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Reclaiming our harps Finding the Gospel in Psalm 137


by Johnathan Kana W


orship leaders don’t quite know what to do with Psalm 137. Rich with pathos, eloquent in form, it perfectly illustrates the visceral nature of biblical lamentation. Still, we’re reluctant to use it in our worship services on account of those distressing fi nal two verses, reciting the


happiness of dashing Babylonian children against the rocks. I had the dubious privilege of reading this text in church not too long ago, and it was indeed quite diffi cult even to speak those verses aloud. Yet our congregation’s customary response to the reading was the same: “T is is the Word of God for the people of God.”


Someone has said that when


there’s an elephant in the room, you might as well introduce it. So here we go. How do we fi nd the Good News in a diffi cult text like this?


A Scene of Desolation. My


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fi rst encounter with Psalm 137 was in a university choir room, rehearsing Palestrina’s famous motet “Super fl umina Babilonis.” T e Latin text quotes the opening verses: “By the waters of Babylon, we sat and wept when we remem- bered you, O Zion. Among the willows there, we hung up our harps.” I was riveted by the haunt- ing beauty of Palestrina’s somber melodies and mournful chord progressions, even though they demanded keen musical sensi- tivity and excruciatingly close attention to detail. At the end-of- semester performance, when the spellbound audience waited two full seconds before applauding, I fi nally grasped what the composer had sought to accomplish. In those sacred moments, it was as though we were all right there beside the


the spiritual aſt ermath. T ese mu- sicians are resident aliens in a for- eign land who, for the exotic enter- tainment of their heathen captors, are cruelly forced to sing the songs of once-glorious but now-ruined


January-February 2014 • WorshipArts • www.UMFellowship.org


waters, weeping with the Israelites, actively sharing their despair. Since that concert, I’ve found


my imagination drawn time and again to those Hebrew exiles, whose home – Jerusalem, the


seemingly impregnable city of God, seat of divine favor and presence among God’s chosen people – had been utterly desecrated. Its walls had been torn down, its grand temple violated, and its people spir- ited away to a foreign land. It was a scene that had already played out for the northern Israelites years before, when God judged their idolatrous ways under a long line


of evil kings by permitting the Assyrian armies to overrun Samaria and haul off their leaders and cultural elite. At that time, thanks to the reforms of upstand- ing kings like Josiah and Heze- kiah, those living in Judah to the south had been spared the initial brunt of God’s wrath. But divine patience had worn thin, and God permitted the unthinkable to be- fall even the most holy city. In Psalm 137, we glimpse


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