Sunday Devotion: 6 October 2019, Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost
Sunday Devotions
Singing the song of faith
Main readings: Lamentations 1.1-6; Psalm 137 or Lamentations 3.19-26; 2 Timothy 1.1-14; Luke 17. (1-4) 5-10; [Habakkuk 1.1-4; 2.1-4, Psalm 37.1-9]
Supplementary Readings: Psalm 118.19-29; Luke 20.27-38; Jeremiah 35; Psalm 37.1-9; 2 Timothy 1.15 -2.7
“How can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” (Psalm 137.4)
I remember the times when I found myself in strange lands. The land of children’s hospital wards, of a differently abled child, the place of bereavement. Places I did not expect to go and sometimes I did not want to be.
The Jewish people are bemoaning their fate as captives in Babylon, far from home, in a land where the language, culture and customs are strange to them. They are in despair. How can they keep their faith in God when they are so far from home in a place where they believed that their God was absent?
So, how do you sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? Through recognising God’s presence in the love and support given by friends, family and strangers. Like the nurse who baked and brought me a birthday cake after I had bemoaned that it was the second consecutive birthday I had spent in hospital. It is those people, who touch your life with love, who bring, comfort, support and hope, who remind you that God is present.
Strange lands are part of life and being in them or travelling through brings changes. But God’s presence is constant, enabling us to sing the Lord’s song, and bring love and hope to others.
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