Lenten Displcement Experience - Babylonian Exile Displacement Experience - 4th Anniversary of the 2011 Triple Disaster in Northeastern Japan

What would it be like to become displaced person?

This can be a meaningful question to ask ourselves during Lent. 

Fr. Mark Bosco, SJ, of Loyola University of Chicago, my alma mater, used a metaphor of experience of displaced person to describe the transitional and transformative nature of Lent, citing some words from Flannery O’Conner’s “The Displaced Person”.

Associating Lent with a displaced person’s experience, the Responsorial Psalm for the 4^th Sunday of Lent (Year B, Mass without Scrutiny), Psalm 137:1-6, reflects sentiments of displaced people. Furthermore, the First Reading for the 4^th Sunday, 2 Chronicles 36:14-16, 19-23, not only describes what led people of Jerusalem into displacement in the Babylonian Exile but also suggests what their displacement experience in Babylon would entail. Both the Responsorial Psalm and First Reading sure alludes that the displacement experience of the people of Jerusalem – the daughter of Zion in Babylon is rather a transitional and transformative one.

This year, 2015, the 4^th Sunday of Lent follows the week of the 4^th anniversary of the 2011 Great Triple Disaster that devastated northeastern Japan with unprecedented destructive forces.  It was a stark reminder of how powerful mother nature can be and how frail technological interventions to nature with human wisdom is. The violence of mother nature turned vast areas in northeastern Japan into lands of desolation.

I do not think that it is a mere coincidence that the anniversary of the 2011 triple disaster in Japan not only falls during Lent but also its 4^th one is followed by the Sunday with Responsorial Psalm and First Reading that addresses an experience of people, who had to face desolation of their beloved city, Jerusalem, and displacement from there. 

By juxtaposing displacement experience of God’s people reflected and described in the scriptures for the 4^th Sunday to displacement experience of the 2011 triple disaster in Japan , asking ourselves, “What it is like to be a displaced person?, can make our Lente experience this year more meaningful. This exercise may put out heart in union with heart of the 2011 triple disaster survivors, especially those who are still displace even after 4 years from the disaster, and with heart of God’s people, who were displaced from desolated Jerusalem to Babylon.

As the Responsorial Psalm reflects, sentiments of displaced people are, at first, dominated by grief and lamentation over the loss of home.  This is particularly so with the first five verses. To the writer of this Psalm, such are the sentiments of God’s people who were deported from their beloved home, Jerusalem, as this city was destroyed, by the Babylonians from 597 BC on until 586 BC. However, the way the Responsorial Psalm and the First Reading end, the initial grief and lamentation are followed by a sense of hope.  This is an important thing to take note of, in reflecting a displacement experience as a transformative transition journey.

As to help us endure a transitional journey of displacement all the way to its end with joy, the Second Reading, Ephesians 2:4-10, reminds us that what we need to hang on to during this difficult time is grace of God, including mercy of God. Without this, how could we make it? It would be far more difficult to endure than it has to.

The horrific situation during the Babylonian seize of Jerusalem is also written in the First Reading for the 4^th Sunday – 2 Chronicles 36:14-16, 19-23. Not only the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and its most sacred Temple but angered God for mocking Him and desecrating the House of God, resulting in abomination in desolation (Daniel 9:27).

Perhaps, it is no coincident that this 4^th Sunday of Lent follows the week of the 4^th Anniversary of the 2011 triple disaster in Japan. Not only that, as this Lent continues on,  more than 120, 000 people in Japan are still displaced,  even though they survived the horrific disaster. They have been wondering not just when they would be able to return home but if they would ever return, as their displacement life prolongs.

In reflecting the 4^th Sunday’s Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 137:1-6, even the entire verses of this Psalm, that captures the sentiment of displacement life in Babylonia for 70 years, we can not only glimpse what these still displaced people in Japan may have feeling but also how they may be able to discern resilient hope to endure the prolonging challenges to end with joy.

When we are amidst of the darkness of painful grief and lamentation, perhaps, joy is the last thing we could think of. But, reflecting the Responsorial Psalm, we notice that the displaced God’s people in the Babylonian Exile, amidst their displacement, not knowing when they would ever return to Jerusalem, their psyche somehow led their sentiment to joy. 

However difficult and even impossible it may seem because of pain of grief and lamentation is stiff, the Responsorial Psalm gently reminds us that it is nevertheless possible to let the pain subside as grief and lamentation give their way to hope, and we can gradually journey toward joy with hope. This is particularly so, as we re-align ourselves in our relationship with God so that we can better recognize and receive abundant grace of God.

As the Second Reading (Ephesians 2:4-10) reminds us, grace of God leads us to salvation. Therefore, for us to discern hope toward joy amidst the darkness of pain for grief and lamentation during our displacement experience, we look for God’s grace. For this, we must ensure that we are in good term with God, who gives grace.

In order for us to improve our relationship with God, we must humble ourselves. God’s people’s efforts to humble themselves in order to better receive God’s grace and to return to joy, which was lost with desolation and abomination brought by the Babylonians, with hope, are also reflected in the Responsorial Psalm.

Let my tongue be silenced, if I ever forget you!
By the streams of Babylon
we sat and wept
when we remembered Zion.
On the aspens of that land
we hung up our harps.

Let my tongue be silenced, if I ever forget you!
For there our captors asked of us
the lyrics of our songs,
And our despoilers urged us to be joyous:
“Sing for us the songs of Zion!”

 Let my tongue be silenced, if I ever forget you!
How could we sing a song of the LORD
in a foreign land?
If I forget you, Jerusalem,
may my right hand be forgotten!

Let my tongue be silenced, if I ever forget you!
May my tongue cleave to my palate
if I remember you not,
If I place not Jerusalem
ahead of my joy.

 Let my tongue be silenced, if I ever forget you!

The Responsorial Psalm starts with the sentiment grief and lamentation, shedding tears. The pain from the grief and lamentation over losing joyful Jerusalem is too heavy for them to play harps.

As to add insult on injury, the Babylonian captors asked the displaced people of God to sing songs of Jerusalem for them.

How could they sing their beloved songs of their beloved city, Jerusalem, to the very people who destroyed and desecrated the city and its Temple?  Songs of Jerusalem (Zion) is also a song of God.

This particular incident intensifies the pain of the displacement experience of humiliation.  But, at the same time, this serves as a turning moment for God’s people to turn their heart back to God, as their eyes are once again turning to Jerusalem.

Here, there is a juxtaposition between Jerusalem and God. This is no surprise as Jerusalem is where God resided – in its Temple. But, the people of God let Jerusalem and its Temple turn into the horrible state of desolation and abomination.  This also meant that they realized that God was subjected to desolation and abomination, attributing this to their defilement.  

Imagine the sentiment of realizing this!

Upon this realization, the heart of God’s people was filled with remorse. Their initial grief and lamentation turned into remorse.

Then, our of remorse, the people of God in displacement in the Babylonian Exile pledged to be silenced – as their penance, as their expression to convert their sinful heart, out of their desire to return to God, juxtaposing to an expression of their desire to return to Jerusalem. They have also come to realize that there is no joy like God to them – no joy like Jerusalem.

This realization is a moment of their awakening to the truth that there is no joy outside God. They have learned a lesson that their past attempts to find joy outside God resulted in this displacement in the Babylonian Exile – being displaced from joy in God, joy in Jerusalem, to humiliation in a pagan city, in Babylon.

They have learned a critical lesson. They are now repenting and expressing  their desire to return to God from the Exile displacement. They now long to return to God, seeking God’s grace, including His mercy.

Given Ezekiel 3:26, this silence that the people of God sung in Psalm 137:6 also suggests that the silence is not just about penance but also about preparation.  The silence of their tongue was needed for them to preparation to return to God , out of their lasting hope to return to Jerusalem and to end the exile. Therefore, in Psalm 137:6, there is a sentiment of penance and there is a sense of preparatory hope.

As the number 40, which is the number of the days during Lent biblically suggest, Lent is a time of transition. So, the silence of God’s people in Psalm 137:6 echoes our silence during Lent, juxtaposition of our penance and preparation with hope. And, this is a preparation, as well as a transition, to be reunited with God, in the psalmist’s metaphor of returning to Jerusalem.

The above my exegesis of the Responsorial Psalm reflects our Lenten journey’s meaning as a displaced person’s experience.  Our Lenten journey is to feel what is it like to be displaced from God, who is our ultimate and eternal home, as Jerusalem (Zion) was so to the God’s people in the Babylonian Exile displacement.  This Lenten displacement experience is of critical importance for us to remind ourselves, again, that our true home is God. So, we continue on the rest of our Lenten journey back to God, as God’s people eventually journeyed back to Jerusalem, upon King Cyrus of Persia conquered Babylon and let God’s people be released and return to Jerusalem.

This attempt to parallel God’s people’s displacement in the Babylonian Exile in Psalm 137 to the still continuing displacement experience caused by the 2011 triple disaster.  It is not, by all means, to suggest that the prolonging suffering and struggles of the still displaced people in Japan can be attributed to sins. My intent to juxtapose these two phenomenon is to draw meaning in a displacement experience, in connection to Lent.

Though suffering can be due consequence of our own sinfulness, not all sufferings are related to sins. As in the case of Job, even a righteous person can suffer – though Job had to suffer as he was somewhat ignorant about the greatness of God, though he did not violate any of His Law. Remember, how a righteous young man had to suffer from sadness in encountering with Jesus (Matthew 19:16-22)?  Psalm 73 even suggests that innocent people may suffer at the expense of sinner’s  prosperity.

It is important that we do not attribute our sufferings and struggles to sins or sinfulness – though we must examine our own hearts for our hidden sinfulness and work on overcoming it so that we will not forever spend life in displacement – displacement from God.

In John 9:1-3, Jesus made it clear that sometimes we suffer regardless of the sinfulness of ourselves and even of our parents. Calamities happen regardless of our status of sin. And, we may have to suffer, whether we have sinned or not.  This is a more appropriate biblical context to parallel the 2011 triple disaster displacement people’s experience in Japan to the displacement experience in Psalm 137 or in any other biblical passages.

Rather, my intent here to parallel the experience of prolonging struggles of the survivors of the March 2011 triple disaster  to the centuries of Jewish displacement predicaments is to help all of us discern meaning in such prolonging and even repeated traumatic experiences and displacement experiences, because any of us may have to go through such a trial of life, whether we see ourselves sinful or righteous.

If you are a believer, then, this is to help you see for yourself where you may find God amidst the struggles and sufferings, which seem to have no end, and how this discernment can help you endure and grow. And, this is to help you focus on the grace of God amidst the suffering to keep your hope to endure, as Paul’s Letter to the Romans Chapter 5. In fact, the Second Reading for the 4^th Sunday of Lent (Ephesians 2:4-10) focuses on grace’s merciful and salvific benefits, inspiring us to endure challenges with grace.

Regardless of our displacement status – physically as in the case of the still displaced people in Japan , or both physically and spiritually, as in the case of God’s people in the First Reading and Responsorial Psalm for the 4^th Sunday of Lent, or spiritually as in the case of most of us, we must always find and receive grace of God to endure challenges during our displacement period – during our transitional journey – so that this experience will bring us close to God.