothers you on the count of 3.” Imagine the poet sitting there “what pains me that starts with the letter J...” Jerusalem something!
Brings order to the chaos of grief and loss.
It structures such an unordered and structured thing.
Maybe it guides the poet… and the reader too, through the grief.
When the hurt is too large, the artist gives words to say to feel a way through it.
Lament 1 - the Widow
Jerusalem has become like a widow.
A-Z, she grieves.
Lamentations 1 pictures Jerusalem as a widow who is lost.
And who did it?
Who is to blame?
Who punished Jerusalem?
God did… exactly like He said He would… but that doesn’t stop people from mourning it, does it?
The city personified, weeps and mourns… and knows it is our fault.
We sinned and are brought low by the consequences.
No one to blame but ourselves.
That is lament.
Lament 2 - Wrath
The anger of the Lord.
How does the poet feel about it?
This gets vivid:
So different from the last chapter.
That was self focused on sorrowful.
This is angry at God.
You did this!
When we read about God bringing “justice” to the people of Israel, to the people of Judah… it was abstract.
Maybe we even chuckled at the “foolish people” who didn’t listen to God, who didn’t repent, didn’t listen to Jeremiah’s final warnings.
And yet… the reality of that judgment, the wounded-ness, the brokenness, the starvation and the families torn apart, people driven to starvation, to cannibalism, and then to death or slavery.
I am far more comfortable with the abstract… the poet doesn’t have that luxury.
Because he lived it, is living it, can’t escape it, probably hears the cries when he tries to sleep at night!
Lament 4 - Yesterday
Chapter 4, another lament, contrasts the way it was with the way it is now.
Again, an acrostic, from A to Z, all the things that were lavish and fine before, now broken.
Looking back at how good it was… and how awful it is today.
“How I long… for yesterday.”
What time and God has taken from us.
Maybe it ends well?
The “z” of the Hebrew alphabet “Tav”.
Lament 5 - Restore Us
Lament 5 breaks the “alphabet” pattern, like the grief can no longer be contained.
It lists all the people affected, begging God not to forget them.
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