Psalm 137:1-4
By the rivers of Babylon--there we sat down
and we wept when we remembered Zion.
And so we hung up our harps, there upon the willows.
For there our captors asked us for songs,
and our tormentors asked for mirth,
saying, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!"
How could we sing God's song in a foreign land?
Lamentations 1:1-4
How lonely sits the city that once was full of people!
How like a widow she has become,
she that was great among the nations!
She that was a princess among the provinces
has become a vassal.
She weeps bitterly in the night, with tears on her cheeks;
among all her lovers she has no one to comfort her;
all her friends have dealt treacherously with her,
they have become her enemies.
Judah has gone into exile with suffering
and hard servitude;
she lives now among the nations,
and finds no resting-place;
her pursuers have all overtaken her
in the midst of her distress.
The roads to Zion mourn, for no one comes to the festivals;
all her gates are desolate, her priests groan;
her young girls grieve, and her lot is bitter.
After a few weeks of on and off Sundays we are finally back on schedule with the Lectionary and the same readings (more of less) that our brothers and sisters are reading today.
Before we get into specific readings, I want take time out for a quick reminder of some scripture study terminology to try to avoid any confusion here. I have been referring to what we’re doing here as readings from the Old Testament, just to avoid confusion, but the better wording should refer to them as the Hebrew Scriptures or, in Hebrew, the Tanakh.
Other words you might hear are Torah, which is the Hebrew word for the first five books – those supposedly written by Moses – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Pentateuch is the Greek word which means the same as Torah and is used more commonly by Christians since Greek was the lingua-franca of the near east in the earliest centuries of Christendom.
Early Christians continued using the scriptures they knew and merely added on new specifically Christian writings as they were accepted. After enough of these latter accrued, the writings were divided into Old and New Testaments simply to indicate which were pre-Jesus and which were post-Jesus.
If you ever get confused, please ask. Since we are not bible scholars gathered here I will continue to use Old and New terminology because that is clear enough for our limited purposes.
Back to today...while the Epistle and Gospel readings given for today are not quite so woe-filled, the readings offered for the Old Testament are definitely heavy on the sorrowing. Remember, we’re reading only the Old Testament this Summer and Fall because Jesus learned from them and was shaped by them.
Today we actually have five different Old Testament readings offered: two from Lamentations, one from the prophet Habakkuk, and two different Psalms. As we heard, I chose one from Lamentations and one of the Psalms.
Lamentations has traditionally been ascribed to the prophet Jeremiah, but this is apparently not so widely accepted any more with many thinking it may be a collection of the writings of several people. It is just what it says it is – a collection of five poems of mourning for the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon in 586 BCE. It’s bitter conclusion suggests the possibility that God may have finally rejected Israel once and for all. While admitting that God can still chose to save the people, no guarantee is offered, and there is a very real possibility that God will not so choose.
The second reading is Psalm 137, written during the Babylonian exile, and echoes the grief of a people far from their home.
I chose to have us only read four verses of each of these readings today, just for brevity’s sake, but the sorrow is heavy all throughout them both. These two readings are drowning in grief and mourning. We, as Christians, unless we are full-on bible scholars, tend to cherry-pick our way through the Old Testament, focusing most often on the ones that offer us the hope of a savior, whom we identify as Jesus.
But, remember, Jesus was not a Christian. He was as much a Hebrew as any man of his time. These writings reflect the deep, deep grief that is an integral part of the Hebrew believers’ being. If we pay attention when reading the Old Testament we can find that this sense of mourning and grieving runs all through the Hebrew Scriptures. Israel and Judah covered a small area geographically and the times they were powerful were few and far between. They were often beset by their more powerful neighbors and all too often forced into a subservient, vassal role.
The Children of Abraham went down into Egypt to escape famine in their home territories. Received at first as guests, they gradually became slaves and God had to rescue them in the Exodus. When they first went into Canaan their enemies were mostly as small as they and they were able to carve out a place for themselves, and briefly rise to a time of greatness under David and Solomon, but that time did not last and a combination of weaker kings and stronger neighbors led to a series of exiles and enslavement, including the most well-known, the long exile in Babylon.
Closer to the time of Jesus, armies from Greece, then Rome, turned them into puppet states, with no real power at all. There is so much for which to grieve in Hebrew history, and the Old Testament is not shy about sharing its grieving.
Yes, there was hope and joy and prayer in the readings Jesus knew, but there was also despair and failure and mourning. Jesus brought all of these to the teaching he gave his followers – many of whom – the Hebrew ones – would have been raised on the same mix of emotions.
Triumphalism is a Christian addition to the mix. We are assured that God is always for us, without doubt. We are assured that Jesus conquered sin and death for all time. Christians took that sense of triumphant assurance out in the world and conquered the known countries of their time, something the Hebrews had never down.
Jesus gave us all that is in the Hebrew writings – but he gave us something more, as well – something that came from himself. He was, as we all are, a mixture of what he had been given and what he created on his own. He took the lamentation of his teaching and mixed it, as compassion and mercy, with the assurance of his beliefs.
Thank God for both.
Before we get into specific readings, I want take time out for a quick reminder of some scripture study terminology to try to avoid any confusion here. I have been referring to what we’re doing here as readings from the Old Testament, just to avoid confusion, but the better wording should refer to them as the Hebrew Scriptures or, in Hebrew, the Tanakh.
Other words you might hear are Torah, which is the Hebrew word for the first five books – those supposedly written by Moses – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Pentateuch is the Greek word which means the same as Torah and is used more commonly by Christians since Greek was the lingua-franca of the near east in the earliest centuries of Christendom.
Early Christians continued using the scriptures they knew and merely added on new specifically Christian writings as they were accepted. After enough of these latter accrued, the writings were divided into Old and New Testaments simply to indicate which were pre-Jesus and which were post-Jesus.
If you ever get confused, please ask. Since we are not bible scholars gathered here I will continue to use Old and New terminology because that is clear enough for our limited purposes.
Back to today...while the Epistle and Gospel readings given for today are not quite so woe-filled, the readings offered for the Old Testament are definitely heavy on the sorrowing. Remember, we’re reading only the Old Testament this Summer and Fall because Jesus learned from them and was shaped by them.
Today we actually have five different Old Testament readings offered: two from Lamentations, one from the prophet Habakkuk, and two different Psalms. As we heard, I chose one from Lamentations and one of the Psalms.
Lamentations has traditionally been ascribed to the prophet Jeremiah, but this is apparently not so widely accepted any more with many thinking it may be a collection of the writings of several people. It is just what it says it is – a collection of five poems of mourning for the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon in 586 BCE. It’s bitter conclusion suggests the possibility that God may have finally rejected Israel once and for all. While admitting that God can still chose to save the people, no guarantee is offered, and there is a very real possibility that God will not so choose.
The second reading is Psalm 137, written during the Babylonian exile, and echoes the grief of a people far from their home.
I chose to have us only read four verses of each of these readings today, just for brevity’s sake, but the sorrow is heavy all throughout them both. These two readings are drowning in grief and mourning. We, as Christians, unless we are full-on bible scholars, tend to cherry-pick our way through the Old Testament, focusing most often on the ones that offer us the hope of a savior, whom we identify as Jesus.
But, remember, Jesus was not a Christian. He was as much a Hebrew as any man of his time. These writings reflect the deep, deep grief that is an integral part of the Hebrew believers’ being. If we pay attention when reading the Old Testament we can find that this sense of mourning and grieving runs all through the Hebrew Scriptures. Israel and Judah covered a small area geographically and the times they were powerful were few and far between. They were often beset by their more powerful neighbors and all too often forced into a subservient, vassal role.
The Children of Abraham went down into Egypt to escape famine in their home territories. Received at first as guests, they gradually became slaves and God had to rescue them in the Exodus. When they first went into Canaan their enemies were mostly as small as they and they were able to carve out a place for themselves, and briefly rise to a time of greatness under David and Solomon, but that time did not last and a combination of weaker kings and stronger neighbors led to a series of exiles and enslavement, including the most well-known, the long exile in Babylon.
Closer to the time of Jesus, armies from Greece, then Rome, turned them into puppet states, with no real power at all. There is so much for which to grieve in Hebrew history, and the Old Testament is not shy about sharing its grieving.
Yes, there was hope and joy and prayer in the readings Jesus knew, but there was also despair and failure and mourning. Jesus brought all of these to the teaching he gave his followers – many of whom – the Hebrew ones – would have been raised on the same mix of emotions.
Triumphalism is a Christian addition to the mix. We are assured that God is always for us, without doubt. We are assured that Jesus conquered sin and death for all time. Christians took that sense of triumphant assurance out in the world and conquered the known countries of their time, something the Hebrews had never down.
Jesus gave us all that is in the Hebrew writings – but he gave us something more, as well – something that came from himself. He was, as we all are, a mixture of what he had been given and what he created on his own. He took the lamentation of his teaching and mixed it, as compassion and mercy, with the assurance of his beliefs.
Thank God for both.
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