this last weekend i got to go away with my three best men – Regan Didloff, Rob Lloyd and Duncan Houston – to this great secluded cottage in Betty’s Bay and i picked up this book called ‘The Gospel according to Peanuts’ by Robert L Short [where old people may know that ‘Peanuts’ refers to the life and adventures of Charlie Brown and Snoopy and friends]

in it, he quoted this verse from psalm 137 – ‘How can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a foreign land?’ [verse 4] and added ‘is a question the church, always finding itself in, but not of, the world, urgently needs to reconsider today.’

oddoneout

it was a statement that resonated within me.

i thought it meant something and then i went and checked out the context of the rest of the psalm [always helpful, this context thing] and now i think it might mean something else [sometimes confusing, this context thing]

just as a statement i think i thought it was saying something about being relevant in terms of language and song in the land that you find yourself in [with the acknowledgement that it is not your home land – you are a stranger and an alien in a world that is not your own] which to me speaks of Christ followers avoiding ‘christianese’ – speaking in the ‘in language’ of the church meeting when you are not in the church meeting – which causes a lot of misunderstanding and confusion and possibly the feeling of being judged… so be relevant and articulate and understood by the people in whose land you are in.

the psalm, though, seems to possibly be saying something else:

By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept
when we remembered Zion.
There on the poplars
we hung our harps,
for there our captors asked us for songs,
our tormentors demanded songs of joy;
they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
How can we sing the songs of the Lord
while in a foreign land?
If I forget you, Jerusalem,
may my right hand forget its skill.
May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
if I do not remember you,
if I do not consider Jerusalem
my highest joy.

and the meaning of it appears to be more a call to not get so attached to the foreign land that we have been exiled to [as was the case with Israel] that we forget where we are from and what we are meant to be about. as in the psalmist jumping up and down a little, trying to catch everyone’s attention before shouting: “Hey! Remember your identity! And remember your nationality. [We are children of God. We are part of His kingdom!]”

i think either one is valid.

i believe both to be important points.

 ‘How can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a foreign land?’ ‘is a question the church, always finding itself in, but not of, the world, urgently needs to reconsider today.’