By The Waters of Babylon

Psalm 137 is a lament of the Israelites for their lost “promised land” (Israel) from which they had been exiled.  Their homeland had been destroyed and its people scattered. “By the Waters of Babylon I sat down and wept.”

I lament our new exile from the “American Dream.”  Our homeland, like that of ancient Israel, is being destroyed and we “the people” are scattered (divided) into Trumpers and Never-Trumpers.  We can’t talk to each other anymore without rancor, without yelling, without belittling one another.  The Democratic debate last night and Trump rallies  demonstrate this .  Someone described the last Democratic debate in Las Vegas as “a cafeteria fight among middle-schoolers.” I’m at a loss for words to describe the debate in South Carolina last night.  “By the waters of Babylon I sat down and wept.”

Babylon was an ugly scene in 586 B.C.  The Israelites were not there as willing tourists, but as unwilling spoils of battle.  They found themselves as exiles in a land that had nothing but contempt for the things they held sacred.  Their captors taunted them from all sides and called upon them to sing their songs of faith, songs of  the dignity of every person, the celebration of diversity, and civil rights for all.  “How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?”

Did they hang up their harps because they could not sing their sacred songs in such a strange land?  No, they did not!  They still sang their songs whenever they could and we know this because their faith survived the exile.  Their faith in the dignity of persons, the celebration of diversity, and equal rights for all would not have survived without their singing.

Our voices must not be muted now.  We must not allow the aggressive dehumanizing of American life render us voiceless.  We must do more than sit down and weep in this land that has become a strange land.  We must continue to sing, as others throughout history have sung in the midst of hostile times.

Jesus sang a hymn with his disciples on the night he was betrayed.  Paul and Silas sang in their jail cell at midnight in Phillippi.  African-Americans sang under the lash of slavery.  The civil rights movement sang in the midst of firehoses, burning church buildings, dogs, and police batons, “We Shall Over Come.”  We, too, must sing now.  This is not the time to hang up our harps and our lyres.  We must continue to sing our sacred songs of that which is far bigger and better than Trumpers or Never-Trumpers.