“A lament”
Meditation – Saturday, April 12, 2025
Psalm 137 (Forward, p. 73) CEV p. 639
The Israelites in exile in Babylon are in deep sorrow, mourning, over the loss of their beloved country and city. They have lost everything that was near and dear to them. And, of course, what made it even worse was the terrible savagery and brutality that accompanied the conquest and destruction of the city of Jerusalem. It was worse than murder in cold blood. I hate to even describe it, but one of my reference books graphically pictures what the savagery might have been like. No wonder verses 7-9 of this psalm ask the Lord to mete out revenge on their behalf.
But, to make matters worse, to rub salt on a wound or rub raw an already inflamed bodily member, Israel’s captors are now taunting them and imploring them to sing one of their old ‘traditional’ songs. “Now they wanted us to sing and entertain them. They insulted us and shouted, ‘Sing one of the songs of Zion!’”. And so the exiles ask themselves, “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?”
I’m afraid that this kind of question has repeatedly arisen over the years, for countless people even today are displaced from their ancestral lands, countless people are now refugees fleeing violence or other fearsome issues. And while many are willing to pull up their past roots, as it were, and start again, build again in their new lands (as per the instructions in Jeremiah 29: 4-7), others pine for their ‘old life’ and for a return to what they once knew. And sometimes the ties to the Old Country and the fervor with which they are held are even stronger than before, and cause certain tensions, as when they cause tensions within their newly adopted nation as in the differing and conflicted loyalties of British and German immigrants during the two World Wars or the ex-patriot fervor of other ethnic groups, fervor that sometimes surpasses even that of their compatriots back home.
And, what about us Christians: do we not also yearn for ‘our old country’, for the ways that we imagine that things once were? For years, I have been hearing about the Golden Years of the church, but I have to wonder, were they altogether that ‘golden’? If they were that splendid, why did we see such a drop-off, and why are there so little by the way of lasting, present day results?
I suspect that, with Jeremiah, it is important to put the past behind us, accept the new reality, and move, along with the Lord’s help, into that new world. Indeed, as we are reminded, God is about to do a new thing.
Forward notes: “How shall we sing the Lord’s song upon an alien soil?” (verse 4).
“In a sermon about forgiveness preached years ago, the Rt. Rev. Frank Vest, former bishop of Southern Virginia, began with this question from Psalm 137.
“At the time, I was struggling with the ways of the institutional church, and I was preparing for a pilgrimage. When I heard the sermon, I knew this would be my pilgrimage question. What I didn’t know was that the question would stay with me for another 25 years.
“Living in exile, the Hebrew people struggled to remember ‘the Lord’s song’. Over the centuries, some people in the institutional church have struggled to remember ‘the Lord’s song.’ I know I have sat down and wept many times as I searched for my voice in God’s song.
“In these waning days of Lent, I wonder if we can seek to recognize alien soil that deprives us of the Lord’s song and summon the courage to sing with our own voices, joyfully and with great thanksgiving very soon.”
Moving Forward: “Sing God’s song on alien soil!”