Sunday message · Problematic Passages series
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Message Summary
In the first message of the Problematic Passages series, Pastor Phillip Santillan turns to Psalm 137:1–9. Some verses stir the heart, and some, like Aaron’s excuse for the golden calf, are almost funny. But many passages leave readers scratching their heads, whether from cultural distance or modern worldviews. Phil hopes the series will build confidence that all Scripture is inspired by God and useful to teach and correct us (2 Timothy 3:16).
The psalm comes from around the time God’s people returned from seventy years of captivity in Babylon, a captivity their own rebellion had brought on. By the rivers of Babylon they wept and hung up their lyres, unable to sing the songs of Zion for captors who mocked them. Phil asks whether we have known seasons when memories of the past tormented the present and God seemed absent. For anyone holding on to faith when faith seems farthest away, this psalm is good news.
It offers a foundation for faith when God feels absent: the testimony of those who went before us. Everyone trusts others’ testimony, as parents and athletes do. The psalmist vows never to forget Jerusalem, which stood for covenant, temple, God’s presence, forgiveness and reconciliation. Seventy years on, about two generations, most Israelites knew Jerusalem only through others’ testimony. That, Phil says, is the life of faith. He believes Jesus is the Son of God because of the testimony of the gospel writers and early disciples who suffered for it, and when God has seemed distant, he has leaned on others who can say God showed up.
The real difficulty comes in verses 7–9, which ask God to repay Babylon and even call happy the one who dashes its little ones against the rocks. Phil calls these imprecatory psalms angry prayers, and admits they seem to clash with Jesus’ call to love our enemies and put away the sword. He finds help in Esau McCaulley’s book Reading While Black, which reads Psalm 137 alongside the experience of Black Americans who have endured discrimination and violence. McCaulley argues that the psalm is a prayer, and that hurting people must be able to tell God the truth about what they feel, trusting him to handle their cries for vengeance and choose how to respond.
Such psalms, McCaulley notes, are never the end point for a follower of Christ, but a starting point for understanding our pain and God’s love. He writes of sending rightful rage to the cross, and of forgiving enemies because the resurrection is real. Drawing on Tim Keller’s summary of the gospel, that we are more sinful than we ever dared believe yet more loved than we ever dared hope, Phil says followers of Jesus are called to pray for their enemies, not for their punishment, but that God’s grace would bring them to repentance, the same prayer we pray for ourselves. To anyone too weary to pray that way yet, he closes with a reminder that God’s grace still reaches them, and that anger winning in our hearts never defeats God.
Questions about Psalm 137 and angry prayers
Psalm 137 remembers the Babylonian exile: by the rivers of Babylon God’s people sat and wept, hung up their harps and could not sing the songs of Zion for captors who mocked them (Psalm 137:1–4). The psalmist vows never to forget Jerusalem. Pastor Phil says it offers a foundation for faith when God seems absent: the testimony of those who went before us.
They are prayers asking God to repay or punish enemies, like the end of Psalm 137, which asks God to repay Babylon (Psalm 137:7–9). Pastor Phil calls them angry prayers. Drawing on Esau McCaulley, he says they show that hurting people can tell God the truth about what they feel, trusting Him to handle their cries for vengeance and to choose how to respond.
Pastor Phil says followers of Jesus are called to pray for their enemies, not for their punishment but that God’s grace would bring them to repentance, the same prayer we pray for ourselves. Angry prayers like Psalm 137 let us be honest with God about our pain, but Jesus calls us to love our enemies, and we forgive because the resurrection is real.
