Boney M have a lot to answer for. Thanks to their hit song, the first words of our Psalm today are instantly recognisable. I wonder if you can remember all the words? Whether you’ve remembered them or not, you might just be able to hum the tune - something that has been going round and round in my head this week as I’ve been preparing!
The song is a little older than me - 1978 when you were first dancing along to it. But while the first line is fixed in the memory, the last lines of the Psalm aren’t just so popular. In fact, they maybe caused you to have a sharp intake of breath. Could this be in the Bible? It just doesn’t seem to fit. We’ll come to those verses in due course.
From Boney M to another little rhyme. How does this go? ‘Remember, remember, the fifth of November...’. (Gunpowder, treason and plot. I see no reason why gunpowder treason should ever be forgot). The rhyme urges us to remember Guy Fawkes and his failed attempt to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605. As I was working on Psalm 137, I realised that the outline of the Psalm could be seen as ‘Remember, remember, remember.’ Psalm 137 remembers, not a failed plot, but an actual disaster.
So what are we remembering, what are we calling to mind? And how does that remembering express our faith in God, even in troubled times? Let’s see what Psalm 137 tells us, and store it up in our minds for when we need it for ourselves.
In verses 1-3, we see Remembering Zion- painful memories. As the opening line tells us, the people of God are far away from their home. They’re not in the city of Zion, or Jerusalem, they are remembering it ‘by the rivers of Babylon.’ They’re far from home, having been captured and taken away to strange Babylon (in modern day Iraq). This could be the song of Daniel and his three friends - Jerusalem has been destroyed, the people of God find themselves in a strange place, in captivity. As if that isn’t bad enough, the Babylonians want them to sing the songs of Zion, songs of joy, as if it’s an entertaining way to pass some time.
But rather than songs, there is weeping. They hang up the harps; they are faced with what they have lost. There’s no prospect of return. They watched the city being destroyed - the aftermath of which we hear in Lamentations 1. They’ve suffered loss, and even now, only have painful memories. Perhaps there’s even some regret over the loss. You see, God had promised David that they would live in the city, have a son of his on the throne, so long as the people kept the covenant and obeyed the Lord.
But the people were unfaithful. They turned away from God. And God has kept his promise. They’re away from the land. They remember Zion. And they weep.
Sometimes we don’t know what to do when someone starts crying. We don’t know what to say, or what to do. Maybe we feel awkward. Do you see how the Bible and the Psalms in particular tune in to every emotion. We had a praise-filled call to worship Psalm this morning, but this is darker, harder, more of a lament. Yet God can handle all of our days and all of our feelings. His word comes to us in every season. Even when we’re remembering Zion with painful memories.
As the psalm moves on, though, we come to remembering Jerusalem - by singing the songs. The question in verse 4 is at the heart of the whole psalm. It’s the question that drives the whole thing: ‘How can we sing the songs of the LORD while in a foreign land?’
Do you recognise the pain here? The songs of Zion speak of God’s promises and purposes all centred on Zion - the temple, the king, and the people of God, in God’s place under his blessing. And they’re far from there, in exile. They’re far from home. And it seems as if they think that they’re far from God as well.
But even in the pain, there is a desire to remember Jerusalem, to not forget the city of God. It might come with great cost, but the Psalm writer is committed to Jerusalem, even in exile. ‘If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill. May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth...’ His right hand’s skill and his tongue are the very things needful to play the harp and sing the Lord’s songs.
And what he’s saying here is that he isn’t going to forget Jerusalem. It’s going to have the place of supreme honour and devotion in his heart and life. They city of God may not be standing, and yet he is dedicated to it. Yes, there will be other joys - even in a foreign land. But Jerusalem will have highest place.
We sometimes see on the news the images of people being driven into exile, finding themselves in refugee camps, fearful, in danger, never knowing what is going to happen to them. But the truth is that we too are in exile. We may not realise it all the time, but the Christian is an exile and a stranger in this world. We’re not at home, we don’t really belong.
It’s the apostle Peter who writes ‘To God’s elect, strangers in the world...’ (1 Pet 1:1, also 1:17, 2:11) And that’s what we are. We don’t always fit in.
It’s as if we ask through the tears, how can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land? When we go through troubling times, when the weight of the world is weighing heavily on us, how can we keep going, keep trusting, keep joyful? The answer the psalm gives is how could we not sing the Lord’s song?
How could we not keep trusting in God? One of the hardest and yet most special parts of ministry is being with those who are coming to the end of their life. To be with them, and then with their families gives an insight into how people tick, and what matters most to them. To see a believer continue to trust through the darkest of days - how could they do otherwise, they would say? Even in the tears, there is joy.
Remember, remember - with painful memories, we’ll continue to trust and find joy. But it’s when we get to the final remember that we get a little bit jittery. In fact, the compilers of the Church of Ireland lectionary readings would want us to stop at the end of verse 6. Here and no further, they decree.
But God, in his wisdom, has inspired all of Holy Scripture. As Paul says to Timothy, all of scripture (not just the bits we like, or are sanitised) is God-breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting & training in righteousness. So what do these last verses teach us about God and ourselves? What does the final reminder point to?
The appeal is to remember Jerusalem, a cry for justice. We hear it on the news every day - a crime has been committed, we want the criminal arrested and tried. It’s a natural desire to see justice done. And so, the writer of the Psalm cries out to God for justice.
‘Remember, O Lord, what the Edomites did on the day Jerusalem fell.’ The Edomites were (if you went back far enough), far out relations of the Jews. Esau was Jacob’s brother - their descendants were near neighbours. But when Nebuchadnezzar came against Jerusalem, the Edomites joined in. They were like the cheerleaders urging on the Babylonians: ‘how they said, “Tear it down! Tear it down! Down to its foundations.”’ Fair’s fair, you might think. But what about the next bit?
‘O daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us - he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rock!’ It’s a brutal image, an almost unthinkable one. Especially if the word used to describe the attackers is ‘happy.’ Could the soldiers have a smile on their face as they attack little ones?
But the word isn’t really happy. Rather, it’s the word (in other versions) ‘blessed.’ The writer of the Psalm, inspired by God, is adding to the curse pronounced on the Babylonians in other places in scripture (e.g. Isaiah 13, Habakkuk 2:8 etc). And in looking to God for justice, asking God to remember the Edomites and the Babylonians, the author is trusting in God’s perfect justice.
And it’s natural that we seek justice when we have suffered. But we need to be careful in pointing fingers at others, that three fingers aren’t pointing back at us. We cry for justice when we have been wronged, but could we stand under God’s just judgement by ourselves? Rather than justice, or (as seems to be popular on Facebook these days, karma), what we actually need is... mercy and grace.
It is in the cross that we see the just punishment that our sins deserved. God’s wrath has been satisfied. God’s peace and perfect justice have met, and given us mercy and grace. And so, it is in Christ that we are free from our sin, and called to follow his example, as he prayed for his persecutors. In Christ, God the just judge reconciles us to himself. We no longer bear our own punishment; instead we are forgiven, and sent to forgive.
But to reject Christ, to make yourself his enemy, to oppose the new Jerusalem, is to make yourself his enemy, to oppose the new Jerusalem, is, in the end, to side with Babylon, and to face his just judgement forever. It is only in Christ that we belong to the new Jerusalem, and find there our highest joy - the promise of eternal life with him.
Remember, remember, remember, and keep trusting as you find yourself an exile and stranger in this world, but keep going, as we journey to that new Jerusalem through the pain, through the tears, to that place of sweet delight.
This sermon was preached in St Matthew's Church, Richhill on Sunday evening 26th August 2018.
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