By the rivers of Babylon -
there we sat down and there we wept
when we remembered Zion. On the willows 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?” (Psalm 137:1-4)
This song of lament, sung by the people of Israel in their exile in Babylon, came to mind this morning. How can we sing the Lord’s song in this foreign land? A song that we raise together, in a time when we must be physically apart?
Let us not leap too quickly to an answer. Rather, we must sit for a time in lament. As the enormity of what is happening around us becomes clearer, it is appropriate and healthy to grieve our losses, even if some of them are only temporary. The inability to offer or receive a hug. Long-anticipated events, cancelled. Transitions - graduations, births and birthdays, weddings, deaths - unable to be marked in traditional ways. No gathering at restaurants, or over a full dining table, with family and friends.
For what do you weep today? Cry out to God, because God knows our pain. God is with us in our loss. God is with us as we learn to live in this new land.
