The psalm is of course a lament of the Jewish exiles in Babylon. More specifically, it is the lament of an ex-Temple singer in captivity in Babylon. The speaker of the poem is someone who used to help lead worship in the Temple in Jerusalem. He played the harp and sang out the songs so the people could join in singing when they came to offer their prayers and sacrifices in the Temple worship. We gather from the poem that leading worship in the Temple was not only his livelihood, his official job, but it was his life, what he loved to do, what he had a passion for doing, what he knew God had called him to do.

But now, of course, all of that is gone. The Temple is in ruins; the chief priests and the lead singers and the upper classes have all been deported, taken into exile in Babylon; there is no more worship in Jerusalem; no one sings the songs or prays the prayers or offers the sacrifices anymore; there's nothing, absolutely nothing, left. And so the singer grieves. And it is to help relieve that grief that the former Temple singer makes this psalm.

And you can hear that grief in the words: "By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept--we hung up our harps on the trees--they asked us to sing a song of Zion--but how can we sing the Lord's song on an alien soil?" The sadness in those words is almost like an elegy.

But then the emotions start to change. First comes a kind of anger, as the psalmist calls down curses on his own musical skill--"May my right hand forget how to play the harp, may my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth so I can't sing"--if he ever stops pining for Jerusalem. Then comes righteous indignation, as he calls on God to remember Jerusalem's enemies and make sure they get what's coming to them because they wanted to see Jerusalem fall. Finally comes a full-blown thirst for revenge, as the poet pronounces a blessing--a blessing--on anyone pays back Babylon, even killing Babylonian children by smashing them against the wall. The psalm goes from grieving sadness to unspeakable brutality in just a few short verses.

It's that rapid descent into vengeance that makes this psalm so disturbing. And what makes the psalm even more disturbing is the way it makes us recognize that same rapid descent into vengeance in ourselves.

Because we do see that in ourselves, we do see that in our world. We see grief turning into vengeance and causing more grief and causing more vengeance in attacks between Sunnis and Shiites in Baghdad, in rocket attacks and air strikes between Israelis and Palestinians, in racial and tribal violence and its aftermath in Zimbabwe and Rwanda--violence in which Anglican church leaders, it turns out, have some complicity. We see grief turning into vengeance in our own foreign policy and the legacy of warfare we've carried out after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. We see grief turning into vengeance in children shooting children on our own city streets. We see grief turning into vengeance in our own lives, in our own relationships, sometimes in our own souls. Sometimes it's almost comical--the other day I looked at my to-do list, and there were so many things I had to do that day that I wanted to weep at first, and then I got kind of angry, and every time I completed a task I'd tick it off my list sort of saying in my head There! I've done it! Whaddya think about that!?--it would have been comical if it weren't so emotionally twisted up and sad. Time and time again, in ways both small and great, we find ourselves feeling hurt and trying to deal with it by wanting to hurt back--and as little as we'd like to admit that about ourselves, Psalm 137 holds that mirror up to us and will not let us off the hook.

But the good news is that Psalm 137 is not the final word on this subject. The good news is that after grief and the desire for vengeance, God led the People of Israel to find something new in their Babylonian situation. They'd asked how they could sing the Lord's song on an alien soil--and they discovered they could. Bible historians say that it was probably during the Babylonian Exile that the priests first began to gather together the various books and scrolls and writings they had and to form what we now recognize as the nucleus of the Hebrew Scriptures. Because they didn't have the Temple, because they didn't have the ritual, they began instead to turn toward the Word. In a strange way, if weren't for Babylon we might not have the Bible. The practice of gathering together to read from the Bible and to pray and to sing--a practice we still carry out today in our church services--that practice that has its roots in the Babylonian Exile. The Exiles learned they could sing the Lord's song on an alien soil--on any soil--and we, in the New Covenant, have become part of that singing as well.

The people had prayed for vengeance on their captors. But the prophet Jeremiah told them to stop that kind of praying, to stop pining for Jerusalem, to settle down and build homes and families where they were, to work for the well-being of their Babylonian communities. And the people did. According to the book of Daniel, there were many exiled Jews who rose to prominent positions in Babylonian society--and who used their positions not just to build up their own wealth and prestige but to help make their whole communities more just and more peaceable for all. It was during the Exile that the people began to realize God was calling them not just to be a nation for themselves, but to bring God's way of justice and peace to all people. It was from the experience of Exile, for instance, that the second prophet Isaiah could hear God saying to the people "It is too small a thing ... to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel ... I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth." Far from wreaking vengeance on other peoples, the Exiles realized they were supposed to bring God's peace to other peoples--and we Gentiles are here today at this end of our earth because of the Exiles realization.

So the rapid descent from grief into vengeance we see in Psalm 137 and in ourselves is not the final word in this story. Instead God adds a new word. It's the same word the Epistle proclaims to us when it says "For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline." It's the same word the Gospel proclaims to us when Jesus says "If you have faith even the size of a mustard seed, you can break out of your fear and do wondrous, miraculous things." It's the same same word St Francis proclaimed in his vision of the animals and all creation gathered together and reconciled in the love of God in Christ. It's the same word we proclaim in our communion in the Body and Blood of Jesus that shows forth his death and resurrection until he comes again. Beyond the words of Psalm 137 there is a word of grace--and the wonderful irony of the Good News is that we can only hear that word of grace by owning up to the truth difficult Psalm 137 has to tell us.

So where does that word of grace speak to you? Is there some place in your life, in your community, among your friends, in your soul--is there some place in you where that cycle of grief and vengeance, that cycle of being hurt and wanting to hurt back, needs to be broken and set free by grace? Is there some place in your life where Psalm 137 bothers you enough to get you looking for God giving you some new word beyond it? Maybe it's something so simple as looking at your to-do list and deciding not to let it stress you out and make you angry. Maybe it's joining an organization that works to break the cycle of hurt and hurting-back in our local community or even on the international scene. Maybe it's looking at some hurt you suffered in your childhood or in a relationship, and realizing you really can let it go now and get beyond it and let yourself be healed. Think about it for a moment: Where does the promise of something beyond grief and vengeance speak tellingly to you?

Because where that word speaks to us is where Psalm 137 and all our scriptures today can become Good News for us--real, authentic, life-changing Good News for us. And that Good News is something all of us can join together to celebrate. Amen.