Psalm 137

Jeremiah 29: 1, 4-9

Matt 28:16-20

Aug 10, 2008

         It is common these days to accompany messages with disclaimers.  Statements like “Offer not good on odd-numbers Saturdays” and things like that.  Therefore, in that spirit, I will offer the disclaimer that, in spite of the sermon title, at no time during this sermon will I sing.  I assume that would sit well with those who do not appreciate my vocal endeavors and perhaps prevent them from making a rush to the nearest door.

        What I do want to do this morning is to direct our thoughts to Psalm 137 that we used as Psalter this morning.  I want first to put this Psalm in something of an historic framework. It’s interesting that Bible historians say that this is the only Psalm that can be dated with any degree of accuracy.  The setting is the Babylonian Exile, the time of the captivity of the Hebrew people by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia which was from 586 to 539 b.c.e. - a period of 47 years or about two generations that ended when, in 539 b.c.e., the Persian emperor Cyrus the Great defeated Nebuchadnezzar and released the Hebrew people. 

I think it’s hard for us here in the 21st century, to comprehend the idea of taking a population into captivity.  We have to understand that in those days and at least in that part of the world, it was common for the population - or at least a portion of the population - of a defeated nation or city-state to become part of the spoils of war.  The victorious army would destroy or burn as much as they could, loot the royal treasury, steal anything else of value and then march off as many people as they could round up and head for home.  The captured people would then be paraded through the streets to the cheers of the population and ultimately become slaves of the victorious nation.  I might add that removing a people from their homeland by military force was not limited to the middle East in 500 b.c.e.. 

The United States government, in the late 1830's did roughly the same thing when they sent the army under General Winfield Scott to forcibly remove the Cherokee, the Choctaw, the Creek, the Chickasaw and the Seminole Indian tribes from their homeland in Georgia where gold had been discovered to what is now the state of Oklahoma.  The event is called the “Trail of Tears” and is a sort of modern parallel to the fate of the Israelites, actually the people of the Kingdom of Judah, in the period of the Babylonian exile.

        But going back to Psalm 137, here were the people of Judah, captured and marched off to Babylonia.  Their temple - the temple that Solomon had built, what we now call the first Temple - had been destroyed.  This was a devastating blow because to the Hebrew people, the temple was more than a place of worship.  It was the very embodyment of their faith, the place where the God of their fathers lived. They believed that God - YHWH - literally dwelt within the inner chamber of the temple called the “Holy of Holies”. 

        And to add to that, they had been removed from the land that God had givien them - the Promised Land - the land that they had known as home longer than anyone alive could remember.  And now they found themselves in the semi-tropical river country of Babylonia; in the land of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in present-day Iraq, a bit south and west of Baghdad.  This was a strange a strange foreign land where they saw every tenet of their strict law violated. It was a place where every earthy pleasure conceivable to man could be had.  Babylon was Paris, Los Angeles, Times Square, Las Vegas, Tijuana and more all rolled into one.

And their captors said to them, “We have heard that your people sing great songs of joy.  Sing for us some of the songs of Zion.”   It was of no concern to the Babylonians that the songs of Zion were songs to the Lord God - songs to YHWH - songs that celebrated a God of which the Babylonians had no knowledge.  They wanted only to be entertained or perhaps to make sport of their captives.

        And so as reported by the Psalmist, the people said  “By the waters of Babylon - that is, by the rivers - there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion.  On the willow trees we hung up our lyres for there our captors required of us songs, saying ‘Sing us the songs of Zion.’” And the people responded, “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?”  That is, how can we praise the Lord, how can we worship the God of our fathers when we are surrounded by people who don’t know our god, who don’t act or think or dress or worship like we do?

        But the prophet Jeremiah had some very wise and practical advice for the captive people.  The words of Jeremiah suggest that he was not among those led into exile when Nebuzaraden, Nebuchadnezzar’s military leader, captured the Jewish people.  And Jeremiah sent a letter from Jerusalem.  At that point the whole royal family had escaped from Jerusalem. The temple had been destroyed, the Jewish priesthood was gone.  The kingship of David’s descendants was destroyed.  With the priests of the Temple gone, the religious leadership of the Jewish people fell to the rabbis and to the people that Jesus would  later call the scribes and the Pharisees.  And Jeremiah, said to the people, Build houses, plant gardens, marry and have children and prosper.  In other words, remain together as a community, become one people, preserve the ways of God.  Don’t become assimilated into the Babylonian culture but cling to your faith and to your heritage.

        But what is all this to us?  What is the message; what is the take home lesson?  We are not a captive people.  We live and work and worship right here where we always have.  No soldiers have uprooted us or forced us to relocate.  We have not been the victims of a “Trail of Tears”.  Indeed I think it is safe to say, we have all come to Colesville of our own free will and volition.

        But I say to you this morning that perhaps to a greater extent than we realize, in truth we have become, slowly and inexorably, strangers in a strange land.  And, like our spiritual ancestors, the Jewish people, we too are confronted with the question “how shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?”  The song, of course, in this case that I refer to, is not a song in the musical sense, not a melody, but the Word of the Lord, the message of the Good News of the Gospel.

        Take a minute and come along with me to have a look at our own heritage as Christians in the land that we call Colesville.  From the beginnings of this church in Henry Baggerly’s living room in 1782 to the Federal Chapel of 1804 up through the days of Andrew Chapel,1869 and 1938, and even beyond, this church was not just one of the  places of worship.   Until 1957, it was the only place of worship for miles around.  The congregation all lived and made their living in Colesville.  Many of the members were related to each other. The Hobbs family was the largest but there were others. They knew each other on a day to day basis.  They took care of each other’s children and they knew each other’s business and this pattern, this sense of family and community was still evident as recently as the 1970's.  But time and urban development and shifting demographics are the generals and the kings that now hold us captive and under their captivity, we find ourselves in a strange land.

        Today, we in Colesville are a much more diverse people than our founders were and we are diverse in more ways than one.  First, we are geographically diverse - we represent a wider area.  Colesville is no longer a crossroads town surrounded by farmer’s fields.  In our historic holdings, there is a picture taken from the unfinished steeple of this building.  Apart from a few houses close to the church, the picture shows fields - fields stretching to the horizon.  Today, that picture would show miles of paved streets, hundreds of homes, apartment houses, places of business and parking lots.

        Secondly, Colesville has become more racially and ethnically diverse.  In a sense, this diversity has always existed. We know there were persons of African origin in the community from before the Revolutionary War but these were time of slavery and of segregation and so they were not an actual part of the community.   Bishop Francis Asbury, one of the founders of the Methodist Church in America, mentions in his memoirs that in 1810, he preached at Federal Chapel for the - quote - colored people - on Saturday evening and for the white folks on Sunday.  A 1937 photograph of the congregation of Andrew Chapel shows not a single black face, and yet we know that there were black farmers in Colesville at the time.

        And thirdly, we are culturally and economically diverse.  Colesville people are no longer farmers and we are not engaged in enterprises that are tied to farming such as selling feed or farm equipment or our farm produce..  Many work in the District of Columbia, some in Rockville, some in College Park, even some in Virginia or even farther away.  Some are professional, some teachers or any of the myriad professions that the 20th and 21st centuries have spawned.  In many cases, we no longer know our neighbors, at least we don’t know them as fellow workers and sojourners in the same field as we pursue.  And with cultural diversity goes religious diversity.  Where once nearly everyone was a de facto Methodist, if for no other reason that this was the only church in town, today it is hard to count the number of religious traditions represented in Colesville and we have only to drive up New Hampshire Avenue to see this diversity displayed in brick and mortar.

        And so the community in which our church finds itself has changed right around us.  Those who have been in the church longer see this more acutely than the newer or younger members.  And with that change goes a loss of the church as the center of Colesville life.  Indeed, the community and its relation to the church has changed to the point where it would be unrecognizable if, for example, Franklin Hobbs or Reverend Firth or Reverend Groseclose were to return from the other side.  And yet, Jeremiah still speaks to us.  The prophet still says though you find yourself in strange surroundings, work together, build a community.  Don’t mourn what is lost but start where you are with what you’ve got.  Remember your heritage.  Be true to the faith of your fathers.

        In the closing verses of Matthew’s Gospel that we heard this morning, we learn that the disciples met the resurrected Jesus on a mountain.  Remember that in scripture, when anything happens on a mountain, that’s a signal what takes place is important.  The scripture says that they worshiped him.  I find it interesting that it goes on to say “but some doubted” - a look back at Pastor Jim’s sermon of last Sunday.  And Jesus said to them “Go make disciples of all nations, teaching them my commandments.”  This we know as the Great Commission - God’s words, God’s instructions delivered through Jesus - and it echoes down through the centuries and it speaks directly to us as we reflect on our goal to grow the church. It says to us that even though the community has changed around us, even though we find ourselves in a strange and transformed land, we are to draw together as a community of faith within the community that surrounds us.  We must make ourselves and our faith and our works so visible to the people around us that rather than being transformed by our surroundings, we transform those around us.  In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said “a city that is built on a hill cannot be hid.  He said, “so let your light so shine before men that they will see your good works and glorify you father in Heaven.”  Our church is built on a hill and we have proclaimed ourselves a Beacon of God’s Love standing on that hill.  We must not, we cannot hide our faith.  We must let our beacon light shine.  We must go out and sing the Lord’s song, as a tight-knit community of believers, even in a land so different from the community that spawned our church, and may the God of grace go with us.

Amen