Singing the Songs of Zion in Babylon
Psalm 137
By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept
when we remembered Zion.
There on the poplars
we hung our harps,
for there our captors asked us for songs,
our tormentors demanded songs of joy;
they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
How can we sing the songs of the LORD
while in a foreign land?
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.
Remember, O LORD, what the Edomites did
on the day Jerusalem fell.
“Tear it down,” they cried,
“tear it down to its foundations!”
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.
The exiles hung up their harps and wept. They called curses upon their enemies, praising those who sought revenge for their misfortune. The joy and passion of their faith crumbled under the weight of exile. Dwelling in a foreign land surrounded by unbelievers whose lifestyles they despised the Israelites withdrew into themselves. Despair, fear, and hatred replaced the songs they had once sung. They longed for home - for the Jerusalem they once loved. The home only an exile can long for - an idyllic place free from oppression and sin. A conception based more on nostalgia than reality. And this nostalgia consumed them to the point of desiring the worst forms of violence and revenge upon their neighbors. They claimed citizenship elsewhere and wanted nothing to do with their current homeland.
Seeing this attitude among the exiles, the Prophet Jeremiah sent them a letter. He wrote -
This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” (Jeremiah 29:4-7)
Settle down. Plant gardens. Seek the peace and prosperity of Babylon. A far cry from the calls for revenge involving bashing babies’ heads against rocks. Basically, Jeremiah tells them to get over themselves and their self-centered whining. God has placed them in Babylon and they need to stay faithful to who he has called them to be. Instead of blaming those around them for the lose of something that never really was, they are to become a part of their new community. They are to put down roots, get involved, and work for the good of that community.
I see this same dynamic at play in the church today. So many Christians (both liberal and conservative) are disgusted to be in “exile” amidst the sinful, secular, bastions of empire. They curse the culture, they curse the government, and metaphorically hang up their harps and withdraw from the system. Since the system is evil, they choose to wash their hands of it and refuse to get involved.
This is especially true in election years. All around me I hear the call to abandon the system lest I be seduced into believing it to hold my salvation. I am encouraged to merely stand at the periphery and observe - not tainting myself by choosing a candidate or even by voting at all. I am reminded that my allegiance is not to this land as if it was only the otherworldly things that matter.
And I admit that I am in exile in Babylon. The pain and suffering around me testify that the Kingdom of God is not yet fully present. I lament the actions of empire and absolutely do not see my salvation in any manifestation thereof.
But.
I am still going to seek the peace and prosperity of where I reside. I will settle down and build community. And in seeking to do these things I will get involved. I will care enough about those around me to vote. I will not place myself above the everyday working of my community by not condescending to use my voice to affect change. And I won’t just get involved in an advisory holier than thou sort of way either. I will get dirty as I put down roots and take a stand. I will serve the Lord and will do so within the community I call home - even if that home is Babylon.
True peace and prosperity serve God. And I have no fears about seeking such even in America. I will not hang up my harp and relinquish hope because my hope is in God and not in the land. Exile should not result in silence, but activism. And so I do not disdain the politics of Babylon, but bring the joy and hope of Zion into my new home.
This post is part of a Synchroblog on God and Politics. I will post links to the other participants as they become available.
Julie Clawson
Topics: Synchroblog, Politics |
July 22nd, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Julie, isn’t there a thinly veiled contempt (or not so thinly) in many separatist or puritan attitudes toward the world? Yet if we take seriously that God loves the world, shouldn’t we? Shouldn’t we ally ourselves with the best people we can find? Or is our contempt really sour grapes (bad figs) that we aren’t in power any more (as if we ever were). I like Bonhoeffer’s concept of Christianity from below, Christianity sans privilege and position, Christianity willing to roll up its sleeves and make a difference, even if we have to rub elbows with a secular humanist or two. Thanks for your thoughts.
July 22nd, 2008 at 6:11 pm
[…] at On Earth as in Heaven KW Leslie tells us about God’s Politics Julie Clawson is Singing the Songs of Zion in Babylon Dan Stone at The Tense Before Alan Knox asks Is God Red, Blue, or Purple? Beth Patterson at The […]
July 22nd, 2008 at 11:20 pm
Julie,my church community will be singing this psalm (this week and last) in the Jewish canon version as we look at both the harshness of God’s prophetic emptiness and how to hear/sing the Lord’s song in this strange land. Bono says these are the blues - laments - that are essntial in our grief. And Brueggemann suggests that this is also a way to hear the voices of those that are usually drowned out. (I’ve been thinking about these truths a lot as of late…)
And one of the best insights for me comes from the Sufi poet, Rumi, who wrote:One night a man was crying, “Allah! Allah!” His lips grew sweet with the praising until a cynic said, “So, I have heard you calling out, but have you ever gotten any response?”
The man had no answer to that. He quit praying and fell into a confused sleep. He dreamed he saw Khidr, the guide of souls, in a think, green foliage. “Why did you stop praising?” “Because I never heard anything back.” This longing you express IS the return message. The grief you cry out from draws you toward union. Your pure sadness that wants help is the secret cup. Listen to the moan of a dog for its master. That whining is the connection. There are love-dogs on one knows the names of: give your life to become one of them.”
Thanks for your writing. It helps.
July 23rd, 2008 at 4:28 am
In an ever increasing way, we deeply need to continue to create liminal (threshold) spaces where the interfacing spheres of heaven and earth are transversed regularly by ordinary human beings.
The longing for our home is the anticipation of the two “spheres of creation” - heaven (where God dwells) and earth (where we dwell) - becoming utterly one.
We won’t be settled until the seen and unseen are mingled, but our acts of worship lead us to the threshold.
Thanks for the post. Cheers to Home.
July 23rd, 2008 at 11:44 am
Julie,
You have out done yourself with this one. This post is specifically meaningful to me because I have often wondered about the verse that praises those who smashed the heads of babies against rocks. Being raised in a tradition that takes nearly everything in the bible to be prescriptive, opposed to descriptive, I could not understand how God could “endorse” such a prayer. I now see that God had nothing to do with the cry for revenge against enemies, but the scripture was merely communicating the state of heart among the Jewish captives, a state of heart that God later rebukes in Jeremiah. Thank you, thank you for weaving that all together and highlighting its relevance for today among us “captives.”
July 23rd, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Wow, Tia told me to read this and I never had put the two passages together like that. Being raised in a traditional Christian church I always would read the Bible thinking every passage was God’s will. Obviously, there are passages that are just speaking about the feelings of those people or the actions that they took but it doesn’t say that was always the right way. I’m so glad you made it clear that Jeremiah opposed that way of thinking and that God did not desire Israel’s heart to be so cold as to kill babies. This is one of the most wonderful insights i have ever read….Thank you for posting.
July 24th, 2008 at 6:51 am
Julie–
I particularly resonated with your post on the synchroblog…thank you for the depth of ‘digging’ it entailed!
Really liked RJ’s Rumi story in relationship to your post. I suspect, that you are a love-dog!
Thanks again–
July 26th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
thanks for the comments. I’ve been offline most of the week, so sorry I haven’t been able to respond…
July 28th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Julie,
very well said, some would say Jeremiah’s letter to the exiles is a charge to live missionally…your thoughts are excellent.
July 30th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
Hey Julie, I don’t know if you’ve read over on my blog, but I linked to this post of yours and some interesting conversation has transpired. One commenter remarked that in other parts of the bible, God does explicitly command to slaughter babies, so this one example cannot be used to “tame” God. I obviously I disagree with this. Since you have probably wrestled with those passages in the OT, as have I, I was wondering if you had any words of wisdom to contribute to the conversation over on my blog.