Psalm 137

Are you so earthly minded that you are no heavenly good? Did that sound backwards to you? Let me say it again. Are you so earthly minded that you are no heavenly good? Is this planet so familiar, is this country so well-loved, is this life so real that heaven, Zion, eternal life have become unknown and unreal? Have the joys of this earth, and the despairs of this broken world, become so big in our eyes that the hope of heaven seems weak and pale in comparison?

Those who are so earthly minded that they are no heavenly good will put all their hope and trust in the savings accounts and job security. They will find their greatest joy in career advancements, and they will experience their greatest fears in financial loss. Those who are too earthly minded will try to use the systems and tools and powers of this earth to accomplish their goals. They will think that power is in business or politics or economics, and they will try to gain as much of that power as they can to use for their own purposes. And their purposes might be holy, their goals may be pure. They may want what God wants, they just don’t want to do it God’s way. They’re too earthly minded.

And those who are too earthly minded tend to be those who are the most angry and the most frightened. They are often the most despairing and hopeless. They have a sense that heaven is out there, somewhere, waiting to come. But it’s not here now, and all we have is this. And this isn’t much. This is depressing. This is dangerous. This world is full of big scary monsters that are going to get us. Being too earthly minded makes our lives heavy and our days long.

But Psalm 137 tears our eyes away from just this world. Psalm 137 forces us to remember. Psalm 137 may touch a painful spot in our hearts. Psalm 137 may make us crave to go home. But Psalm 137 reminds us that we have a home, a home without monsters, a home without pain, a home without enemies, a home without death. Psalm 137 forces us to remember that we are aliens and strangers in this world, and that, while we may mourn now, we will cheer soon, when we finally, finally get home.

So for the next few weeks, we’re going to remember that we are not home. The house we live in is not our home. The town we grew up in is not our home town. We are not Minnesotans. We are not Americans. We are Christians. And if we can see our true home, if we can see this place for what it is, we will mourn our grief and shout for joy. We will crave a deep appetite, and we will experience a strange sense of satisfaction. We will mourn that we live in exile, and we will rejoice, because we’re going home.

And today, we mourn. Verse 1:

By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion.

The people of Israel are not home, and it hurts. They have been taken away from their home, against their will. A stronger nation surrounded them and forced them to surrender, and there wasn’t anything anyone could do about it. Babylon had conquered the people of God, because the people of God had not acted very Godly. The people of God had sinned. They had turned up their noses at the poor. Let the poor take care of themselves, they said. Let them get themselves out of their own mess. We’ll take care of ourselves. And as a result, God sent them into exile.

The people of God had taken God’s word and commands and twisted and “corrected” and made them their own words and commands, just with God’s name on them. God wanted to bless them, to give them wonderful things. So, in their minds, there wasn’t anything wrong with taking more and more, and leaving less for the poor. God wanted them to be safe, to be protected. So, in their minds, they built up their armies, paid big money for the latest technologies. They took of themselves, because, God helps those who help themselves, right? Isn’t that found someplace in Proverbs. No, actually. God wanted them to be holy, set apart. He wanted them to not act like the rest of the world. So, they the knowledge of God, they kept His laws, they kept His offer of salvation to themselves. They didn’t shine God’s light to the Gentiles, because God wanted them to keep to themselves, or so they thought.

And now, they were in a frightening place, Babylon. God sent them into exile, away from home. And while Babylon may no longer exist, while the name of the country may be different, God’s people still find themselves in exile. We are away from home. We have sinned, and as a consequence we live in a strange and foreign land. Whether it’s Babylon or the United States, whether it’s the Middle East or the Mid West, we are not home.

And we mourn. By the rivers and lakes of Minnesota, we sit and weep as we remember Zion. Except, when is the last time we sat and wept as we remembered our home? When is the last time we ached for heaven? Have we forgotten what God had in mind for us? He had created us to live in paradise, or can’t we remember? He made us to live forever, or did we forget? He created men and women to live in harmony. He created humans and creation to be the perfect balance for each other, humans subduing and managing the world, creation thriving under the care of human beings. He created enough food for everyone, where no one has too much and no one has too little. He created a world where the very concept of fear could not be imagined, where tears flowed from joy, never from sorrow. He created us to be satisfied, completely satisfied, always.

That was home. Do you miss home? I hope so. If we don’t feel a tug on our hearts, then our senses have grown dull. And sometimes, that’s exactly what we want. Sometimes, the pain of this world is so great, we want to be numb, we want to be calloused, we need to stop feeling the pain. We try to get used to living here, as if there was nothing else. We have to, we think, because it hurts. Verse 3:

for there our captors asked us for songs, our tormentors demanded songs of joy; they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

Our enemies want us to think of this world as normal. Sing here like you would sing in heaven. Live here, as if this was your home. View the sadness and evil in this world as normal, as natural. It’s normal to hurt. It’s normal to grieve. It’s normal to lose. There is a pull, a temptation, there is incredible pressure to pretend like this is all there is. Act as if this is home, the world tells us. Pretend like you belong here. Act like the pain and loss and tears and death are acceptable.

But how can we do that? They are not acceptable. Verse 4:

How can we sing the songs of the LORD while in a foreign land?

Our songs are echoes of the songs we would sing if we are home. Our joy here is pale compared to the joy we will experience when we finally go home. We’re not as happy as we will be. This is not all there is. Don’t get used to it. Don’t grow numb. I know it hurts, I know there are tears. I know that we want the pain and sorrow and tears to go away. And they will, but not by acceptance. They will, not by us growing numb. The pain and tears will go away, when Jesus finally returns. This is why Jesus died, because pain and loss and tears and death are not acceptable. This is why Jesus died, because sin and evil are not normal.

If we grow numb, we will lose hope. If we accept this world for what it is, we will despair. If evil and sin and grief and pain become the norm, then there’s nothing else to look forward to, and there’s no reason to fight back. Corruption, injustice, perversion will become a way of life. We will begin to overlook and excuse and accept the parts of this world that cause so much pain. Children starving and women beaten, mass murders in the Sudan, Christians persecuted in Palestine. Does it get us? Do these things hurt? Do the tears come when we see the pictures of those suffering?

Or have we grown calloused and numb? Have we forgotten? Are we doing nothing about any of this, because this is normal for this world, because the pain has grown acceptable? We will not forget. We cannot forget. We will remember the way things are supposed to be. We will not accept the way things are. Verse 5:

If I forget you, O 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.

If heaven isn’t on our minds, if earth seems more real, if we’re too earthly minded to be any heavenly good, then we might as well stop what we’re doing right now and shut our mouths. If we’ve forgotten what we’re made for, if we can’t remember how it’s supposed to be, then we’re heading towards despair, we’re ignoring the sin around us, and we’re probably contributing to the problems of this world.

But if we remember, if we don’t forget, if we keep in mind what God intended for us, then, we will watch for the victory. If we remember how things are supposed to be, we will, expect evil to be defeated, we will expect righteousness to triumph. But, at the same time, there’s a word of warning, we will feel the pain. There’s safety in numbness. It feels better to accept. When we see the victims of evil, when we see the children starving, when we start to understand the horrible lives of women in extreme Muslim countries, when the despair of poverty becomes unacceptable, then the tears come to our eyes, and our hearts hurt. When the numbers strike home, the number of people dying from malaria and AIDS, the number of people dying because they belong to a certain tribe, when these numbers are simply unacceptable, then we know that pain again, the pain we were trying to protect ourselves from.

And that pain is expressed in verses 7-9. Instead of going numb and ignoring the pain, we express our pain to the Lord. Instead of simply accepting the sin, we cry out to God to demolish the evil. These are raw verses, words spoken in blinding rage and pain. These are words spoken by someone who remembers how things are supposed to be. These wishes, these judgments come from a heart that hates what they’re seeing, and misses home desperately. These words are spoken to the only one who can set things right, to the Lord who can bring us home. With sorrow, with anger, we say Verse 7:

Remember, O LORD, what the Edomites did on the day Jerusalem fell.

The enemy has been ruthless. There has been no compassion shown on the people of God. Those who reject God have caused excruciating pain and sorrow for those who love the Lord. The pain was not acceptable, the sorrow couldn’t be ignored, so Lord, remember what they did to us, and bring justice. Let them experience what we have experienced, so that they’ll stop doing what they’re doing. Let slave owners be made slaves. Let wife-beater get beat themselves. Let those who hoard food, let them starve. Our prayer to God is for Him to do something, to stop the evil.

And then the writer of the psalm turns to this evil world, and warns. Verse 8:

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 rocks.

Our words are raw, because we’re no longer numb. We wish for destruction, because we’re tired of living in exile, because we want to go home. Now, there are other passages in God’s word that balance out this rage. God tells us, in other places, to love our enemies. God reminds us, throughout scripture, to be patient and kind and gentle. But verses 8 and 9 keep us properly angry, appropriately outraged, and fittingly aching to come home out of exile.

This desire to go home is not a death wish. Actually, it’s a life wish. We’re not wanting to be gone from this earth. We’re just wanting this earth to be the way it was created to be. So, as we wait, there are some things we need to do. First, we can’t turn our eyes away from the sin. We have to allow ourselves to see it, as painful as it is. Don’t turn the channel when the commercial comes on about children starving. Even if we can’t give money, we still have to notice, we still have to feel, we still have to be angry about the suffering. Read a magazine, page through a newspaper, watch the news and see the sin. Call it what it is. And be angry.

But at the same time, remember. Don’t forget. Go back, often, to Genesis 1 and 2 to be reminded of what this world is supposed to be. Jump ahead, often to Revelation 21 and 22, to get a glimpse of what home looks like. Turn to Isaiah 11 and remember where we belong:

The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them…They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.

Remember. Remember home.

And then, remember one other thing. Remember what we celebrated last Thursday. Remember Ascension Day, the day that Jesus sat down on His throne, to rule this world until everything is put back right. Remember Who sits on that throne. Remember Who He is and what He’s like. Remember what He did, to restore this world. And hope.

We live in exile, for a while longer. We want to go home, but we’re not home yet. We ache, we grieve, but we wait and hope, we watch and work, we keep looking for that day when we see Jesus coming, coming to take us home.