This sermon was preached live to the Congregation of St Ninian’s Uniting Church, Lyneham, ACT (Canberra)
Psalm 137; 2 Timothy 1:1-14
Anyone who has had to emigrate may have some connection with Psalm 137. For many decades our nation the Commonwealth of Australia, has welcomed many immigrants who have come here for reasons of refuge, safety, or to seeking a better life. Yet in our rather short history, there have been those who have been brought to this country against their will, starting back in 1788. I, like many have stood at the designated spot near Circular Quay on the edge of Sydney’s CBD marking the founding of the Colony of New South Wales, and wondered if some of those people who were shipped here may have been thinking of Psalm 137 back then in January 1788?
This month will make the 54th year of the arrival of my parents and I, in Australia. The narrative of our flight from the vicious tanks of the USSR rolling down the beautiful and historic streets of Prague. The telling, and retelling of the story to my children. The memories of one very small boy and his parents being shot at by Soviet Soldiers on the frontier of the then Czechoslovakia and Austria. The memories of the hostel for refugees. The long flight in a QANTAS Boeing 707 to Sydney. The stay in the migrant camp in the Sydney suburb of Villawood. The eventual settling in a strange land. These are all a part of who I am, and for many others, albeit different in the details, a part of who they are today as Australians. We like many immigrants have an empathy for what it is like to live not just as diaspora people, but people of exile.
For us as a family, there was a strange language to learn, strange foods to eat, a strange climate to experience, strange customs, and ways to live out. I recall when one of the first little parcels arrived after a considerable period from the ‘old country.’ My maternal grandmother sent us a few books, and a few “45” vinyl records. A little music from ‘home.’ One of the songs sung by a very young female singer, at that time was, Marta Kubišová. Marta Kubišová recorded what would become a signature song for her and the brutal crushing of the “Prague Spring.” “Modlitba pro Martu” (“A prayer for Marta”[1]) would be banned from record sales and banned from being played anywhere in the Eastern Soviet Controlled block. But the song survived. The song became the song of all Czech and Slovak people. For us in exile, it held (and still holds) memories of home, the pain of exile, and a hope that one day… So powerful and symbolic was that song, that in 1989 at the collapse of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia, impromptu Marta Kubišová, sang “Modlitba pro Martu” to a crowed Wenceslas Square the main square in Prague in front of thousands of gathered people. Marta’s now much older voice, but still perfectly attuned, sang the words a cappella to a crowd that stood in silence, awe, and wept[2]. The dark times of the hard and steel cold communist era had come to an end, the so called “Velvet Revolution” had begun. But that was to be in the future. In 1968 it was a song of lament and missing home and all that meant to a family in exile.
Psalm 137 is the last of the exilic Psalms, which start with Psalm 120. We know these Psalms as ‘exilic’ as they were the songs of the exilic period which came after the Edomites sacked Jerusalem circa 586 BCE. Between 586 to 538 BCE, it is possible that as many as 80,000 Jewish people by some accounts were forcibly taken from Israel into service of the Edomites/Babylonians. There is the rabbinic school of thought that this exile was God’s punishment on Israel for their unfaithfulness to God. Such a view is a point worth pondering upon. However, it must not also be dismissed that the invaders wrought a great offence in attacking and enslaving God’s chosen people. Such an act was worthy of punishment and retribution. Regardless of which particular emphasis the student of the 6th Century BCE exilic period wishes to take, there is a goodly number of lessons that one may take away from this period of Jewish history which still speak to us today.
One of the first lessons, is that at times one does not know what they have until it is gone. The Hebrew people would have sung Psalms (songs) of ascent. Psalms 120-134 are such. Each of those Psalms except 121, starting with the superscription Shir Hama’aloth[3] meaning “Song of the Ascents.” The purpose of the Songs of Ascent was that at the base of the temple mount the worship would start, that by the time the people got to the temple they were well set in the mind frame to worship God. I always thought that this was a wonderful image, and frame of mind to be in. These songs gave one the opportunity to move away from the business of life, work, the common or secular to focus upon the things of God. We may reflect as a congregation upon when do we actually start to worship and place our focus on the Lord?
During the Babylonian exile, there was no opportunity to ascend to the Temple Mount, to go to worship. In Psalm 137 the Temple Mount is beautifully depicted as “Zion.” The pain of the memory of what was now unobtainable for the Israelites. How they missed that which was gone.
Another lesson that one may glean from this Psalm is how searing is the pain of being in a strange land. The ‘Old Country’ a precious memory that is held as sacred, but others do not ascribe value to those things. These sacred things that some may find interesting or amusing, in this case the Edomite captors, viewed very differently the sacred things of the Jews. The Babylonian captors demand the Israelites to sing the songs of Zion for their amusement and entertainment but, for the Israelites to do so would be an anathema. They hang their harps on the willow poplar trees. The Willow Tree, traditionally seen as a tree of weeping. The Jewish people captive, are weeping, weeping bitterly about their captive and exile estate.
We come in the Psalm to verses 5 and 6:
If I forget you, Jerusalem,
may my right hand forget its skill.
May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
if I do not remember you,
if I do not consider Jerusalem
my highest joy.
This is an oath, but an oath strongly saturated with the bitter tears of lament. The people are crying out. It is said that some would even amputate their fingertips in order that they could not be forced to play their harps for their captors. Desperate actions, taken by a desperate people. Could there be a parallel to people of modern times seeking to escape to safety from an invasive force, also taking desperate risks just to find peace. Even if that peace is in a strange and foreign land?
The captive Jewish people have turned their attention to God for help. They have learnt that like many people confronted by an invading force they are powerless against their captors, but they serve God who is the God of all and their help. Note Psalm 121:
I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
where does my help come from?
2 My help comes from the Lord,
the Maker of heaven and earth.
3 He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;
4 indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
5 The Lord watches over you—
the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
6 the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.
7 The Lord will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;
8 the Lord will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.
The help of God is invoked by the captive Jewish people and a cry for justice and retribution is made. Whilst from a Christian point of view we may not sit comfortably with the idea of revenge, the Torah has the principle of the punishment befitting the crime is needed, however forbidding any excessive actions.[4] As Christians we desire mercy for our enemies.[5] The call for mercy is one that desires a repentance. Whenever we pray for justice against evil whilst we may not be as specific as verse 8 in Psalm 137, we are praying for an intervening act of divine justice[6]. One commentator suggests that the Psalmist may have witnessed the Edomites carrying out the very acts of horrid violence described in verse 8. If that was the case, one may begin to see the pain and trauma that these people lived through.
Psalm 137 is a heart opening Psalm. We read of the plight and pain of the Israelite captives, in doing so, we are invited to share the plight and pain of others in our church, community, nation and countries around us. That captive exilic predicament is painful, and lives in the hidden spaces of people’s hearts. Captivity and exile may not be just the of refugees or immigrants, it may be the situation of those who may be estranged from family and loved ones. Captivity and exile, may be the situation of the those who are dispossessed from their ancestorial lands. Exile and captivity, may allegorically be all our plight as we have drifted away from our Lord and Saviour. The good news is that irrespective of what the situation may be, there is Jesus Christ who calls us home and to be at peace with him. The best and most precious memories are those that Christ was, is, and will, be with us for ever.
© CMV 2022
All Scripture refences unless otherwise noted are from the NIV®
[1] A prayer of Marta
Let peace still remain with this country!
Let hatred, envy, grudge, fear, and strife cease!
Let them cease!
Now when your formerly lost rule over your things returns back to you,
people, it returns back to you!
Cloud flows slowly away from sky
and everybody reaps what he has sown,
let my prayer speak
to hearts not burnt by the time of wrath,
like flowers by frost, like frost.
Let peace still remain with this country!
Let hatred, envy, grudge, fear, and strife cease!
Let them cease!
Now when your formerly lost rule over your things returns back to you,
people, it returns back to you!
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npMZ7UxwVgU
[3] שיר המעלות šîr ha-ma’ălōṯ,
[4] Cf Exodus 21:22-25; Leviticus 24:19-20
[5] Cf Matthew 5:44; Luke 6:27-28
[6] Cf Revelation 6:9-10; 16:4-11; 18:20; 19:2-3
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