Never Forget

September 22^nd, 2013       “Never Forget”        Rev. Heather Jepsen

Psalm 79 with 1^st Timothy 2:1-7

          This morning’s psalm is a psalm of lament.  It is a psalm of complaint, of begging and pleading with the Lord.  Even though they make up one third of the psalter, we don’t read lament psalms very much in worship.  They don’t fit the bill for the “good news” that we have come to expect on Sunday mornings.  Psalm 79 is pretty depressing, what with its images of dead bodies and its calls for bloodshed.  It is certainly not one of those happy-clappy psalms that we like to turn into praise music.  And yet here it is, smack dab in the middle of our holy word, showing up in our lectionary readings, and demanding our attention for this week at least.

          Biblical scholars mostly agree that this psalm was probably written around 587 BCE.  Around that time the Babylonians invaded Jerusalem, destroyed the temple, and made captive the people.  This is a song of national lament, for all the people of Jerusalem, and you can hear the heartache in their prayer to God.

          “The nations have come into your land, your inheritance, O God!  They have defiled the temple, they have made the city into ruins.”  All that was once holy is lost.  The psalm is graphic in its depiction of violence, so many have died that the bodies have been left lying out under the sun.  “The bodies have been left as food for the birds, the flesh of the faithful as food for wild animals.  The blood of God’s people has been poured out like water on the earth.”  It’s a pretty miserable and God-forsaken picture of suffering.

          The psalmist pleads to God for mercy, and for an end to the violence.  “How long will you rage, O Lord?”  Following the common theme that destruction and suffering are punishment for sin, the Psalmist looks to God for an end to the violence.  Or at least an end to the violence against the people of Israel.

          As soon as the psalmist prays for the end of God’s anger, the writer turns around and asks that that very anger of God be kindled against the neighbors of Israel.  “Pour out your wrath on the nations who don’t know you.  Let vengeance for the blood of the people of Israel be known among the nations.  Pay back our neighbors seven times over.”  The psalmist urges the Lord to deal with the people of Israel with compassion, but to avenge Israel’s enemies with violence and bloodshed.

          While we may look down on this as a primitive way of thinking, it is not that far from our modern American experience.  Just over a week ago, this nation paused to remember the terrible acts of September 11^th.  All over the newspaper, internet, and local communities folks repeated the mantra of “never forget” throughout last week.  I often wonder what that really means, for I don’t think that any of us who lived through such a scary and powerful experience are likely to forget it any time soon.  To tell you the truth, I am actually quite bothered by such statements. 

Let me explain.  I am sure that many of you remember the after effects of the September 11^th attacks.  Yes, the nation was brought together in a time of solidarity and mourning, and that was a powerfully good thing for us.  But we were also brought together in a call for vengeance, and that wasn’t good.  Like the people of Israel in Psalm 79, many people of the United States looked to God after September 11^th and called for vengeance.  As we thought of the bodies at the World Trade Center, we called for bloodshed in other nations.  We called for the bodies of our enemies, and we got them.

 As you know, we lost around 3,000 Americans on September 11^th.  Since that time over 100,000 people have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and we have lost over 6,500 of our own American soldiers.  We called for bloodshed, we called for bodies, and then we made it happen.  The price we have paid with our own sons and daughters is high.

       And so, as September 11^th rolls around year after year and people tell me “never forget” I want to ask what it is exactly that they want me to remember.  Do you want me to remember the way that we banded together as a nation in our suffering?  I can get behind that.  Do you want me to remember all the people that died that day and that have died in conflicts brought about since that terrible day?  I can understand that.  Do you want me to remember the communal cry for justice and bloodshed, the thought that God was on our side in this fight against the Arabs, this rallying for violent revenge?  I am afraid that many calls to “never forget” are calls to reignite this righteous fervor.  And I don’t want to remember that.  I don’t want to rekindle that.  That, I am ready to forget.

So often we have an us against them mentality.  And it is a common, natural, human experience.  We read all about it, here in Psalm 79, and I am sure people will use and have used this scripture as a justification for such violence.  But I think that is wrong.  I think the sentiments of the psalmist here, while natural, are misguided, and wrong.

Just as we have come to reject the idea that suffering is a punishment from God.  So, I have come to reject the idea that we, or anybody, is a favored people.  I reject the language and the sentiment of the psalmist here.  He writes “Pay back our neighbors seven times over, right where it hurts, for the insults they used on you, Lord.  We are, after all, your people and the sheep of your very own pasture.”  That kind of writing makes me sick and I hear it so much even now in America.  We are your people, we are a Christian nation, the Christian nation, God Bless America.  That kind of elitist language and thinking is just plain wrong.

I am of the opinion that God created and loves all people.  I am of the opinion that God values all life.  I am of the opinion that we are the same as our enemies.  Do we not both have hearts that beat with love?  Do we not both cry when we see death and destruction?  Do we not both bleed?  People are people, no matter where they were born.

Believe it or not, I get these crazy ideas, from the same place that I got this psalm I don’t like . . . from the Bible.  In our reading from 1^st Timothy, we are told to offer prayers for everyone.  Paul writes, “I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone.”  That’s not just our friends, not just people we know, not just Americans, but everyone.  Paul encourages us to pray for all people.  I don’t think that you can pray for people, and then kill them.

Paul goes on to call us to pray for “kings and all those who are in high positions of authority, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life.”  Pray for all leaders, of all nations, so that we might live a peaceable life, here together on our one Earth.

The mess that is Syria is all over the news every day.  Like hell on earth, there are no answers to the violence and destruction there.  With over 100,000 dead and over 2 million refugees, the situation is pretty much hopeless.  There is very little chance of Assad leaving power, and there is very little chance of bringing him to justice for the violence and terror he has wrought upon his own people.  Should we bomb him?  Should we negotiate?  Do we even have the power to do anything?  These are the questions I ask myself as I read the morning paper and I know I am not alone. 

The only answer I have is to call on God.  The only answer I have, is prayer.  “Pray for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity.”  Pray for Assad, pray for Obama, pray for Putin, pray for all those who have the power to make the decisions that affect the lives of so many people, of so many children, of so many sheep in the pasture of the Lord.

I believe, that when we call on God for violence and vengeance, then we are calling on God from a place of hopelessness.  When we are grasping for vengeance and justice in the form of more bloodshed, what we are really feeling is powerlessness.  I don’t want to be that way.  I don’t want to feel that way.  I don’t want to call on God for more violence.  I want to call on God for peace.  I want to spend time praying for other people, other nations, other leaders, not in hopelessness, but in hope.  I pray in hope, that their hearts will be moved, that they will know God and know mercy, that we will come to see that we are all brothers and sisters, beautiful creations of a loving God.  There is power in that type of prayer.

       From the past violence of September 11^th to the current unrest in Syria and beyond, there is no end to the ways that nations and people hurt each other.  My answer to this terrible world is prayer.  And in many ways, that was the approach of the psalmist as well.
      
       “God of our salvation, help us for the glory of your name!  Let your compassion hurry to meet us because we’ve been brought so low.  Let the prisoners’ groaning reach you.  With your powerful arm spare those who are destined to die.  We are, (all of us), your people and the sheep of your very own pasture.”  May God hear and answer our prayers and may we never forget to pray.  Amen.