Singing the Lord’s Song
Rev. Mark Schaefer
Kay Spiritual Life Center
October 3, 2004
Psalm 137; Luke 17:5-10
Psalm 137
1 ¶ By the rivers of Babylon — there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion. 2 On the willows there we hung up our harps. 3 For there our captors asked us for songs, and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
4 ¶ How could we sing the LORD’s song in a foreign land? 5 If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither! 6 Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy.
7 ¶ Remember, O LORD, against the Edomites the day of Jerusalem’s fall, how they said, “Tear it down! Tear it down! Down to its foundations!” 8 O daughter Babylon, you devastator! Happy shall they be who pay you back what you have done to us! 9 Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!Luke 17
5 ¶ The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” 6 The Lord replied, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.
7 ¶ “Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, ‘Come here at once and take your place at the table’? 8 Would you not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink’? 9 Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? 10 So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, ‘We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!’”
I. INTRODUCTION
When I was a junior in college I did a semester abroad in Moscow. Moscow back then was a different place than it is today: no cable news networks, no McDonald’s or Pizza Hut, no internet access. And it was the central city of a country called the Soviet Union.
I am not sure if it’s possible to convey what it was like to live in a world where the Soviet Union and the United States stood toe to toe for 45 years. Maybe today’s bogeymen, the terrorists, are scarier but I’m not sure. When you grow up believing that a global nuclear holocaust was not a question of if but of when, that can really affect your outlook on things.
And so, for us studying in the Soviet Union, even though we were there to learn and to bridge those gaps between the two countries, we always had this sense that we were in the land of the other. Enemy territory.
We would have learned that anyway, even without the geopolitical backdrop: nothing quite worked the same, nothing was familiar. It was a very alien place to be.
We ten American students posted a sign at the Embassy saying we were available for baby-sitting, etc. for embassy staff. This was our strategy to get at least an evening here or there in the island of Western comfort that was the U.S. Embassy (it was also filled with Russian microphones, but that’s another story).
I don’t remember whether we ever got any of those jobs, but all 10 of us did get hired to work the Marines’ annual ball. We got jobs as waiters, bartenders, busboys, kitchen help, etc. It was a good time.
There is one moment in that evening that is emblazoned in my memory to this day. My roommate and I were setting up the table settings in the dining room while the Marines had their ceremony in the adjoining room. Suddenly, The Star Spangled Banner began to play. We were frozen in our tracks. We just stood there listening to the music of our national anthem, a song we had not heard in a long time. The emotions of it were overwhelming, and while the Marines later proceeded to get drunk and take some of the luster off that wonderful evening, that memory has never faded.
There was something about hearing your people’s song in a foreign land that was powerful: it was a taste of the familiar, a taste of home. But at the same time it reminded you that you were not home, that you were very far away in a very different place—one, whose government at the time, was fairly hostile to the place you had come from.
II. TEXT: PSALM 137
It is an issue that weighed on the mind of the author of the Psalm we read tonight. Listen again to some of those words:
Psa. 137:1 ¶ By the rivers of Babylon — there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our harps. For there our captors asked us for songs, and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
¶ How could we sing the LORD’s song in a foreign land?
It is a song sung from the middle of Exile. The Jews had been exiled into Babylon, sent hundreds of miles from their home country into the heart of the Enemy, the Babylonian Empire who had been responsible for the destruction of Jerusalem and Judah itself. Those same enemies who would taunt the exiled Jews saying “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” A mocking taunt, meant to remind the Jews of their lowly state.
III. EXILE
The Exile was no small event in the history of Israel. In fact, most Biblical theologians will tell you that there are two defining events in the history of Israel that form the pillars of their faith. The first is the Exodus, when God brought them forth from captivity into freedom through the sea into the Promised Land. The second is the Exile: that moment in Jewish history when the Babylonians conquered Judah, destroyed Jerusalem, burned the Temple to the ground, and deported whole segments of the population into exile in Babylon.
It was a method used in the ancient world to destroy an enemy and incapacitate their ability to resist. The Assyrians had the same idea—when they would conquer another nation, they would disperse the population until they were interbred out of existence. This is what happened in the Northern Kingdom of Israel—the kingdom was destroyed and the its people scattered. They are known to us as the Lost Tribes of Israel. The Babylonians, by contrast, allowed their exiles to remain in communities, who persevered until allowed to return 70 years later. It was out of these communities that the Psalm we read was written. That Psalm, so full of pain that it envisions dashing the Babylonian “little ones” against the rocks. And it is that same community that struggles with how one can sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land.
IV. FAITH IN EXILE
We don’t have to have been exiled into a foreign country to know what that feels like. We don’t even have to have spent a semester abroad to have a taste of how difficult it can be to sing the Lord’s Song in a foreign land. We can have that feeling right here at home.
There are times when we feel that we are aliens even in our own land. There are times when we can feel that it is hard to sing the Lord’s song at home.
A. At exile in our homeland
Christianity started out as a counter-culture. Christianity is at its best when it remains one: when it remembers that being a good Christian and being a good American aren’t the same thing. When it remembers that it’s allegiance is to Christ and to those whom Christ serves—the poor, the weak, the defenseless—and not the agenda items of the Republican or Democratic parties.
So, there is a sense that to be a Christian is to be an exile even in one’s home country. It can certainly feel that way as we watch a nation increasingly obsessed with “reality television” but not with actually confronting reality. A nation that lives in denial of death but really enjoys killing. A nation of increasingly isolated individuals who know little of community. A culture in which sexuality is not seen as a gift to be treasured, but a marketing gimmick to be exploited. A people increasingly obsessed with gambling and turning to games of chance instead of hard work. And one that pays more and more attention to vapid celebrities and the wealthy who are on television than the poor and the needy who sleep outside our doors.
It can be a difficult thing to sing the Lord’s song when all you really want to do is fit in with the culture around you.
B. At exile in the Church
In the beginning of your hymnals are John Wesley’s instructions for singing. Maybe you’ve noticed them before. They’re on page vii and are worth looking at:
“I. Learn these tunes before you learn any others; afterwards learn as many as you please….
“III. Sing all. See that you join with the congregation as frequently as you can. Let not a slight degree of weakness or weariness hinder you. If it is a cross to you, take it up, and you will find it a blessing.
“IV. Sing lustily and with a good courage. Beware of singing as if you were half dead, or half asleep; but life up your voice with strength. Be no more afraid of your voice now, nor more ashamed of its being heard, than when you sung the songs of Satan.”
Well, no disrespect to Wesley, but it’s not always easy to sing hymns ‘lustily and with good courage.’ There are times in our lives when we go through periods of doubt and anxiety. Sometimes it is possible to come to church and feel like you’re in exile.
Certainly we at times feel like we lack the faith to sing the Lord’s song. For, we already know our faith is small. Think back to that lesson we heard from the Gospels earlier:
5 ¶ The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” 6 The Lord replied, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.
A colleague of mine in seminary once told us about an experience she had where her pastor had shown her a mustard seed. She marveled at how small it was and she said that she thought, “How small my faith must be.”
There is a sense that we all think our faith is awfully small. So small that a mustard seed is large and mountain-moving by comparison.
Our spiritual exiles can be initiated by a lot of things: the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, the end of a relationship. There are all kinds of bumps in the road that can derail a steady faith.
And because we are often led to believe that Christians are supposed to be happy all the time, or that Christians are not supposed to lose faith, we can feel that we are in Exile even in the midst of the Church.
V. CONCLUSION—THE CHURCH IN COMMUNION
The important thing to remember is that like the Exiles in Babylon, we too are exiled in communities. Whether we are feeling exiled within our cultures or exiled within the community of faith, we are in community.
It is something we remember today on World Communion Sunday. A day when the Church observes communion world wide. It reminds us that we are not alone on our walk of faith.
Whether we are life-long Christians or newly baptized; whether secure in our faith or in times of doubt; no matter what country we’re in, at home or visiting, surrounded by friends or strangers, we feast at the same table. We partake of the same break, the same wine.
This day we feast with Christians all around the world, remembering the bands of community that unite us even in our periods of Exile.
And we are united as we remember the one who first called us to feast at his table. Who offers his body and blood for us without price. And whose faith is sufficient for us in our times of doubt, even when we find it difficult to sing the Lord’s song.
