{"id":902,"date":"2011-08-18T10:56:26","date_gmt":"2011-08-18T14:56:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stlydias.org\/blog\/?p=902"},"modified":"2011-08-22T12:17:43","modified_gmt":"2011-08-22T16:17:43","slug":"gregs-sermon-on-psalm-137","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/2011\/08\/gregs-sermon-on-psalm-137\/","title":{"rendered":"Greg’s Sermon on Psalm 137"},"content":{"rendered":"

Greg Brown is a congregant at St. Lydia’s, and a Master of Divinity candidate at General Theological Seminary in New York City.<\/em> He is in the process of ordination in the Episcopal Church. <\/em> Greg shared this sermon on Psalm 137 with us on Sunday, August 14.<\/em><\/p>\n

I have to start this with a confession: I had no complex process in choosing this Psalm. When Emily asked me to preach, and to choose a Psalm, this one jumped into my head immediately. Now we read or sing the Psalms a few of times a day at seminary, so I\u2019ve heard them all. I didn\u2019t want to choose 119 \u2013 absolutely huge. 117 (the shortest at two verses) doesn\u2019t have a ton to go on\u2026 but 137, 137 is one of the few that stands out to me. I\u2019ll be honest: it\u2019s nothing high-minded; but this Psalm jumped into my head because it was my introduction to reggae in high school. But\u2026 when we crack it open, it\u2019s an interesting, interesting story, something that I think might speak to us now.<\/p>\n

One day my sophomore year, I was rooting around in my dad\u2019s record collection, and among the Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix I found this crazy-looking album \u2013 island designs all over the jacket, men with huge, long hair smoking these funny big cigars and dancing. It was the soundtrack to the Jamaican movie The Harder They Come, probably the first reggae record in the world. I put it on my record player and was amazed, taken to another, beautiful place. On one track, the Melodians take Psalm 137 and\u2026well, they put it to churchy-soulful music with intricate, tight harmonies. It\u2019s weird, though \u2013 the music was beautiful, but in the words I could hear their sadness at being separated from a place they longed for; they were missing a much-loved place. \u201cBy the rivers of Babylon \/ there we sat down \/ and there we wept \/ when we remembered Zion\u2026\u201d So this Psalm is the only one that jumps out at me, time after time, and it\u2019s good, useful for today.
\n
\n<\/a>Read the rest of Greg’s sermon here.<\/a>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Listen to the Melodians’ version of Psalm 137 here.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Listen to Don MacLean sing the traditional round version of Psalm 137 that we sang at Jen’s house on Sunday night here.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Listen to a feistier gospel version of Psalm 137 by the Gospel Clefs here.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Greg Brown is a congregant at St. Lydia’s, and a Master of Divinity candidate at General Theological Seminary in New York City. He is in the process of ordination in the Episcopal Church. Greg shared this sermon on Psalm 137 with us on Sunday, August 14. I have to start this with a confession: I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=902"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":904,"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902\/revisions\/904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}