Sermon Tone Analysis
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Opening -
Happy Thanksgiving Eve, Eve, Eve, Eve, Eve?!
If you were here last week, Tad made sure to tell you to hold me accountable to to keeping this sermon short so we can all enjoy the wonderful food downstairs!
I cannot promise that, but I will do the best I can!
Before we start, let’s go to God in prayer..
(Don’t spend a ton of time here) Talk about what GCC is thankful for (starting with museum up to today), truth be told, we all have things we can be thankful for…
But, what about when things aren’t going great?
What about when you don’t feel thankful?
The holidays - beginning with Thanksgiving - are a really tough time for some folks.
Maybe they lost of dear loved one at Thanksgiving, or Christmas or New Years.
Maybe there is some other tragedy in their life associated with this season.
Or maybe things aren’t going the greatest right now and the difficult time they are going through is compounded by everyone expecting them to be thankful and jolly and happy.
If that is you today, I hope this message can help you find a way to thankfulness - even when you are sitting on the shores of Babylon.
So, as odd as it seems, our Thanksgiving sermon today starts with a Psalm of lament.
If you have your Bible, please open up to Psalm 137:
Ok, brief history lesson to set the context of this Psalm.
In 578 BC Babylon destroys the temple (the first temple built by Solomon) and ransacks much of Jerusalem.
A sizeable number of Jews are forceably relocated from Jerusalem/Judah to Babylon.
But, unlike the utter destruction of Israel (the northern Kingdom) by the Assyrians 100 years earlier, these deported Jews were allowed to retain their identity and they established a new community in exile.
Later, the Babylonians were defeated by the Persians and King Cyrus returned the Jews to Judah so they could rebuild the temple and restart temple worship of Yaweh – in the Second Temple.
(it was destroyed by the Romans in 70AD).
So, the author of this Psalm is in Exile in Babylon under King Nebuchadnezzar.
That is the context, now let’s look at the text itself.
[By the waters of Babylon [Euphrates River], there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion.]
Zion is Jerusalem, Jerusalem is the location of the Temple, the Temple is the place of God’s presence.
These people feel far from God’s presence – they feel abandoned.
[On the willows there we hung up our lyres.
For there our captors required of us songs, and our tormentors, mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”]
Because they feel far from God and abandoned by Him, they cease to worship, they cease to praise Him.
It’s a very natural response.
In their minds, they cannot be in God’s presence, because His presence is only in the Temple and the Temple has been destroyed.
Their songs are for God, not entertainment.
Yet, the Babylonians demanded they joyfully sing their worship songs for them – to put on a performance as it were - to pretend they were happy.
(essense of mockery)
[How shall we sing the LORD's song in a foreign land?
If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill!
Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy!]
They haven’t given up on God - they just feel far from Him.
They want to worship, but not in mockery.
They don’t want to worship without the presence of God.
They don’t want to offer forced or false worship for fear of forgetting what worship is truly about and Who it is for.
[Remember, O LORD, against the Edomites the day of Jerusalem, how they said, “Lay it bare, lay it bare, down to its foundations!”
O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed, blessed shall he be who repays you with what you have done to us! Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!]
(Timeout - just to be clear, they are not wanting to go gather Babylonian babies and kill them by smashing them against rocks) These folks have gone through some horrible experiences.
Not only do they feel separated from God, they can’t forget what has happened to them and they want justice, they cry out for justice - a desire for things to be set right, for things to be as they ought, not as they are.
That’s our opening Psalm for today...
So, have you ever found yourself sitting on the shores of Babylon?
Feeling far from God.
It doesn’t seem like He is listening, doesn’t feel like your prayers are answered - if you can even muster the strength to lift up a prayer?
All you want to do is hide and curl up in a corner and cry?
Do you know this feeling?
Have you ever found yourself on the shores of Babylon?
This isn’t how I planned my life God!
My finances are a wreck!
My job feels like a dead end!
My marriage is struggling!
I feel like a failure as a parent!
Where are you God?!
I’m not looking for a show of hands, but have you ever found yourself on the shores of Babylon?
If we’re honest, we all have.
And what we usually do is lie to everyone around us and try to hide it.
We shove it down, put on a smile and act as if everything is fine.
I’m going to do something a little different today, we’re going to take an “intermission” and listen to a song that speaks to this very issue...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dz-2o_enEgA
So let the truth be told… interesting concept.
It’s simple, right?
Wrong!
Why is that?
Its because we want everybody to think we have it all together, right?
Life is good, I’m fine, never better.
We especially do this during the Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Year holiday season.
Amen?
Being honest is the only way to fix it… so let the truth be told.
Our natural tendency is to think this means running around and telling everyone our problems - all about how we are on the shores of Babylon.
That will not solve the problem.
Everyone does not need to know all the intimate details of problems you may have - even in our family like the church.
At the same time, running around lying by saying, I’m fine, I’m fine - everything is fine, is no solution either.
So, what are we to do?
First, start with prayer.
Be honest with God - and stop kidding yourself, He already knows, but you need to know He knows and that starts by being honest with God in prayer.
Second, be honest with those who are close to you about what you are feeling and going through.
Maybe that is your lifegroup, or your spouse, or your mom or dad, maybe it is your best friend, maybe it is one of the elders here at GCC; go to someone you can talk to in confidence.
We have a number of trained counselors here at GCC - maybe that is where you start.
And if you are the person receiving the information, you keep their confidence.
Amen?
Still, doing both of those things doesn’t mean everything is going to be instantly fine - it probably won’t.
It may take time for things to resolve, it may take work on your part, it may require a change of behavior - it may require nothing, or something completely different.
Every situation is unique.
Now, I know this is going to be hard to believe, but the brilliant folks God used to collect, compile and organize the Psalms knew this too - which is why Psalm 137 is sandwiched between Psalm 136 and Psalm 138.
I know, deep theoloy here - 137 lands between 136 and 138 - right?
But, God did not leave us with Psalm 137, a Psalm of lament, without some guidance.
Let’s start with Psalm 136… Please open up your Bibles and follow along…
Psalm 136 (ESV)
Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.
Give thanks to the God of gods, for his steadfast love endures forever.
Give thanks to the Lord of lords, for His steadfast love endures forever;
To Him who alone does great wonders, for His steadfast love endures forever;
To Him who by understanding made the heavens, for His steadfast love endures forever;
To Him who spread out the earth above the waters, for His steadfast love endures forever;
To Him who made the great lights, for His steadfast love endures forever;
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