The Life Force that Resists Oppression
Psalm 137
Luke 17:5-10
This week we have two unpleasant scriptures; one from the Psalms and one from the gospels. We do not often take on unpleasant scriptures on a Sunday morning, but these are a real part of our heritage and part of the treasure that we own.
There are 150 psalms. They are poems and songs, collected for use in public worship. Tradition credits King David as the author of the Psalms, but this one clearly dates from the time of the Exile in Babylonia, some 400 years after David.
The Babylonians defeated the Hebrew people in 598, and then again in 587 BCE, the second time destroying the city of Jerusalem and its famous temple of King Solomon. All of those who were educated or skilled as craftsmen were taken to Babylon as slaves. While the flying distance is only 500 miles, walking it would require detouring to avoid mountain passes, and result in a distance of 900 miles. They were a long way from home.
The Hebrews were held, against their will, in a land far away. When their captors tormented them to “Sing those happy Jewish songs for us,” it rubbed salt into the wounds of the slaves. Verses 1 through 3, comment on life in Babylon. Verses 4 through 6, pledge to never forget their ancient home in Zion. (Zion is the idealized name associated with Jerusalem at its height of power, independence and splendor). The final three verses express real, and genuine, and passionate, anger at their circumstances.
In the psalm, they direct their anger at their neighbors, the Edomites, who gleefully watched the destruction of Jerusalem. What could be more awful than wishing to get back at the villains by smashing the heads of their infant children? This is genuine passion, railing against injustice and indignity.
This is not the talk of bullies. This is the passion of victims of great injustice. This is where personal pain clearly identifies its source in social injustice.
This psalm reminds us that our God can accept true passion. We do not need to sugar-coat our experience for God’s benefit. God can and will be with us, will not abandon us, even in our most angry and passionate moments. God will not turn God’s eyes away from us in our time of need.
What a contrast we have between this psalm and last week’s Psalm 91, that Gail Thompson sang for us, On Eagle’s Wings. That was literally so uplifting, and a week later we are expressing passion and anger.
The psalms, taken in their entirety, express the gamut of the human situation. We prefer to have lofty thoughts and aspirations. We prefer to see the glass half full, and look for God’s blessings. However sometimes, the reality of this world shakes the very core of our being. This is a psalm for that.
This gospel lesson may not seem any more uplifting or satisfying than the psalm. The disciples ask Jesus to increase their faith, and Jesus virtually says, “You do not begin to understand what faith is. If your faith was no bigger than a mustard seed, you could change the world.”
Jesus follows that admonition with nobody’s favorite parable, The Worthless Servant. It is so much nicer to envision ourselves as the apple of God’s eye, pursued by a loving God, hungry to be in relationship with the blessed Creation’s highest life form, us. How much more pleasant is that? And clearly, many Sundays we preach just that message.
But in this portion of Jesus’ ministry he is getting tough with his disciples. He is expecting more of them as they walk towards Jerusalem and his final days of ministry among them. He paints the picture of the slave working the day in the fields, and the expectation that the servant will go in and fix dinner.
In the Sunday School class we batted this idea around for a few minutes until finally the women told me, “Hey, this is a lot like real life. You go out and work all afternoon in the yard with your spouse and then you hear, “Well, what’s for dinner?” And then instead of thanks you are more likely to hear, “What is wrong with this? This is not as good as usual.”
Today’s scriptures are getting real with us. It is normal and real to feel genuine passion and rail against perceived injustice. In fact, a holy anger often gives us the incentive to begin or at least demand, change. And change is hard. And change rarely happens without a true driving force that cannot be resisted.
The Worthless Servant, does not negate the notion that we are loved by God - so much as remind us that true love is not defined by the honeymoon after the storybook wedding. True love is measured and expressed in the day to day; in the ordinary, in the ongoing commitment.
Our hope is that faith does not need to overcome reality with power and majesty. Faith, even faith as tiny as a mustard seed, contains the all the elements of real life: that blooms in the cracks of the paved sidewalks, that causes blossoms to appear where there seems no life can possibly exist, the life force that resists oppression.
Faith survives multiple generations of Exile. In fact, the Babylonian Exile is likely a critical event to the faith of the Jews, the Christians, and even the Muslims. In recovering from the Exile, the Jews found or replaced the scriptures and stories of the faithful from previous generations.
The original core of the written scriptures, the Old Testament; which provided both the model and the foundation for our New Testament and even the Qur’an of Mohammed; came to be honored, preserved and collected during the rebuilding after the Exile.
We wish that life were easier, even though we know blessings are often discovered in times of trial. “The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” ― is how the poet Rumi said it. “There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in,” are the words of Leonard Cohen.
The scriptures today offer reassurance that we often receive the best blessings when we are most at need. It confirms that wisdom may come when we were wishing for something else; riches, respect, power or influence. And that wisdom, being able to discern the presence and the value of relationships, is a real step toward being close to God.
Brothers and sisters, we live in anxious times. All around us there are voices filled with doom and tension. We are reminded that the power of God’s love is true love. It is a love that endures - an endurance that survives generations of Exile if need be.
Today we are strengthened by the sacrament. The presence of God within us is celebrated in the form of bread and wine, the ordinary stuff of our daily meals. It is a meal to strengthen our bodies, and a meal to strengthen our spirits, and a call to be together as a community. In fact, this is World Communion Sunday, when around the world Christians break the bread and share a prayer for a community. We are a part of that great cloud of witnesses, part of those who have a little faith, and a little faith is all it takes to change the world. Amen.
Rumi (30 September 1207 – 17 December 1273), was a 13th-century Persian[1][7] poet, jurist, Islamic scholar, theologian, and Sufi mystic.
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