Pretending Everything is Okay / Psalm 137
Proper 22, Year C; Downsville Baptist Church; 7 October 2001
One of the biggest grievances that I presently hold against many churchgoers is the notion that it is important that we act like everything is just fine in our lives even when it is not. Somewhere hidden in the recesses of our religious history, we have gotten the idea that being a good Christian means that we smile a lot, that we are always really nice, that we never go through really difficult times and if we do we must pretend like we are fine and okay with everything lest someone accuse of having a weak faith or pitying ourselves. Because of this mind-set in which we have made being a good Christian synonymous with pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps, we fail miserably in being true ministers in the name of Jesus Christ to those who suffer through some of the most difficult tragedies and sufferings.
About three years ago, I had my father preach for me one Sunday morning while I was away at a conference. Since my father is a hospital chaplain, he is daily surrounded by people who are suffering. In one day, my Dad might minister to a family who has just lost a child while simultaneously being responsible for securing organ donation. Meanwhile, he must look after a woman who is about to become a widow after losing her partner of 50 years. In the evenings, he tries to figure out how to comfort a family who has just discovered that their teenage son had been drinking and killed himself and two others in a car accident. One night, my father was even responsible to try to calm down two warring gangs outside the hospital doors after a fatal drive-by shooting had cost both groups to lose friends and they were angry and ready to wipe out even more of the opposite side. I mention all of that to you because when my father preaches, he usually makes his listeners travel with him into some of the darker valleys we will all at one time or another traverse. That’s why I don’t know if I was more shocked, angry, or actually tickled when after that Sunday on which my father filled in for me, I had a church member come by who was very upset at the language my father had used. I asked what had happened to which I received the following answer, “Well, Bro. Jason, your father was talking about how sometimes life gets really, really hard and said that sometimes the teenagers even say that life sucks . . . .” The look on my face must have given away that I didn’t quite understand what had offended this man so bad. “Sucks, Bro. Jason, your father said that sometimes life sucks. What do you think we should do about that?” Since you’ll never meet this guy, I guess I can tell you his name—Donnie. “Well, Donnie,” I replied, “Don’t you think that sometimes life is a pretty sorry deal.” “Well sure,” Donnie replied, “but I’d never say that life sucks.” “Me either, Donnie,” I finally answered. “To tell you the truth, when life gets really ugly sometimes, I’d probably use even stronger language. How about you?” “Well, yeah, preacher,” Donnie said starting to break a smile, “but you don’t think we should talk about life like that in church, do you?” I told Donnie I couldn’t think of any better place than church to talk about life and what it’s really like. Life is too hard for God’s children to spend Monday through Saturday trying to figure out the best way to cope with some of their darker days all by themselves and then come together into their supposed community of faith and support and have to act like life is wonderful because we’ve somehow adopted the misconception that “Good Christians smile, laugh, and say all is great; bad Christians frown, cry, and admit that life ain’t so great.”
So many of the psalms we find in our Bibles are often overlooked because they are honest enough to say that sometimes things in life aren’t okay. In fact, sometimes life is miserable. Israel has been captured by Babylon and the first four verses express just how depressing and hopeless a situation this is. The Hebrews have been drug away from their homes, and those taking them to a foreign land where they shall be slaves have decided to stop by a river to rest. As the conquered Hebrews look at the water flowing down a river other than their precious Jordan, the water begins to flow from their tired eyes. They cry and they groan because they remember Zion, the place where they had been one with God and all was right in the world . . . at least their world. The Babylonians decide to ridicule their new slaves. “Sing us the songs of Zion. Sing us the songs of your homeland. Sing us your happy songs. Sing us songs about your God who protects you and loves you.” Maybe we would be inspired if the psalmist declared to us that they picked up their harps and began singing in unison the 23rd psalm, that they were going to praise God and endure this valley of the shadow with smiles upon their faces. Well maybe, the 137th psalm is not meant to inspire us. Perhaps it is intended to remind us just how dark the valleys of the shadow sometimes are. One of England’s finest preachers was C.H. Spurgeon (1834-1892). Frequently during his ministry he was plunged into severe depression, due in part to gout but also for other reasons. In a biography of the "prince of preachers", Arnold Dallimore wrote, "What he suffered in those times of darkness we may not know...even his desperate calling on God brought no relief. ’There are dungeons’, he said, ’beneath the castles of despair.’" We need more Christians like Spurgeon who will be honest with us about the experience of despair rather than simply sugar-coating others’ sadness with phrases like “Smile. Jesus loves you.”
Instead of singing for the barbaric Babylonians, the Israelites hang their harps upon a tree. That generation will never sing the songs of their Lord again. The psalmist seems to climb out of the pages of our Bibles, grabbing us by the collar and asking, “How can we sing the Lord’s song when we are in a foreign land?” During WWII six Navy pilots left their aircraft carrier on a mission. After searching the seas for enemy submarines, they tried to return to their ship shortly after dark. But the captain had ordered a blackout of all lights on the ship. Over and over the frantic pilots radioed, asking for just one light so they could see to land. But the pilots were told that the blackout could not be lifted. After several appeals and denials of their request, the ship’s operator turned the switch to break radio contact--and the pilots were forced to ditch in the ocean. The Hebrew people are going through just such a dark night of the soul. Although one might easily point to their idolatry and mistreatment of the poor as their sins which have brought about such dire consequences, we miss the point of the psalm and much of Scripture if we choose to soften the suffering of others because their pain is due to some fault of their own. When our lives sometimes crash and burn, the question of blame is erased by the experience of pain.
At the psalm’s conclusion, the psalmist again doesn’t react in a way we would consider inspirational or even mildly righteous. However, the psalm might be all the more powerful because it is genuine and real. We seasoned church-goers expect the psalmist to declare something to the effect of, “Thy will be done,” or “I will trust and obey no matter what.” What we find instead is an instinctively human and normal crying out to God for revenge. “God, don’t you forget what these enemies have done to us! Don’t you forget the way they tore down Jerusalem!” Then the psalmist turns to his enemies, “Babylon, you devastator. Look at what you have done to us. Happy will be the people who one day conquer you and throw your little babies to the ground breaking their heads open against the rocks!” Words of Scripture such as these make us shudder for two reasons. First, the violence of the image of children being dashed on rocks is horrific. Second, the Israelites’ obsession with vengeance reminds us of just how wayward our own feelings can become in the midst of depression. If we don’t cry out for vengeance, we do find ourselves wallowing in darkness, searching for a hope we once knew that seems to have now disappeared.
In case you are wondering, I didn’t forget vv. 5-6. Even though the Israelites proclaim that the song of the Lord, the song of celebration cannot be sung in their exile because it would make a farce of their faith, they do solemnly announce that they can never forget Jerusalem. They cry out to God that if they ever do forget Jerusalem or if, even worse, they forget God, that they should be cursed even further . . . let my hand wither . . . let me lose the ability to speak if I forget you, O God! They declare that they must remember Jerusalem as their highest joy. Jerusalem: the city whose name literally means “the place that is founded in peace.” By peace, the Hebrew people mean much more than the “absence of conflict.” Peace, “shalom,” is the wholeness of life. Shalom is when one is of the same heart with God and fellow humanity, created in God’s image. Jerusalem is the place where love and hope flourish. For the Israelites, there is no longer any love or hope, but they must remember. They cannot forget. For in remembering, a seed of hope of love remains, a seed which can later be replanted and flourish into the wholeness of life God desires for all God’s children. During the Thirty Years’ War in the 17th century, German pastor Paul Gerhardt and his family were forced to flee from their home. One night as they stayed in a small village inn, homeless and afraid, his wife broke down and cried openly in despair. To comfort her, Gerhardt reminded her of Scripture promises about God’s provision and keeping. Then, going out to the garden to be alone, he too broke down and wept. He felt he had come to his darkest hour. But in the midst of his despair, with no viable hope for a future, Gerhardt simply remembered. He remembered the peace of knowing God and wrote the following words to a hymn which would later give countless others comfort. "Give to the winds thy fears; hope, and be undismayed; God hears thy sighs and counts thy tears; God shall lift up thy head. Through waves and clouds and storms He gently clears the way. Wait thou His time, so shall the night soon end in joyous day." Gerhardt’s words were not a proclamation that everything was okay. Everything was miserable, but he refused to forget God in the midst of his weeping. He would hold on to God and hope even when both were hidden in the shadows.
So is it fruitless for us to hold on to hope and God when misery abounds and no possible chance of a better future seems viable? The answer is that it would be fruitless save one glimmer of unconquerable hope: Jesus Christ. A hope remains and blossoms for all of us even in the darkest hour. It is the hope of redemption, the certain hope that you and I will be brought back to the city of peace founded by God, to a new Jerusalem and new life in Christ Jesus. This is not a hope that tells the widow to get over it because one day she will be with her husband again. This is not a hope that tells the jobless to get over it because tomorrow will be better. This is not a hope that tells the divorced to get over it and move on with their lives. This is not a hope that tells the parents who have lost a child to get over it because their little boy or girl is now one of God’s angels. The hope of redemption admits that life is often times unbearable, but a new life is promised, a new life to which we must all cling. A little boy once built his own toy sailboat. He built the sail and had it all fixed up, tarred and painted. He took it to the lake and pushed it in hoping it would sail. Sure enough a wisp of breeze filled the little sail and it billowed and went rippling along the waves. Suddenly before the little boy knew it, the boat was out of his reach, even though he waded in fast and tried to grab it. As he watched it float away, he hoped maybe the breeze would shift and it would come sailing back to him. Instead he watched it go farther and farther until it was gone. When he went home crying, his mother asked, "What’s wrong, didn’t it work?" And he said, "It worked too well." Some time later, the little boy was downtown and walked past a second hand store. There in the window he saw the boat. It was unmistakably his, so he went in and said to the proprietor, "That’s my boat." He walked to the window, picked it up and started to leave with it. The owner of the shop said, "Wait a minute, Sonny. That’s my boat. I bought it from someone." The boy said, "No, it’s my boat. I made it. See." And he showed him the little scratches and the marks where he hammered and filed. The man said, "I’m sorry, Sonny. If you want it, you have to buy it." The poor little guy didn’t have any money, but he worked hard and saved his pennies. Finally, one day he had enough money. He went in and bought the little boat. As he left the store holding the boat close to him, he was heard saying, "You’re my boat. You’re twice my boat. First you’re my boat ’cause I made you and second you’re my boat ’cause I bought you!" And so it is with God. We are are “twice God’s.” First God created us and then God redeemed us.
In the midst of any exile of hopelessness or dark night of the soul in which you find ourselves, we must never tell one another to get over it, to pick up our harps and start singing about how wonderful God is. There are days which we must hang our harps upon the tree, quit pretending and simply weep. However, we have been redeemed, and one day the season of weeping will cease. Remember Jerusalem. Remember God. Remember Christ Jesus who has redeemed us!
