Out of Place
Exile • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 31:12
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· 135 viewswhen something causes all the right things in my life to bend in the wrong direction, my response should be to pause and consider all the wrong things in the world that I should be bending back in the right direction
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I certainly do not need to say that we are living through unprecedented times. In fact, you are probably getting sick and tired of hearing that. Before 2020 none of us had ever heard the term social distancing. And at this point, I look forward to a time when I never have to hear that term again. Every single leadership blog email that shows up in my inbox talks about pivoting; if I have to read one more message about pivoting, I feel like I might hit somebody. We don’t need to hear it; we know it already. Just about everything in our world feels out of place.
Now then, we have a culture that reacts in some very distinct ways because of who we are. We are a culture that has enjoyed an extraordinary amount of personal freedom. In fact, we are conditioned in America to think of our individual freedoms as a right. So, when a health pandemic comes along and there are orders to stay home so that the spread of infection can be reduced, that feels really hard for us to do. We are people who have always enjoyed the freedom to come and go and travel throughout this country freely and at will whenever and wherever we want. It feels very out of place to suddenly have that freedom taken away. It feels very out of place to have schools and churches and stores and restaurants and businesses all shut doors at the same time. It yanks us and pulls us into a world we did not choose. We did not freely choose to be thrown into a world like this; it was forced upon us whether we like it or not.
That’s not anything new. In fact, the Bible has several examples of people being forced against their choosing into a setting they did not want whether they liked it or not. It is called exile. When people are pushed against their choosing into a place they do not want to be and then have to stay there, that’s exile. It would be good for us as people of the church to take some time in these days and look again at what the Bible has to say about exile.
It does not seem like a stretch to think of this time in our society as a time of exile. Others have noted it as well. I am particularly grateful for the thoughts of N.T. Wright in his new book, God in the Pandemic which deserves some credit for a few of the ideas that make its way into this sermon series about exile. There may be several examples of exile in the Bible—including episodes such as the forty-year wilderness experience of Israel between Egypt and Canaan. But the penultimate example of exile in the Bible shall always be the Babylonian conquest in which Jerusalem was overthrown under the command of Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar. It is during the Babylonian exile that we get stories in the Old Testament such as Daniel and the lion’s den, or Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace. Much of the writings from the Old Testament prophets spoke directly about this exile. And there are certain psalms which speak directly about this exile as well. Psalm 137 is one of those psalms.
1 By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept
when we remembered Zion.
2 There on the poplars
we hung our harps,
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!”
4 How can we sing the songs of the Lord
while in a foreign land?
5 If I forget you, Jerusalem,
may my right hand forget its skill.
6 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.
7 Remember, Lord, what the Edomites did
on the day Jerusalem fell.
“Tear it down,” they cried,
“tear it down to its foundations!”
8 Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction,
happy is the one who repays you
according to what you have done to us.
9 Happy is the one who seizes your infants
and dashes them against the rocks.
Okay, I admit, this is complicated. How am I supposed to preach on a passage of scripture which talks about taking happiness in seizing the infants of our enemies and killing them by smashing them against rocks? This doesn’t seem to fit with the whole “love your enemy” thing that Jesus tells his disciples in the New Testament gospels. But here it is in the Bible, speaking directly into a time of exile; so, what are we going to do with it?
It will help to take a closer look at this psalm in particular as a way of seeing and understanding exile more generally. And hopefully that will give us a better glimpse of how to see our own lives in the lens of exile—both in particular, as well as more generally.
Past Present Future
Past Present Future
Let’s workshop through Psalm 137 for a few minutes to have a better look at the structure. There are three sections to Psalm 137. Often when I point out the sections in a Psalm I will note for you the way that the English translators point this out with paragraph breaks. This time I agree with several biblical scholars who think that the NIV translators got it wrong. Our NIV Bibles break Psalm 137 in three-verse chunks by sectioning together verses one through three, four through six, and seven through nine. But it makes much more sense in the structure of Psalm 137 to include verse four with the first section, not the second section. Let me show you why.
Past
Past
The first four verses of Psalm 137 point backward to the past. This psalm was composed sometime after the Babylonian exile was over. It is spoken about in the past tense as though it had already occurred. Here are the clues. All the pronouns in the first four verses are first person plural: we, us, our. It is a collective shared memory in which the poet joins with the past, not a personal description of a present condition. The next clue is also a pronoun; the demonstrative pronoun there. We use the demonstrative pronouns here and there as ways of describing places either nearby (here), or distant (there). Verses one through four speak about Babylon with the Hebrew equivalent of there. A more literal translation of those first few verses would be, “Over there upon the rivers of Babylon we dwelled and wept when we remembered Zion. Over there upon the poplar trees we hung our harps.” This is a collective shared memory of a time in the past.
verses 1-4 — memory of Babylonian exile
plural pronouns (we, us, our) — collective shared memory, connection to the past
Pay attention to what this memory of exile still holds in the minds and hearts of those looking back upon it. Maybe these words make more sense to us now than they ever had before. How can we sing the songs of the Lord in a foreign land? As I make various connections and phone calls with many of you, the comment I hear the most is how much many of you miss singing together in worship. Yes, our church puts these messages on video for you to see in your homes. And people have noted to me the ways in which that is helpful. And yes, our church is recording videos of worship songs for you to sing along with at home. And people have noted to me how that feels foreign and strange outside of the place of gathering to sing along with all the others in the congregation. Something about church feels out of place when it is just people in homes watching video. It feels like exile.
what exile feels like — out of place
“How can we sing the songs of the LORD while in this foreign land?”
This makes sense. These words of Psalm 137 resonate with us today. Yes, it feels so right and joyful to sing praise in the sanctuary with all the others. And I admit that it does in fact feel like something is empty and missing when we try to transport those songs down into our places of separation, our places of exile. Verse four sums it up well, “How can we sing the songs of the LORD while in this foreign land?” Do you catch that? It doesn’t feel quite right. Something about trying to worship and do church in this way feels out of place. There is a strong sense in scripture which affirms the way exile makes us feel out of place. We know that the way we live out our relationship with God and express our worship to God is not exactly as it is meant to be during a time of exile.
What are we supposed to do with that? We certainly all know and can all feel that this kind of stay-at-home video worship feels a bit like exile. Okay, I know that it is still worship; I know that God can be worshipped at any time and in any place. But it is also out of place because we are all in a place of exile. What do we do with that?
Present
Present
verses 5-6 — present expression of devotion
personal pronouns (I, me, my) — commitment, pledge
“if I forget…if I do not remember…if I do not consider...”
Verses five and six of Psalm 137 move us into the present reflections of the psalmist. Now the pronouns shift from a collective we, us, our to a personal I, me, my. Look at the expression of devotion. Verse five, “If I forget…” Verse six, “If I do not remember…if I do not consider…” All of these if statements making a pledge to look beyond the moment of exile. Each of these statements—even though they are in the present—looks past whatever the present circumstance may hold.
sees exile as more than temporary delay or momentary interruption
But this is not some sort of grin-and-bear-it excuse. This is not a cop-out plea to shrug off and dismiss whatever the present may be. It is not a keep-hanging-on instruction in which the psalm is trying to convince us to tough it out because we are almost to the other side of this exile. That would be an understanding of exile as nothing more than a momentary interruption. If that were the case, then exile is nothing more than a temporary roadblock. It is nothing more than a delayed flight which keeps us sitting at the airport terminal just a little bit longer.
Is that what exile is? Are we supposed to see this present time as just a rain delay? Sit tight and wait for the clouds to clear and before you know it, we’ll be back out on the field. Does exile mean anything else besides that? Because if that is the only thing this present moment means to us, then perhaps we are missing something. If we are looking at this present time as nothing more than a temporary hiccup that puts our life behind schedule, then we might be missing something of the bigger picture.
exile triggered memory which allowed for reorientation, put life in a different direction
For the people of Israel, exile was something more. For them, exile triggered memory. It was a moment of reorientation. It was a moment in which there was a built-in opportunity to put some things in life back in a different direction. Think of it this way, when something happens in life in which all the right things get bent in the wrong direction, it is the perfect opportunity to pause and consider all the wrong things in life which we might consider bending back in the right direction. You see, if we are completely honest, I think we would all have to admit that our lives can so easily become so comfortable when everything is going right for us. And it is in those same moments of comfort when all seems right that we become the most blind and the most deaf to all else in the world around us that is so wrong.
exile: something that causes all the right things in my life to bend in the wrong direction
response: pause and consider all the wrong things in the world that I should be bending back in the right direction
Exile, then, is a reminder for the people of God in this world that we are yet exiles in a foreign land on a pilgrim journey. If exile reminds the people of God in a particular time and circumstance that there is something out of place, then it also serves as the greater reminder that our entire Christian journey is within an out-of-place world. May we never forget that. May we always remember that our place and calling as people of God is to always be part of God’s re-creation work.
Future
Future
Now we can see, then, that exile is not to be seen as just some kind of punishment. There are some that perhaps want to frame it in that way. Natural disasters happen, and it must mean God is sending punishment for something. The world suffers and struggles, and it must be God’s way of issuing a wake-up call for repentance. John Piper, in his new book, Christ and Coronavirus tries to make this point; and I could not disagree more. In John chapter 9 is the story of a man who is blind from birth and brought before Jesus. The disciples ask a loaded question.
2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
3 “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.
verses 7-9 — call for God’s justice
It was not punishment for something that people had done; it was pointing to something God has done. That’s what exile does. If we look back on the Babylonian exile of the Old Testament and all we see in it is punishment for what the Israelites had done, then we miss the point. Exile was not punishment for the past nearly as much as it was pointing to a new future. Exile—as we see it in the Bible—does not stop at focusing on what people have done. Exile keeps pointing forward to what God has done, and is currently doing, and will continue to do.
not punishment for what people have done
pointing towards what God has done
Maybe this is helpful to know, then, as we consider these last few verses from Psalm 137. These are perhaps some of the most confusing words in the entire book of Psalms that we see in verses seven through nine, the last section of Psalm 137. Seven is an address directly to God to remember and hold accountable the mockery of the Edomites when Jerusalem fell. The Edomites are traditionally the descendants of Esau. The sibling rivalry between Jacob and Esau carries on for generations. Then verses eight and nine are a direct address to Babylon itself, with this horrendous scene of babies being smashed on rocks.
A few thoughts on this picture. First, an acknowledgement might be necessary that it was, in fact, a common practice for something like this to take place as part of military conquest in those days. Biblical scholars note that annihilating an enemy army would ensure that the conquered people no longer posed a threat. But then going the next step to annihilate the children of those conquered people would ensure that the next generation would not pose a threat either. Sound familiar? It is exactly what Pharaoh did in Egypt by having all the infant boys of Israel thrown into the Nile river.
Now then, does that create an excuse for the people of God to engage in such behavior as well? Is that what we see in the closing verses of Psalm 137? I don’t think so. That would not fit with greater message of the Bible. Let’s keep digging. Our NIV Bibles make this more difficult by translating the Hebrew word asher as “happy.” What kind of sick person would take delight in smashing infants? That is not a happy thing. In this context, a much better translation for asher would be the English word “content” or “satisfied.” Satisfied in the sense that justice had been done. If the Babylonians had committed such atrocities upon the Hebrew people when Jerusalem was conquered, then this is a plea to God for justice to be done.
God is the one who holds justice, because only God is perfectly just
God holds each one of us in his grace, because only Christ are we perfectly justified
And this, then, becomes the place in which we make the connection to the larger purpose of exile. Exile is meant to point us to what God is doing. Or in our case living on the other side of Easter, exile points us to what God has already done in Christ. May it be for us that our time of exile is a time which serves as a reminder that there is much in this world which remains out of place. May it be for us that this time of exile reminds us that even when our lives get back to being right again, there is still much in the world around us which remains wrong. May it be for us that this time of exile reminds us that God is still at work redeeming and restoring all the is broken in his creation; and that he calls us in his church to be part of that redeeming work in this world. And may it be for us that this time of exile reminds us that God is the one who holds justice because only he is perfectly just. Yet it is this same God who holds each one of us in his grace, because only Christ are we perfectly justified.