Introduction
Many of the Psalms come with their own story. The story of Psalm137 is one of loss and exile, so grievous and bitter that it emerges here with
expressions of rage that we find it hard to deal with. We note briefly the
story behind the psalm, with the basic movements within the psalmist’s own
mind. We move then to our own experiences of exile and loss and ask, “How can
we sing the Lord’s song in the midst of exile and loss?” The Psalmist asks this
as a rhetorical question assuming that we cannot. The truth is that we sing the
Lord’s song, even in great distress. How?
The Background
The context is clear: Exiled Jews sat down beside the rivers
in Babylon, and they wept as they remembered their home in Jerusalem. Somewhere
around 930 BC the kingdom of Israel (united under David and Solomon) divided in
two. The northern kingdom of Israel lasted for about 200 years until the
Assyrians carried their leaders off into captivity. About 130 years later the
southern kingdom of Judah fell, in stages over about 15 years. The Babylonian
Empire carried off their political and religious leaders to Babylon. This Psalm
was written, then, soon after these deportations (about 580 years BC). An old
rabbinical tradition states that Jeremiah wrote the psalm, and it certainly
reminds one of Jeremiah’s laments, although he was not taken to Babylon, but to
Egypt, where he died.
The Psalmist’s Lament
We see two basic ideas in the Psalm:
1A) Their captors are tormenting the
Jews by mocking them with invitations to sing “the songs of Zion”. The Psalmist
responds that he cannot sing the Lord’s song in a strange land. He knows the
songs. Indeed he calls on God to strike him down with something that would look
to us like a stroke if he would dare to forget them. But he cannot sing the
songs.
1B) But the Psalmist also says he cannot forget the songs. if he forgets Jerusalem he may as well die. This is our experience. We hurt too much to sing the Lord's songs, but we cannot do anything other than sing. A real case of the Babylonian Blues.
2A) From depression (anger turned
inwards) at his own distress the Psalmist turns his anger outwards: first
against the Edomites who had taken part in the sack of Jerusalem, and then
against Babylon itself. The final verses are so bitter that I have never heard
them read out loud in church—even this morning we left them out.
2B) Remember that this psalm tells a
story of loss and exile, of the pain and hurt that people experience in this
world. It does not tell us what we should do, but what exile feels like. Assume
for a moment that Jeremiah felt what this Psalm expresses, which I think is
highly likely. Then hear what Jeremiah wrote to the exiles who were grieving
and in such pain. Jeremiah 29 gives the text of a letter that he wrote from his
place in Israel to the exiles in Babylon:
4 This is
what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all
those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and
eat what they produce. 6 Marry
and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters
in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number
there; do not decrease. 7 Also,
seek the peace and prosperity
of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too
will prosper.”
Seek the peace of the city that
destroyed you! This is radically different from Psalm 137, but we make a
mistake if we try to erase the anger and bitterness of the psalm and move
quickly to Jeremiah 29. Consider our own stories, as we seek to move beyond
pain and bitterness to the integration of Jeremiah 29.
Our
Own Stories
I grew up in Zambia and Zimbabwe.
When I was 15 my parents moved to Pennsylvania, and I became an immigrant—an
exile in a strange land. Since then I have lived in Pennsylvania and Indiana
(and briefly in Kentucky), as well as back in Zambia and Zimbabwe. Then God
planted me in Steinbach, and I now sing the Lord’s songs in a new strange land
called Canada.
Growing up, I did not realize that
such moving is not the only way to live. I just assumed that you move, and that
you live with recurring loss. Last May we held a symposium at Providence on the
experiences of missionary families. A common theme from different families was
that of loss. Even among those whose commitment to follow Jesus was clear and
strong, there was hurt and pain associated with moving back and forth. There
are many rewards that missionaries (who we might call “gospel immigrants”)
experience; and there are also many losses. We continue to sing the Lord’s
songs, but sometimes we sing a bit off-key.
In our own experience a particularly
painful time came during our last full year in Zimbabwe. We were scheduled to
return to the USA in December 1990, but were considering staying longer to take
advantage of my work permit. Then Lois’ parents called us in September. They
told us that Dad had cancer, and that he would likely live for another seven
months. We wrapped up our affairs and returned on schedule just before
Christmas. Dad died at the end of March. I remember going to church in the
months following and trying to sing. It is hard to sing the Lord’s songs when
you are grieving, in pain, consumed with loss. We healed over time, and God’s
goodness and love have become abundantly clear, but I can understand the
psalmist.
I had a further struggle when we
visited Zimbabwe for seven months in 1992. This was my home, and I knew that we
would not live there for any length of time again. I remember one of the Lord’s
songs that helped me come to terms with loss. August 1992—General Conference at
Wanezi—I sat in a special service at the end of conference. The evangelist, a
South African named Shadrack Maloka, started singing in the middle of his
message: “Mayenziwe intando yakho”. Words from the Lord’s prayer: Your will be
done. As we sang I cried, and found healing for the loss that is part of this
life.
We could tell many stories from this congregation, of people
who emigrated from Russia under great pressure. Some lost all that they had.
One couple in our church has told the story of how they were separated in
Europe while they made their way to Canada. Somehow they were re-united in
Canada. One of my friends at Providence sings in the Faith and Life women’s
choir. She herself is Japanese Canadian, but she has learned to sing German
Mennonite hymns. She tells me that there are always damp eyes in the audience
as they sing these songs: Singing the songs of Zion in a strange land. But we Mennonites
don’t express the anger and hurt that went with the loss of home and country in
emigrating to Canada. Is it because there was none? Or because we repressed it?
A friend of mine tells the story of his own move from China
to Canada. He was born in China, son of missionary parents, and lived there
until his family was forced to leave during the Communist Revolution in 1950, a
15-year old boy. He tells how they crossed into Hong Kong and then sat down on
their suitcases to wait for instructions. They had learned under the Communists
never to show any feeling and to do only what they were told to do. An official
asked what they were waiting for. “For someone to tell us what to do.” “You’re
in the Free Territory of Hong Kong now. You can do whatever you want.”
He did not realize how deeply that expulsion had scarred him
until many years later, when he suffered the symptoms of PTSD. Then, as a
pastor in Atlantic Canada, he attended Acadia University studying for a
doctoral degree. One day he was assigned to teach a class on liberation
theology. He prepared the lesson, and as he drove to Acadia he thought of a
Scripture to begin with. He decided on Psalm 137. He began the reading without
expecting to feel anything in particular, but then, as he read, the feelings
from their expulsion surfaced. He felt fully the anger and rage and bitterness
that he had repressed all those years ago as a 15-year old. He read the last
verses, which we leave out, with real venom, and then he closed his Bible and
slammed it down on the table in front of him. It bounced across the table, hit
the blackboard, and fell to the floor.
The class sat there stunned. For a minute or two there was
complete silence. As the adrenalin receded and he regained control of his
emotions, he said, “Today we will critique Liberation Theology, but always
remember that Liberation Theologians have lived this Psalm.” After the class
was over, the students wanted to know what had happened, and they spent another
hour or more talking over the way that his own experience of exile had informed
his reading. His experience helps us to move forward.
Exiles on Earth
The fact is that we are all exiles on this earth who have
experienced pain and loss. Whether we describe the experience of refugees and
immigrants, including many in our own congregation, or whether we think of the
journey of life more generally, we are all in exile on this earth. In
Philippians 3:19 Paul describes the way that “earthly people” live: “Their
destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their
shame. Their mind is set on earthly things.” In contrast, he says of us, “But
our citizenship is in heaven.” Again in Ephesians 2:19-22 Paul describes the
way that Jews and Gentiles alike become God’s people: “Consequently, you are no longer foreigners
and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and
also members of his household, built on the foundation of the
apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined
together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together
to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.”
We
belong to Heaven as we travel through this world. So in Zimbabwe we sing, “Si nga
abahambayo thina kolumhlaba. Siyekhaya ezulwini.” “We are pilgrims in this world
travelling to Heaven.” This means both that we struggle to sing the Lord’s song
in a strange land of grief and loss, and that we have the Lord’s song planted
in us precisely so that we will sing it in this world of grief and loss.
Some Simple Steps
So
how can we sing the songs of Zion as exiles in this world? Now is
not the time to analyse in depth the way that we respond to grief and loss to
discover God’s presence and joy. Instead I suggest a few simple steps. No
guarantees; just my conviction that these steps are necessary in the journey.
1) Admit the pain and grief you experience. One of my
students at Providence is a counsellor at a Pentecostal college. She tells me
that Pentecostals have this idea that we have to move straight from pain and
loss to victory, and as a result they often fail to grieve fully. Maybe
Mennonites are closet Pentecostals!
Take a lesson from the Psalmist. No matter how bad your life
is, no matter how difficult and deep your pain is, you can cry your anguish out
to God. When Al read the psalm and slammed his Bible down on the table, the
open expression of grief and pain was an important step in his healing. Before
we can do anything else, we own our pain, we admit our grief, and we cry our
anguish out before our Creator. God honours us when we cry out to him.
Don’t rush it. Sometimes you have to let the hurt alone
before you can feel it fully. The impulse to avoid the grief in our lives is
sometimes the best first step. But I can tell you that you won’t heal until you
do bring the inner wound into the open.
3) Don’t confuse the grief itself with what God wants in our
lives. Jeremiah makes it clear that God wants us to prosper, and that we can
pray for the peace and prosperity of the world in which we live in exile. As
the world around us discovers God’s peace and wholeness, God’s Shalom, we also
find peace. God does not want us to remain stuck in pain and hurt. God wants us
to heal. Notice that Jeremiah describes the exile as God’s doing. Healing is
also God’s doing.
4) God wants to give us joy. The world
doesn’t really want joy; it wants to be happy. God doesn’t really care if we’re
happy or not—happiness is too shallow to describe what God wants to give us.
You have heard Randy give the benediction often: “May God give you everlasting
joy, peace, hope.” But I have never heard him pray, “May God make you happy”;
not because God wants us to be unhappy, but because God wants us to have his
life deep within us, to live forever as citizens of Heaven, with God’s joy and
peace and everlasting love. Being happy is fun, but it is only a by-product of
something deeper and greater: God’s peace and joy.
Somehow, in ways that I don’t understand,
the grief and hurt of exile in this world is the way that God gives us the
deepest most powerful joys possible. Listen to the way that Paul describes it
in Philippians 4:11-13: “I have
learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I
know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in
any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty
or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”
Paul applies this attitude here to a gift the Philippians
had collected for him, but it represents his attitude towards the whole of
life. We could have read the last part of Romans 8, or the beginning of 2
Corinthians 6, or 2 Corinthians 12; in each case we would have found the same
basic idea. We are exiles on earth, and God uses the pain and trouble and
heartache of our lives to prepare us for the eternal joy of Heaven. The
psalmist may not have understood this journey fully, but crying out his hurt
and anger and pain to God he took another step on that journey.
Steinbach Mennonite Church
9 August 2015
Text: Psalm 137
Appendix, From the
Epistle to Diognetus, chapter 6:
Christians are indistinguishable from other men
either by nationality, language or customs. They do not inhabit separate cities
of their own, or speak a strange dialect, or follow some outlandish way of
life. Their teaching is not based upon reveries inspired by the curiosity of
men. Unlike some other people, they champion no purely human doctrine. With
regard to dress, food and manner of life in general, they follow the customs of
whatever city they happen to be living in, whether it is Greek or
foreign.
And
yet there is something extraordinary about their lives. They live in their own
countries as though they were only passing through. They play their full role
as citizens, but labour under all the disabilities of aliens. Any country can
be their homeland, but for them their homeland, wherever it may be, is a
foreign country. Like others, they marry and have children, but they do not
expose them. They share their meals, but not their wives.
They
live in the flesh, but they are not governed by the desires of the flesh. They
pass their days upon earth, but they are citizens of heaven. Obedient to the
laws, they yet live on a level that transcends the law. Christians love all
men, but all men persecute them. Condemned because they are not understood,
they are put to death, but raised to life again. They live in poverty, but
enrich many; they are totally destitute, but possess an abundance of
everything. They suffer dishonor, but that is their glory. They are defamed,
but vindicated. A blessing is their answer to abuse, deference their response
to insult. For the good they do they receive the punishment of malefactors, but
even then they, rejoice, as though receiving the gift of life. They are
attacked by the Jews as aliens, they are persecuted by the Greeks, yet no one
can explain the reason for this hatred.
To
speak in general terms, we may say that the Christian is to the world what the
soul is to the body. As the soul is present in every part of the body, while
remaining distinct from it, so Christians are found in all the cities of the
world, but cannot be identified with the world. As the visible body contains
the invisible soul, so Christians are seen living in the world, but their
religious life remains unseen. The body hates the soul and wars against it, not
because of any injury the soul has done it, but because of the restriction the
soul places on its pleasures. Similarly, the world hates the Christians, not
because they have done it any wrong, but because they are opposed to its
enjoyments.
Christians
love those who hate them just as the soul loves the body and all its members
despite the body’s hatred. It is by the soul, enclosed within the body, that
the body is held together, and similarly, it is by the Christians, detained in
the world as in a prison, that the world is held together. The
soul, though immortal, has a mortal dwelling place; and Christians also live
for a time amidst perishable things, while awaiting the freedom from change and
decay that will be theirs in heaven. As the soul benefits from the deprivation
of food and drink, so Christians flourish under persecution. Such is the
Christian’s lofty and divinely appointed function, from which he is not
permitted to excuse himself.
