Psalm 137 "Love and Anger"

Psalm 137


If you attended Sunday School as a child, you probably learned that the Book of Psalms in the Old Testament part of our Bible is really a collection of songs, traditionally said to be written by King David. I have a vivid image of a long ago square paperback children’s book whose cover featured a very sweet-faced, Caucasian looking young David at the feet of Saul (the first king of Judah). David was playing his harp – or lyre – presumably composing all 150 psalms as he sang.

Though it makes for a lovely scene, the book’s illustrator was historically grossly inaccurate. You see, most modern Biblical scholars attribute only 73 of the psalms to David, and the likelihood that he wrote them as a youngster is slim to none.

The remaining psalms, such as the 137th, which we just read, were composed much later in Jewish history. We know that to be true because psalms like the 137th reflect devastating events that were unimaginable during King David’s glorious reign.

I think that this 137th psalm is one of the most powerful psalms of all. You see, it is an immense outpouring to God of all the sorrow and all the anger with its irresistible thirst for vengeance that overwhelmed the Israelites – understandably so - at the time the song was written.

Last week here in church, we talked about the prophet Jeremiah intuiting the inevitable fall of Jerusalem in 588 BC and the subsequent loss of the Jewish homeland to the Babylonians. As Jeremiah predicted, the Holy City was destroyed, and the temple lay in ruins.

For a people who had understood itself to be chosen by God, these circumstances were pretty hard to fathom – and that is why the psalmist sang about them. He was trying to make sense of these events that made no sense.

According to Walter Brueggemann, “The political-military experience…(was) effectively transposed into a deep theological crisis.” As UCC pastor, Kate Huey, speculated, “This disaster shook the people to their core (where trust in God lives), and drew from them questions, cries of anguish, and a thirst for vengeance.”

The Babylonian army had brought the Israelites to their knees, but the worst part was that much of the population was forcibly exiled to the far side of nowhere, there to become strangers in a strange wasteland – physically separated from families and communities, not to mention that Holy of Holiest place where God resided.

“Alongside Babylon's rivers we sat on the banks; we cried and cried, remembering the good old days in Zion” - Jerusalem.

Their lives and culture had fallen apart. What had happened to them? How had they gotten here, where, as Kate Huey writes, the “past was separated from the present by the ashes of destruction, by miles of desert traversed under duress, and by the scenery of a land foreign and strange?”

These years of exile were a time of barrenness, bitterness, brokenness – and homesickness beyond measure. Yet, as painful as it was to remember Jerusalem, it would be even worse to forget. The experience of being taken captive and forcibly relocated led to decades of trying desperately to keep the ancient story alive – yet fearing that someday their children would not remember, that someday a future generation would be assimilated into this pagan culture and would lose its own identity, lose its God.

“If I ever forget you, Jerusalem, let my fingers wither and fall off like leaves. Let my tongue swell and turn black if I fail to remember you..”

It was a time of tears, and that is part of what the Psalmist is telling us. It was a time so sad that the Israelites could not even sing –

“Alongside the quaking aspens, we stacked our unplayed harps.”

It was impossible to play a single note even when the soldiers who stood nearby mockingly demanded a song. “Hey, Jewboy, sing us a song. Sing us a song about your happy homeland so far away.”

But beyond the sadness, it was also a time of great anger coupled with a deep seeded wish for revenge, and that is also what the Psalmist is telling us.

“GOD, remember the ruin of Jerusalem…And you, Babylonians—ravagers! A reward to whoever gets back at you for all you've done to us; Yes, a reward to the one who grabs your babies and smashes their heads on the rocks!”

Wow! Now that is pretty harsh! And yet, as the Psalmist sings to God of all the vengefulness and grief and anger and fear and homesickness and abject sorrow, in doing so, he invites the Holy One to embrace that which lies deepest in his heart and in the hearts of the exiles.

It is not a pretty sight for Yahweh/God to behold. The psalmist know that but through his song prays that God will not turn away in disgust and displeasure but rather will accept the invitation and enter into the bleakness and ruin of their lives.

Sometimes I think that today we have homogenized our relationship with God. Our prayers are composed and controlled and seldom are a groaning cry. Our hands are neatly folded and are not often raised in an angry fist shaking in the direction of the Almighty.

We tell one another that there is a good reason that we are under terrible financial stress, that our spouse was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, that our seemingly happy marriage ended in shock and pain – and if we do not really believe there is a reason, we convince ourselves that there must be, but we just are not good enough or faithful enough to see it clearly. And the anger and sadness we feel is heaped upon our spouse or child or the ones we love – rather than upon the shoulders of the one who has always understood the depth of our pain.

Human emotions are powerful and real. Sometimes we feel like crying. Like the Israelites, we too hurt and bleed and despair. We find ourselves exiled, strangers in a strange wasteland of grief and sadness.

Alongside Babylon's rivers we sat on the banks; we cried and cried,

Sometimes we do not feel like singing. There is nothing to sing about, and the words will not come. We wish we could go back to the way things were before but know we can not. And the pain squeezes our heart, and the anger engulfs us – and paralyzes us.

“Alongside the quaking aspens we stacked our unplayed harps.”

And sometimes we even feel like hating. We feel like putting a fist through a wall, lashing out at the spouse who did not ask first but deputized us as a cancer caretaker. We feel like damning the collection agencies that haunt us and getting back at the one who walked out on us and our marriage. There is nothing to build up. All that is left is to destroy.

Psalm 137 taps into those potent emotions. It can be a scary song because if we listen carefully to its words, they become our words too. The anger, the sadness, the vengefulness - these painful emotions – are at one time or anther - our emotions.

However, it is this naming of the deepest parts of our humanity that makes the psalms so powerful. They voice those deepest, most painful realities and trust that “God loves us as we are.” (Huey)

The anguished questions, the angry fist shaking, the eyes dimmed with weeping, the pillow wet with tears (Kathy Galloway) are all part of a truly honest relationship with God. You see (and this is the Good News), God accepts all of us – the sadness, the anger, even the thirst for vengeance. That is what the Psalmist is saying to us.

He is not whining or simply bemoaning the fact of the exile, but through this song, he is taking it all to God. He is praying his experience. Surely Walter Brueggemann is right when he says: “It is an act of profound faith to entrust one’s most precious hatreds to God, knowing they will be taken seriously.”

Pray your sorrow then. Pray your anger and your stress. Pray your despair and even your wish for vengeance. Cry out to God whatever lies deepest in your heart, trusting that the love which passes all our understanding is so profound that God will hold us close through it all – weeping with us, maybe even sometimes getting angry alongside us, but surely in the end bringing justice, healing, wholeness, and hope to us and to the world.

Written by Rev. Nancy A. Foran, pastor of the Raymond Village Community Church, Raymond, Maine
www.rvccme.org