Singing in a Strange Land

June 5, 2019

“How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” (Psalm 137:4). Israel was in captivity. The psalm begins, ““By the rivers of Babylon, There we sat down, yea, we wept when we remembered Zion. We hung our harps upon the willows in the midst of it. For there those who carried us away captive asked of us a song, And those who plundered us requested mirth, Saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”” —Psalms 137:1-3 NKJV

Ordered to sing the joyous songs of worship, the writer of this psalm responds, “I can’t. It’s impossible to be joyful when everything that matters has been swept away. Sometimes I feel that way. The denomination in which I have served my entire ministerial life often feels like a foreign land to me, and it soon may prove to be a no-man’s land. Our theological differences have become so acute and divisive that dissolution of the denomination is for the first time in my memory being openly discussed. 

We sing God’s song in a foreign land when we understand that “the earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness therein” (Psalm 24:1), and that we like Abraham seek a new land because this world is not our home, and we “look for a city whose builder and maker is God.” (Hebrews 11:10). So I will sing tonight. The land may be foreign, but the song is not, and I will sing with joy and gladness.