Communal Lament and Active Love: Integrating Faith and Medicine to Heal the Marginalized In Our Communities
Namrata Mathew and Emma Lindahl, Duke Divinity School, Durham, NC
Within communities, marginalized populations, such as the unhoused, often find themselves at the peripheries, isolated in their suffering. While there has been much discussion on healthcare disparities affecting the marginalized, there has not been a focus on using the Church and specific spiritual practices to address and act on these issues. We argue that one spiritual practice to be implemented is communal lament.
This practice is seen through the Christian understanding of Jesus fully embodying his commitment to bear the world’s suffering, and in a similar manner Christians are called to care and love our neighbor with an active love. A response to this call may be performed by the interaction of medicine and religion as they offer a vision of restoration to the community and hope. Through this paper we want to explore ways in which healthcare workers alongside the Church can engage with marginalized populations through communal lament.
Womanist scholar Emilie Townes encourages this response to suffering on the margins in her book, Breaking the Fine Rain of Death: African American Health Issues and a Womanist Ethic of Care, by highlighting the writings of the prophet Joel. When faced with plagues and immense suffering, Joel calls for communal lament. This lament is the collective expression of grief, where a community acknowledges its suffering, seeks justice, and turns to God in repentance, with the hope of healing and deliverance. Townes argues that this practice should be applied to contemporary issues like the failures of the healthcare system, particularly its disproportionate impact on marginalized communities.
Suffering is something to be acknowledged in the greater community and met with genuine reflection and action. By naming and embracing suffering, a community creates space for individuals on the margins to voice their pain and share it with others, fostering deeper relationships both with one another and with God, rather than devaluing the suffering and the sufferer. This approach offers a more compassionate framework for addressing those on the margins, one that emphasizes communal solidarity, moral reflection, and spiritual healing rather than shying away from suffering.
Suffering in the community can be addressed by organizations and individuals spiritually, physically, and emotionally, by healthcare workers who are willing to acknowledge the suffering of their communities. In order to repent in a biblical manner, action is required. Therefore, healthcare workers must be willing to join the marginalized populations through spiritual guidance, physical healing, and emotional community. It is imperative that healthcare workers work towards a vision of hope for their own community, with the ability to identify systemic sources of injustice, and demonstrate a gospel-centered love, that aims toward transforming suffering into justice, healing, and redemptive love. We will explore scripture and other authors, to further our view of lament as including action. As Paul Farmer states, “we must understand that what happens to poor people is never divorced from the actions of the powerful.” Therefore, it is our responsibility to take action and reverse this trend.
Our last point of exploration will be the ways in which specific communities and individuals within healthcare are applying communal lament, and how current healthcare workers can learn and implement these actions in order to form environments that counteract injustice and the overlooking of marginalized communities. Communal lament can promote deep relationships in the community and motivate healthcare workers to take action and make the necessary steps towards justice and healing.
This practice is seen through the Christian understanding of Jesus fully embodying his commitment to bear the world’s suffering, and in a similar manner Christians are called to care and love our neighbor with an active love. A response to this call may be performed by the interaction of medicine and religion as they offer a vision of restoration to the community and hope. Through this paper we want to explore ways in which healthcare workers alongside the Church can engage with marginalized populations through communal lament.
Womanist scholar Emilie Townes encourages this response to suffering on the margins in her book, Breaking the Fine Rain of Death: African American Health Issues and a Womanist Ethic of Care, by highlighting the writings of the prophet Joel. When faced with plagues and immense suffering, Joel calls for communal lament. This lament is the collective expression of grief, where a community acknowledges its suffering, seeks justice, and turns to God in repentance, with the hope of healing and deliverance. Townes argues that this practice should be applied to contemporary issues like the failures of the healthcare system, particularly its disproportionate impact on marginalized communities.
Suffering is something to be acknowledged in the greater community and met with genuine reflection and action. By naming and embracing suffering, a community creates space for individuals on the margins to voice their pain and share it with others, fostering deeper relationships both with one another and with God, rather than devaluing the suffering and the sufferer. This approach offers a more compassionate framework for addressing those on the margins, one that emphasizes communal solidarity, moral reflection, and spiritual healing rather than shying away from suffering.
Suffering in the community can be addressed by organizations and individuals spiritually, physically, and emotionally, by healthcare workers who are willing to acknowledge the suffering of their communities. In order to repent in a biblical manner, action is required. Therefore, healthcare workers must be willing to join the marginalized populations through spiritual guidance, physical healing, and emotional community. It is imperative that healthcare workers work towards a vision of hope for their own community, with the ability to identify systemic sources of injustice, and demonstrate a gospel-centered love, that aims toward transforming suffering into justice, healing, and redemptive love. We will explore scripture and other authors, to further our view of lament as including action. As Paul Farmer states, “we must understand that what happens to poor people is never divorced from the actions of the powerful.” Therefore, it is our responsibility to take action and reverse this trend.
Our last point of exploration will be the ways in which specific communities and individuals within healthcare are applying communal lament, and how current healthcare workers can learn and implement these actions in order to form environments that counteract injustice and the overlooking of marginalized communities. Communal lament can promote deep relationships in the community and motivate healthcare workers to take action and make the necessary steps towards justice and healing.