Psalm 137- How can we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Today we are looking at Psalm 137. If you were here a few weeks ago, we were dealing with the Imprecatory Psalms and we mentioned the last line of today’s psalm as an example.
“Happy shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!”
For those who weren’t here, it might help to give a brief overview of what we said that day. The Imprecatory Psalms are a group of psalms that invoke judgement, or curses on enemies. They are really uncomfortable parts of the Bible.
We have been taught to be polite in our speech. We have been taught to love our enemies. We have been taught to at least not say nasty things about our enemies. We have especially been taught not to threaten our enemies with violence. … We also think as individuals, not in terms of tribes, so we would never threaten the children of an enemy.
So, these parts of the Bible are very uncomfortable and difficult to deal with.
First, we will look at the historical context that this prayer is coming out of.
This Psalm is talking about two cities- Babylon and Jerusalem. It is about resistance to Babylon and devotion to Jerusalem. The Psalm is written from the point of view of a temple musician. The temple musicians were those who sang psalms as a part of temple worship in Jerusalem. One day the Babylonian Empire devastated Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple.
It’s very difficult to overstate how devastating that would be to the Jewish people at the time. For them the temple is the only place that sacrifices are allowed, and sacrifice was a necessary part of Jewish worship. Sacrifice was how you dealt with sin, but it was more than that too. The temple was the place where heaven and earth overlapped. It was the place that housed the Ark of the Covenant. Looking at the Ark reminded them of their history- God through Moses rescuing them from slavery- the tablets of the Law- the entrance into a land of their own- King David and his son Solomon, who built the temple. The Temple was the heart of the Promised Land. It unified the people. It was the heart of their faith. To destroy the temple is to rip out the heart of their faith.
Now they are in a foreign land, essentially in slavery, and many of their people were massacred. They are in a land where they are surrounded by images of foreign gods. The gods of the armies that destroyed the temple. How were they to interpret that? Was God punishing them? Was this the defeat of God by these Babylonian gods?
This is the context for our Psalm that starts,
So, these temple musicians are weeping over the destruction of Jerusalem and the loss of what gave their lives meaning. Their whole purpose is gone and they don’t know what their future is. Their whole worldview has fallen apart. … They hung up their lyres in the trees because their songs were supposed to be about leading worship in the temple, which has been destroyed. … Their Babylonian captors mockingly ask them to play them a song for their amusement- songs, written and played for God in the temple, to amuse and entertain those who destroyed it.
They vow to not forget, even invoking curses on themselves that would impede their music-
I hope you remember Pastor Eugene Peterson’s saying,
We have been taught to be polite in our speech. We have been taught to love our enemies. We have been taught to at least not say nasty things about our enemies. We have especially been taught not to threaten our enemies with violence. … We also think as individuals, not in terms of tribes, so we would never threaten the children of an enemy.
So, these parts of the Bible are very uncomfortable and difficult to deal with.
First, we will look at the historical context that this prayer is coming out of.
This Psalm is talking about two cities- Babylon and Jerusalem. It is about resistance to Babylon and devotion to Jerusalem. The Psalm is written from the point of view of a temple musician. The temple musicians were those who sang psalms as a part of temple worship in Jerusalem. One day the Babylonian Empire devastated Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple.
It’s very difficult to overstate how devastating that would be to the Jewish people at the time. For them the temple is the only place that sacrifices are allowed, and sacrifice was a necessary part of Jewish worship. Sacrifice was how you dealt with sin, but it was more than that too. The temple was the place where heaven and earth overlapped. It was the place that housed the Ark of the Covenant. Looking at the Ark reminded them of their history- God through Moses rescuing them from slavery- the tablets of the Law- the entrance into a land of their own- King David and his son Solomon, who built the temple. The Temple was the heart of the Promised Land. It unified the people. It was the heart of their faith. To destroy the temple is to rip out the heart of their faith.
Now they are in a foreign land, essentially in slavery, and many of their people were massacred. They are in a land where they are surrounded by images of foreign gods. The gods of the armies that destroyed the temple. How were they to interpret that? Was God punishing them? Was this the defeat of God by these Babylonian gods?
This is the context for our Psalm that starts,
137:1 By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion [Jerusalem]. 2 On the willows there we hung up our lyres. 3 For there our captors required of us songs, and our tormentors, mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” 4 How shall we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?
So, these temple musicians are weeping over the destruction of Jerusalem and the loss of what gave their lives meaning. Their whole purpose is gone and they don’t know what their future is. Their whole worldview has fallen apart. … They hung up their lyres in the trees because their songs were supposed to be about leading worship in the temple, which has been destroyed. … Their Babylonian captors mockingly ask them to play them a song for their amusement- songs, written and played for God in the temple, to amuse and entertain those who destroyed it.
They vow to not forget, even invoking curses on themselves that would impede their music-
5 If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill! 6 Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy!Imagine yourself in that situation. How would you feel? Imagine you are in a Nazi concentration camp. Your family was killed in a gas chamber. Then bored Nazi guards ask you to sing a Jewish worship song for their entertainment. … How would you feel?
8 O daughter of [Berlin], doomed to be destroyed, blessed shall he be who repays you with what you have done to us! 9 Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and [gasses them until they breathe no more]!
I hope you remember Pastor Eugene Peterson’s saying,
“Psalms don’t pray as we should, they pray as we are”.
The psalms are honest- they are dark when we are dark, they are joyful when we are joyful. The Psalms reflect every high and low in our soul. John Calvin called the Psalms
"an anatomy of all the parts of the soul; for there is not an emotion of which any one can be conscious that is not here represented as in a mirror".
…. A good definition of prayer is “honesty before God”. So, the Psalms do well in approaching God with the full reality of the human heart. As we see in today’s psalm, even if we are feeling vengeance the psalms will meet us there and invite us into prayer.
That is the historical context for our Psalm, but what do we do with it in Red Deer in the 21st century? … You might remember that I spoke about two early Christians and what they did with this psalm. Origen said
That is the historical context for our Psalm, but what do we do with it in Red Deer in the 21st century? … You might remember that I spoke about two early Christians and what they did with this psalm. Origen said
“…give up to destruction all their enemies, which are the vices, so that they do not spare even the children, that is, the early beginnings and promptings of evil. … for ‘the little ones’ of Babylon … are those troublesome sinful thoughts that arise in the soul, and one who subdues them by striking , as it were, their heads against the firm and solid strength of reason and truth, is the person who ‘dashes the little ones against the stones’; and he is therefore truly blessed.”
Ambrose ads to the image of the rock saying “…dash all corrupt and filthy thoughts against Christ…”.
That is what we do as Christians. We read Scripture through the person of Jesus. And we allow the Holy Spirit to help us read. … We don’t have a Babylon, but we are sometimes in places where we feel like we have lost all hope- where we have lost our purpose- places where we aren’t sure what God is up to- or if it’s worth believing in God- Places where there are mocking voices. Sometimes those voices are our own inner voices. Where is the place where you feel praising God is impossible? That is your Babylon. … That’s why we sometimes need songs that reflect our own sadness and lamentation. Sometimes we feel like we are in Babylon and it is not good to sing glad songs to a heavy heart (Prov 25:20). …
We yearn for Jerusalem, not the literal Jerusalem, but the sweet spot where life makes sense, we have purpose. Where the one who said, “destroy this temple, and in three days I will build it again” (Jn 2:19) feels close to us. Jesus, who replaces the temple as the place where heaven and earth unite, feels near. … All the children of Babylon, all the sin that would draw us from the presence of God, is destroyed before it can grow up and be a danger. What causes you to be drawn away from “Jerusalem”, destroy that while it is still young.
Sometimes I’m asked if I read the Bible literally. It’s really not a great question because of the complexity of the Bible. It is not just a book. It is a library of a variety of different kinds of books written over a few thousand years. When we read, we take all that into account. Some parts are important to take literally. Other parts are important for us to look at metaphorically or through typology. And we get clues about how to do that as we look at how the Church has read the Bible in the past, and also by reading the passage according to the person of Jesus.
Within the Psalms we will find some very dark stuff. But that’s life. Life has some very dark moments and we need the Bible to speak to that darkness. Not just to tells us it’s dark. We usually know that, but sometimes we need permission to bring that darkness into the open. When we read a Psalm like Psalm 137 we realize how honest we can be with God. Sometimes we aren’t even that honest with ourselves. We don’t want to admit that we feel this way, but a psalm like this can help us access how we are honestly feeling, so that we can bring that to God (who is very happen to meet us in that place of honesty before Him). AMEN
That is what we do as Christians. We read Scripture through the person of Jesus. And we allow the Holy Spirit to help us read. … We don’t have a Babylon, but we are sometimes in places where we feel like we have lost all hope- where we have lost our purpose- places where we aren’t sure what God is up to- or if it’s worth believing in God- Places where there are mocking voices. Sometimes those voices are our own inner voices. Where is the place where you feel praising God is impossible? That is your Babylon. … That’s why we sometimes need songs that reflect our own sadness and lamentation. Sometimes we feel like we are in Babylon and it is not good to sing glad songs to a heavy heart (Prov 25:20). …
We yearn for Jerusalem, not the literal Jerusalem, but the sweet spot where life makes sense, we have purpose. Where the one who said, “destroy this temple, and in three days I will build it again” (Jn 2:19) feels close to us. Jesus, who replaces the temple as the place where heaven and earth unite, feels near. … All the children of Babylon, all the sin that would draw us from the presence of God, is destroyed before it can grow up and be a danger. What causes you to be drawn away from “Jerusalem”, destroy that while it is still young.
Sometimes I’m asked if I read the Bible literally. It’s really not a great question because of the complexity of the Bible. It is not just a book. It is a library of a variety of different kinds of books written over a few thousand years. When we read, we take all that into account. Some parts are important to take literally. Other parts are important for us to look at metaphorically or through typology. And we get clues about how to do that as we look at how the Church has read the Bible in the past, and also by reading the passage according to the person of Jesus.
Within the Psalms we will find some very dark stuff. But that’s life. Life has some very dark moments and we need the Bible to speak to that darkness. Not just to tells us it’s dark. We usually know that, but sometimes we need permission to bring that darkness into the open. When we read a Psalm like Psalm 137 we realize how honest we can be with God. Sometimes we aren’t even that honest with ourselves. We don’t want to admit that we feel this way, but a psalm like this can help us access how we are honestly feeling, so that we can bring that to God (who is very happen to meet us in that place of honesty before Him). AMEN
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