Ok...maybe I don't hate it as a whole, but I’ve always hated Psalm 137:9. The Psalmist is talking about the nation of Babylon and says “Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock.” That's just jacked up...and it doesn’t really fit our polite view of God. We love to think of God as love and mercy and grace and all the stuff that’s good for us. Not so much do we like to consider the God of justice…at least not when that justice requires death and destruction. But then again, we don’t really like to think about any of the qualities of God that don’t fit the convenient slightly-better-than-human picture in our heads. If I really believed in the justice of God that occasionally demanded genocide, then maybe it would help me to take the gift of Christ a little more seriously instead of taking it for granted most of the time. And maybe I should be doing more with that gift.
Side note...the first part of the chapter is sad, but really beautiful at the same time. It just talks about how the people of Israel need to remember Zion...not to grow too comfortable in Babylon or lose hope. There are a couple songs that have been written that are loosely tied to this Psalm. One is "In Babylon" by Aaron Strumpel and another one is "Zion & Babylon" by Josh Garrels. If it worked right, there should be a link to the video of Garrels' song (click on the song title), and the other song is worth checking out (assuming your musical preferences lean more towards the experimental).
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