Singing with the Psalms
I love the Psalms—they have quickly become one of my favourite sections of scripture. I read the Psalms each day as I go through morning and evening prayer. Even if there are times where I find myself too weary to go through a formal liturgy, I find myself turning to psalms anyways. It is no wonder why Jesus prayed the Psalms in the most difficult of times. The Psalms are transformative and transcendent. They speak to our lives today.
At the start of the pandemic, as the doors of church buildings across the country began to close, I turned to Psalm 137.
By the rivers of Babylon —
there we sat down and there we wept
when we remembered Zion.
On the willowsa there
we hung up our harps.
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 the Lord’s song
in a foreign land?
If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
let my right hand wither!
Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth,
if I do not remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem
above my highest joy.Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites
the day of Jerusalem’s fall,
how they said, “Tear it down! Tear it down!
Down to its foundations!”
O daughter Babylon, you devastator!
Happy shall they be who pay you back
what you have done to us!
Happy shall they be who take your little ones
and dash them against the rock!
Verse four was particularly arresting, How can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land? In many ways I have felt this to be the question for the Church over the past year. What does it mean to be the church in a different way? How can we continue as a community when we find ourselves removed from the physical location that means so much for us?
I remember hearing people talk about the nature of the church, and how important it was to recognize that the church was not the building. The church did not close! The Church lives! I heard people articulate the difference between the church in a time of gathering and the church in a time of sending. I know all this. But, if I am being honest, as someone who sits in an empty sanctuary week after week, I have acutely felt the exile of the church. After all, it is not so much that we have been sent out of our buildings; we have been removed from our buildings. It’s hard to feel sent when we are told to remain physically distanced from everyone. How can we sing the Lord’s song when there is no more choir? How can we sing when I have no one joining me? Like Israel hanging up its harps, sometimes I feel as if we have hung up our chalices with little indication of when we may pick them up again.
I know that I am not alone. This past year has been hard on us individually, but also as a church community. People have felt removed from their church-family. Our souls long for the company of others and we have uncovered just how important public singing is for our spiritual lives. Over and over again I hear statements such as “I can’t wait to hug someone again”, or “I miss singing with the choir”, or “online church just doesn’t do it for me”. These feelings of exile have been palatable. Do you recognize any of these statements?
And so, by our rivers we sat and wept when we remembered the buildings we could no longer gather in, the ministries we could no longer enact, the people we could no longer embrace. Indeed, how can we sing the Lord’s song?
Yet sing we did.
Amid the hardships of this pandemic-exile, a spotlight has shone upon the importance of the faith community. We have all uncovered, in a visceral way, the importance of joining one another in the journey of faith. For some, the pandemic has even provided an opportunity to step into a previously unconsidered ministry. Others have turned to reading the Bible with a renewed focus. As for the Sunday morning service? Even if it is viewed on Tuesday afternoon, the notion of participating in the weekly gathering of the church has become an important part of our routine.
This is not unique to my church, or my context. It has been experienced in multiple communities. Consider that churches everywhere have reported more viewings for each service than their pre-pandemic Sunday attendance. The pandemic has brought higher engagement in church! The reach of my own parish has gone from coast to coast and across the pond. In fact, in the very time that we have not been able to be together physically, the church has added members. Notwithstanding the difficulties of the pandemic, we must acknowledge the amazing blessings that have been experienced during this time.
Like Israel amid the exile, we have been met by the God who journeys with us. We have seen that—even here, in this time—God’s power remains for us, and God’s love endures. The Lord is sovereign over all, and there is no place in our lives where we are outside God’s loving concern. This faith grounds us. It orients our lives. Exile or no exile, the truth remains: we are as God’s beloved, and God is as the one with us and for us.
There is no place in our lives where we are outside God’s loving concern.
And so, our song changes. As we cast our eyes longingly toward the future, hoping for the day when we can gather together again, no longer is there the concern for how we sing the Lord’s song. Instead, we must now ask ourselves “how do we sing the Lord’s song together”? How will we, eventually, make the necessary transition into in-person services once again? How will we ensure that we move out of fear and into fellowship, out of trial into trust, and out of maintenance and into vibrant ministry? Undoubtedly this is going to be a journey, and it will take some time.
Luckily, we have the Psalms as a guide. Here we can rest upon the words of Psalm 118. This is a psalm rooted in God’s goodness and enduring love. His love endures forever is the refrain that both opens and closes this psalm. Yet what is powerful about this psalm is that the middle of the song contains an articulation of struggle. I was pushed back and about to fall, the psalmist declares in verse 13. More provocatively, verse 18 states The Lord has chastened me severely. This psalm is not a psalm of blissful utopia, removed from the tensions and difficulties of life. Rather, the psalm is rooted in the real world. The goodness of the Lord is seen in the midst of hardships.
Yet despite the struggle, despite the chastening, we are not given over to despair or death. Long before children’s songs or Sunday school pageants, it is from here where we uncover the truth: This is the day the Lord has made, we will rejoice and be glad in it (verse 24). This is easy to sing this in the comfort of the Sunday morning pew. After all, when we believe that things in our life are as they should be, how could we not rejoice and be glad?
Again, the psalm is instructive. This verse is particularly striking when we recognize the articulation of struggle that has gone before it. What is more, directly after this verse the psalmist cries out O Lord, save us! This willful and stubborn articulation of God’s goodness is voiced from within the psalmist own need. Yet a reorientation occurs. The psalmist consciously turns away from meditating on the difficulty to seek the guiding presence of the Lord. Even in exile, even in hardship, God blesses us with the day ahead, and so we rejoice.
What might it look like to make this our song as we move forward? Like the psalmist before us, let us not deny the struggles of our past. Let’s be bold and honest as we articulate them. Yet let us keep our vision focused upon the God who stays with us. Let take our steps prayerfully, always trusting the guiding hand of the good and loving Lord. Let us, with stubborn boldness, declare at the top of our lungs that this day is a day that Lord has made and thus we enter into it with delight and rejoicing.
After all, when all is said and done, the song of the church will always be “His love endures forever”.
