Exiles?

One of Today's readings is the well known Psalm 137...

Alongside Babylon's rivers we sat on the banks; we cried and cried, remembering the good old days in Zion.  Alongside the quaking aspens we stacked our unplayed harps;  That's where our captors demanded songs, sarcastic and mocking: “Sing us a happy Zion song!” Oh, how can we sing GOD's song in a strange land?

Interesting, that yesterday I was Skype-ing with a friend in Australia (Linz Cullen) and we were talking about Mike Frosts new book 'Exiles'... not that I've read it yet (got it on order)... but we were exploring two different senses of the idea that we are in an exile story...

One interpretation of the metaphor, could suggest that the emerging culture is a Godless one... we are in exile in the spiritually dead desert of post-christendom, maybe... but the image that stirs me relates to both the a) the Egyptian Exile and the Exodus (Moses and crew) and the Exile (from Jerusalem to Babylon)... The exile in Egypt saw the establishment of a nation, a culture i.e. structures and patterns, these patterns ensured the stability of the nation, they ensured orthodoxy I suppose and they provided both identity and security.  Once they left Egypt they found themselves lost... I guess they could no longer define themselves in opposition... and searched for a new pattern that would sustain them... some focus... they tried all sorts of things; altars, golden idols etc.  What worked in the end was the Tablets and their container, the Ark... interesting that it seems that maybe the writing on the tablets, the words of God had less significance to them... They were not ready to let go of the cultural patterns... and fought to sustain them.

The other Exile, when the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem and took the leaders away to Babylon... this is the subject of the Psalm... when their structure; religious and cultural... their identity was taken away, they had to rethink what it meant to be the 'children of God' in a strange land, a strange culture... they could no longer sustain their faith with the patterns which had become the norm for them.  A cultural faith isn't sustainable when culture changes for whatever reason...

So... what now, I guess it could be said that we are in exile, in a post Christian culture...  we can see that as a call to hold onto our structures or to desperately look for a new focus... to restore a cultural faith... or... we can begin to ask the question, how can we sing the same old songs in a strange land?  My guess is that rather than look for new structures to refocus the church we need to look for God here and now... it is argued that many of the leaders might not have returned from Babylon (some even suggest that the Wise Men of the Nativity were from Babylon (east of Palestine) and may be the spiritual descendants of those spiritual leaders.) they must then have found God in Babylon, and found new ways within the culture to express their faith, and to welcome people with no background in the structures and patterns... I wonder can we!?

... just thoughts!

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