True
The appointed psalm for today is 137. It's powerful, it's
evocative. And it's very, very disturbing. Read it and if you
disagree, let me know; we'll need to talk.
2 On the poplars in her midst we hang our harps,
3 for there our captors ask us to compose songs; those who mock us demand that we be happy, saying: “Sing for us a song about Zion!”
4 How can we sing a song to the Lord in a foreign land?
5 If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand be crippled!
6 May my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, and do not give Jerusalem priority over whatever gives me the most joy.
7 Remember, O Lord, what the Edomites did on the day Jerusalem fell. They said, “Tear it down, tear it down, right to its very foundation!”
8 O daughter Babylon, soon to be devastated! How blessed will be the one who repays you for what you dished out to us!
9 How blessed will be the one who grabs your babies and smashes them on a rock!
The emotion here is raw and palpable. Civilized denizens of the 21st century, we recoil from the hatred given voice in verse 9. Yet as people of faith, we should give thanks for this psalm. For not only does it help us to understand the pain, the suffering of the exile, it also stands as a testament to the worth of Scripture and the God to whom it points.
If you've been paying attention to what you read when you spend time with your Bible, you know that it's not all sweetness and light. People behave badly. Very, very badly. If Judaism and Christianity were just con jobs, or even solely the handiwork of men and women, texts like Psalm 137 would have been excised. But Judaism and Christianity are not shams; they're expressions of relationships with God. And they're not solely the product of human creativity but the result of an inspired interaction between people and their Creator. Scripture may not always be factually accurate, but it is true. True because it is honest, true because it doesn't shy away from the awful complexities of existence, true because they recognize that if men and women, you and I, are to be in relationship with God then everything, and that means everything, must be on the proverbial table.
Psalm 137
137:1 By the rivers of Babylon we sit down and weep when we remember Zion.2 On the poplars in her midst we hang our harps,
3 for there our captors ask us to compose songs; those who mock us demand that we be happy, saying: “Sing for us a song about Zion!”
4 How can we sing a song to the Lord in a foreign land?
5 If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand be crippled!
6 May my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, and do not give Jerusalem priority over whatever gives me the most joy.
7 Remember, O Lord, what the Edomites did on the day Jerusalem fell. They said, “Tear it down, tear it down, right to its very foundation!”
8 O daughter Babylon, soon to be devastated! How blessed will be the one who repays you for what you dished out to us!
9 How blessed will be the one who grabs your babies and smashes them on a rock!
The emotion here is raw and palpable. Civilized denizens of the 21st century, we recoil from the hatred given voice in verse 9. Yet as people of faith, we should give thanks for this psalm. For not only does it help us to understand the pain, the suffering of the exile, it also stands as a testament to the worth of Scripture and the God to whom it points.
If you've been paying attention to what you read when you spend time with your Bible, you know that it's not all sweetness and light. People behave badly. Very, very badly. If Judaism and Christianity were just con jobs, or even solely the handiwork of men and women, texts like Psalm 137 would have been excised. But Judaism and Christianity are not shams; they're expressions of relationships with God. And they're not solely the product of human creativity but the result of an inspired interaction between people and their Creator. Scripture may not always be factually accurate, but it is true. True because it is honest, true because it doesn't shy away from the awful complexities of existence, true because they recognize that if men and women, you and I, are to be in relationship with God then everything, and that means everything, must be on the proverbial table.
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