“Missing Mayberry”
 June 13, 2004
 Psalm 137
 
Setting for Psalm 137: in 586 BC Jerusalem was overtaken by the Babylonians. The Jews were taken away to Babylon – So. Iraq. This is known as the Babylonian Exile or the Babylonian Captivity. It lasted 50 years. Tom Spencer is serving in the army in Iraq. He emailed me recently he is stationed quite close to Babylon & also Ur, where Abraham & Sarah were from.
 
Warning – at the end of the psalm there’s a very harsh statement, almost too harsh to read aloud in church. But I think those who gathered the psalms into this collection included it for a reason, as a warning for us.

Let’s take a look.   

Please read the passage:
 
“How can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” The previous translation read, “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?” How can we sing the Lord’s song living in a culture that does not share our faith, our values, our convictions, our God? How can God have a prominent place in our lives, when God does not have a prominent place in the culture in which we live? How can we live for God faithfully and joyfully in a post-Christian society?

Sometimes we long for the good’ole days. I’d like you to listen to a song that makes this same point. It’s entitled, “Mayberry,” in reference to the Andy Griffith TV show, and is recorded by a group called, “Rascal Flatts.” (please forgive me if I offend your musical sensibilities)

Here are the words:

“Mayberry”
Written by Arlos Smith
 
Sometimes it feels like this world is spinning faster
Than it did in the old days
So naturally, we have more natural disasters
From the strain of a fast pace
Sunday was a day of rest
Now it’s one more day for progress
And we can’t slow down cause more is best
It’s all an endless process

Chorus:
(Well) I miss Mayberry
Sitting on the porch drinking ice-cold Cherry Coke
Where everything is black and white
Picking on a six string
Where people pass by and you call
them by their first name
Watching the clouds roll by
Bye, bye

Sometimes I can hear this old earth shouting
Through the trees as the wind blows
That’s when I climb up here on this mountain
To look through God’s window
Now I can’t fly but I got two feet
That get me high up here
Above the noise and city streets
My worries disappear

Chorus

Bridge
Sometimes I dream I’m driving down an old dirt road
Not even listed on a map
I pass a dad and son carrying a fishing pole
But I always wake up every time I try to turn back
 
Can you relate to that song? If you are part of the WWII Generation, the “Greatest Generation,” I’m pretty sure you could you could relate to that. You grew up in a culture that by and large encouraged Christian values. You were taught the Lord’s Prayer, the 23rd Psalm, and other scriptures in school.

The movies you watched were pretty tame. There used to be a rule in Hollywood where if a couple was kissing on screen, they each had to have at least one foot on the floor. Movie stars like John Wayne or Jimmy Stewart or Audrey Hepburn, kept their clothes on and seldom used rough language in their movies. In contrast, today’s biggest stars regularly take their clothes off and curse like sailors – men & women.

Elvis Presley shook things up in the 1950s when he wiggled a little too much on the Ed Sullivan show. Compare that to TV today where almost anything goes. Elvis is a choir boy compared to today’s hip hop & rap artists.

I have seen the parental warning labels on albums these days – that’s good thing. But I hadn’t heard the albums themselves. Beth & I went to a Patriots came last season, and heard this music blaring throughout all the tailgate parties. The lyrics were not PG, PG-13, or even R. They were X-rated, pornographic.

I miss Mayberry.

How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange, foreign land?

If you are part of the WWII generation you live in a different country today even if you’ve lived here your entire life! We all have seen a cultural revolution that is still going on. Not all of it has been bad, but much of it has in my opinion.

One night Larry King was interviewing Billy Graham. Billy is one of Larry King’s favorites, because of Graham’s integrity and basic kindness and goodness. Larry King asked Billy if he felt he had succeeded in his life. Had he accomplished his goals? Billy Graham said quite frankly, “No. America is not more Christian or more righteous than when I started. I have seen things go in the opposite direction. I have failed in that.”

Some time later I watched an interview with Hugh Hefner, the founder of Playboy magazine. The host asked Hefner if he felt he had succeeded in his life and made a difference in the world. Hefner said quite confidently, “Yes. I think I have helped lead a cultural revolution and that we do live in a Playboy society today.”

So Billy Graham failed and High Hefner succeeded.

I miss Mayberry.

How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?

You don’t hear a lot of sermons today on the Babylonian exile. But one Christian author today thinks it’s the best image for the church in our day and age.

Walter Brueggemann is his name. He’s an Old Testament professor. Brugggeman recounts the sacred history of the Old Testament and the different chapters in that history, and asks the question, which one most closely resembles the church today? He says, we’re not like the Israelites enslaved in Egypt, fiercely oppressed and beaten. This is not an age of persecution. But we’re also not like the Israelites led by Moses and miraculously by God through the Red Sea and on top of Mt. Sinai. We not a people living in the midst of the miraculous everyday. We as a nation may be a bit like the Israelites wandering in the wilderness as they did for 40 years, trying to find their way. I don’t think it’s too pessimistic to say, we’re not like the Israelites camping on the Plains of Moab, on the edge of the Promised Land, just waiting to cross over Jordan.

Brueggemann says, we’re most like the Israelites in exile in Babylon. How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?

Think about those Israelites in Babylon 1000 miles from home. It’s about 600 miles from Israel to Babylon (So. Iraq) if you go directly through Saudi Arabia, but the Arabian desert was too hot to cross, so they usually took a northern route around the desert, which made it a thousand mile journey.

You’re a Jew 1000 miles from home, helplessly living in the dominant society of its day, the most influential and powerful nation in the world in its day, and a nation with a very different religion from your own – polytheistic (many, many gods.) What a struggle it was for them.

Psalm 137: “By the rivers of Babylon - there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion (“Zion” is the hill that Jerusalem it built upon).

On the willow trees there, we hung up our harps. Our captors asked us for songs, for the exuberant singing that we were known for. ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion,’ they said. But how can we sing in a strange and foreign land?

Let me make a few observations about this text.

The first is, it was put in here to affirm that fact that in this world a journey of faith and obedience to God it an easy life.

It often involves being counter-cultural.

Romans 12 says, “Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

I Peter 2:11 picks up on this same theme for the church: “I urge you as aliens and exiles to abstain from the desires of the flesh that wage war against your soul. Conduct yourselves honorably among the Gentiles . . . . so they may see your honorable deeds and glorify God when he comes to judge.”

Hymns – You know, there’s a whole section of hymns in the Pilgrim Hymnal that speak to the struggles of the Christian life. They group hymns in categories in hymnals -  Christmas, Lent, Communion, Prayer, Easter, etc.

Well, there’s a whole section in our hymnal entitled, “Pilgrimage and Conflict.”  26 hymns in this section (compare this to 31 Christmas carols) It’s where you find, “A Mighty Fortress is our God.” – though this world with devils filled should threaten to undo us, we will not fear for God has willed his truth to triumph through us!”

#367 – “Fight the Good Fight” with all your might.

#371 – “He Who Would Valiant Be” ‘gainst all distaster, let him in constancy, follow the Master.”

#374 – “In the Hour of Trial” Jesus plead for me, lest by base denial I depart from Thee.

#382 – “Onward Christian Soldiers,” marching as if you were in a battle, a struggle – because you will be.

#386 - “Lighten the Darkness”  (I’m sure that’s a toe-tapper!)

“Lighten the darkness of our life’s long night, through which we blindly stumble to the day, Shadows mislead us, Father, send thy light, to set our footsteps in the homeward way.”

#387 – “Through the Night of Doubt and Sorrow” onward goes the pilgrim band.

The point is, according to our hymns and the psalm, a life of faith and obedience to God is marked by struggle. This is especially true for those living in exile – living amidst a culture that does not affirm one’s faith.

Now, I want us to see this morning that there are two temptations for those living in exile in Babylon. We see them both in Psalm 137.

One temptation is to give in to hatred. You see this in the close of the psalm.

“O daughter Babylon, happy shall they be who pay you back for what you have done to us!”

Psalm 139 says, “Do I not hate those who hate you, O God. Yes, I hate them with perfect hatred.” There are a number of phrases like these in the psalms.

Part of the problem was, ancient Jews did not always believe in the afterlife. So if God is just, God’s justice has to happen in this life!  They weren’t going to wait for judgment day. God had to get their enemies now!

But remember, they put these prayers in the collection to help us:

-      to help us see the temptation to hate the Babylonians

-      To remind us to be vigilant against this temptation

-      To teach us to take our fierce emotions to God in prayer

An author named Eugene Peterson says this about these psalms: “Our hate needs to be prayed, not suppressed. Embarrassed by the ugliness and fearful of the murderous, we commonly neither admit or pray our hate; we deny it and suppress it.” Praying it and owning it, wakes us up to our need for help. Walter Bruggemann calls this owning and yielding. Owning our rage and yielding it to God.

I think the church in our time has often given in to this temptation to hate.

Think of the “Angry Christian” – angry at all those Babylonians.

There was an episod in “The Simpsons” once where Bart Simpson said he was going off to Christian Camp. “We’re going to learn how to be more judgemental.”      (ouch!)

So the one temptation is to give in to hatred, to hate the “Babylonians,” those who disagree with us & refuse to live by our standards.

The other temptation is to give up.

“On the willow trees by the river, we hung up our harps.”

Isn’t that one of the saddest verses you’ve ever read? This is another strong temptation in exile – to give up one’s faith, one’s religion, one’s religious practices.

We do a lot of weddings this time of year. Whenever there’s a hymn in the ceremony, you’d be surprised how few of the guests at the wedding actually sing. At least half don’t even try. They’ve hung up their harps. (Now I know some of you just can’t sing, and you’re probably doing those around you a favor by not singing! I don’t mean to be judgmental or shame you into singing.)

I used to close my last session of premarital counseling with the Lord’s Prayer but I stopped because so many people didn’t know it!

The Israelites in Babylon gave in to this temptation. They stopped worshiping. They stopped practicing their religion, and so within a generation the faith was almost lost.

It’s so important for us to practice our religion – attending church, saying grace before meals, praying with our children, growing in our faith, helping our neighbor, serving the poor.

I love the Norman Rockwell painting of the family saying grace in the restaurant. Their heads are all bowed in sacred devotion. And people look on as if they were seeing something from another time, another place – Mayberry perhaps.

I want to be those people praying, in world that might think we’re strange.

 This image of the church as the people of God in exile, in a strange and foreign land, may not be where you’re at today. It may not resonate with you. We have made progress since Mayberry. We have a more egalitarian society and are more inclusive of all people. And those are good things.

This view may also be a bit too pessimistic.

All the coverage of Ronald Reagan this week reminded me of the importance of optimism. President Reagan always believed that American’s best days were ahead of us. He was a great example of leading with optimism and grace, without malice or hatred.

The Jews did get to go back to Jerusalem. Ezra and Nehemiah led them back. They rebuilt the city, the walls, the temple. And the people practiced their religion once again.

In conclusion . . . .

How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?

We must.

Maya Angelo has a famous poem entitled, “Why does the caged bird sing?”

“Why does the cared bird sing?” He’s in a cage. He’s not free. He can’t fly and soar. He’s caged in.

Why does he sing? Because he has to.

We can’t go back to Mayberry but we can go forward in faith and in song! And we must!

Let us pray:

Gracious God, make us wise and faithful servants. Give us strength and confidence in our faith, in you, even in ourselves, when the world does not affirm our faith and devotion. I especially pray this for our young people. Teach us sing to you, to practice our religion with joy in our songs, with grace in our speech, optimism in our hearts, and your love to live through us. Amen.