Do you remember the 1998 movie You’ve Got Mail with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan?1 Joe Fox is putting Kathleen Kelly’s charming bookstore, handed down from her mother, out of business with his large retail book chain. To him, it’s not personal. But to her, it is very personal. In the meantime, they have sparked a secret admirer-type romance via email. The person Kathleen falls in love with is kind and funny. There is not a mean bone in his body. Whereas, Joe is just a suit that will never be remembered. Joe finds out before Kathleen that the person he is at war with is the very person he, too, fell in love with via their email exchange. How could they be the same person? He had given her advice to “go to the mattresses,” meaning go to war. And she did. But he warned her, “when you finally have the pleasure of saying the thing you mean to say the moment you mean to say it, remorse inevitably follows.” And it did.
Is retaliation worth the remorse that follows?
Remorse has followed me many times. I am too outspoken about what I am thinking. Zingers seem like a good idea at the time, but then the Holy Spirit nudges me. Actually, it’s more than a nudge, and I feel sick to my stomach until I make it right. I am 55 and just now showing a little more discretion before I speak.
I have to go all the way back to 5th grade to recall my first memory of remorse over what I have said to someone in the exact moment I meant to say it. We were in the locker room changing for gym. Two girls were making fun of me because I didn’t have much of a reason to wear a bra, but I had started wearing one anyway. One of the girls literally pointed at my chest and covered her mouth as she gee hawed. This didn’t happen just one time. It went on for weeks. I tried to go to a different part of the locker room, but they followed me. Until one day, I got tired of it. While we were changing clothes she started laughing at me again. Only this time I had a comeback, “you only need to wear a bra because you’re fat and fat girls always have big ones.” She was stunned into silence. I still remember her crestfallen face as she looked away in embarrassment. I felt horrible. She had been incredibly cruel to me, but when I finally retaliated, I felt sick. In that moment, I realized I would rather have endured her torture than to have caused her that pain.
Giving words to horrors
As I continue my reflections, Psalm 137 is a surprising gem of a Psalm. I am thankful it is a part of God’s inspired Word because it gives words to what His people were feeling at one of their worst points in history. But it left me asking a lot questions.
God’s people, the tribe of Judah, were taken captive by the evil empire of Babylon. It was a horrific battle and the Babylonians were not feeling merciful as they enjoyed ravishing their foe, carrying out excessive violence against even the helpless in the capital city of Jerusalem.2
The people of Judah did not believe Jerusalem would ever fall. How could God let that happen? The Temple, the dwelling place of the Most High God, was in Jerusalem. This place of reconciliation and worship should have been safe. The problem was God’s people were treating His Temple like a rabbit’s foot. They thought they could do as they pleased, disobeying God and playing the harlot with their unfaithfulness, and would not be held accountable. Even when their sister Israel was taken captive by Assyria, it was not a wakeup call to them to shape up and fly right. God sent them warning after warning through his prophets, but they would not listen and even persecuted those God sent because they didn’t want to hear what they had to say. They thought they were better than anyone else because they had the Temple. God is longsuffering, but eventually His righteous wrath filled to the brim and spilled over in judgment in the form of captivity.
How shall we sing in captivity?
The author of Psalm 137 is unknown, but the occasion is either after some time has passed since Judah was in exile in Babylon or when they returned from captivity and remembered in vivid detail what it was like.3
While in captivity, they cried and cried as they remembered what it was like in the good old days.4 They were homesick for Zion, another name for the city of God imprinted on their hearts5, God’s dwelling place on Earth.6
The captives were grief stricken, unable to make music. Their harps that used to produce a joyful sound were of no use to them in captivity.6
Their captors tormented them with sarcasm, telling them to sing songs they used in the public worship of God. Some of these are well-known to me, including Psalm 46, 48, 76, 84, 87, and 122.6 How could they sing these songs in a foreign land? When the Babylonians mocked God’s people, they were really mocking their God. They had no fear of Him.
We don’t value what we’ve got until it’s gone
Like us, the Judeans did not value what they had until it was gone. What did God do to get their attention? As God used their captivity to help them remember, their response was that it would be treachery to forget Jerusalem.2 They would rather never sing or play their harp again. As they felt remorse over their sin of being unfaithful to God, Jerusalem was remembered as their greatest joy. The devastation made them long for future blessings, but also the destruction of God’s enemies.2 And, they do not seem to feel any remorse when they say,
“Blessed shall he be who repays you with what you have done to us!”
When they ask God to remember what their enemies did to them, are they are asking Him to take out His vengeance?
Please tune in next week for more reflections on whether or not excessive violence against the helpless is ever okay.
How Shall We Sing the Lord’s Song?
137 By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion. 2 On the willows[a] there we hung up our lyres. 3 For there our captors required of us songs, and our tormentors, mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
4 How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land? 5 If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill! 6 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!
7 Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites the day of Jerusalem, how they said, “Lay it bare, lay it bare, down to its foundations!” 8 O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed, blessed shall he be who repays you with what you have done to us! 9 Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!
Carl Bernhard Moll, DD, A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures: The Psalms. Translated from the German with additions by Briggs, Forsyth, Hammond, McCurdy, and Conant. Prussia:1870.
Amplified Bible. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation. Scripture quotations taken from the Amplified Bible, Copyrightc 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
John Macarthur, The Macarthur Study Bible. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2006.
Your blog today was very good and very thoughtful. That was a lesson I too had to learn. When I learned the word BYKOTA, I decided I would rather be kind as to get even and then feel remorse. Ephesians 4:32. I love Psalm 137. God is longsuffering, but He will only let us go so far in disrespecting Him and rejecting Him. May we pray to never go that far. Love you honey.
Your blog today was very good and very thoughtful. That was a lesson I too had to learn. When I learned the word BYKOTA, I decided I would rather be kind as to get even and then feel remorse. Ephesians 4:32. I love Psalm 137. God is longsuffering, but He will only let us go so far in disrespecting Him and rejecting Him. May we pray to never go that far. Love you honey.
BYKOTA rules forever! I love you Mom.