Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let the prophets and the diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that they dream, for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them, says the Lord.
For thus says the Lord: Only when Babylon’s seventy years are completed will I visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart, I will let you find me, says the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile. Jeremiah 29:1, 4-14 (NRSV)
Grace and peace to you from our Lord, and Savior, Jesus Christ, who has died, who has risen, and who will come again. Amen.
We begin today with a video.
What does it feel like to be a refugee? To be a traumatized community that has lost everything? Loved ones. Homes. Beloved city and country. Language. Culture. The familiarity of ways to express one’s own religion, along with places of worship. Everything. Lost.
Like the Syrians in this film who have been forced to flee their countries due to unsafe circumstances. Or those from Afghanistan or Pakistan. Or Lebanon or Iran. Or from Central America or Mexico. Or Ethiopia or South Sudan. Or, more recently, the Rohingya people from Myanmar. The UN estimates that 65.6 million people are displaced worldwide. 65.6 million. Every minute, 20 more are forcibly displaced as a result of conflict or persecution. By the time I finish my sermon today, some 200 more people will be displaced. Losing everything. Refugees in foreign lands. People in exile. Exiled in a foreign land.
As our Jeremiah text opens today, this is the same experience that is happening to the people who are Abraham’s descendants. We are in the thick of the drama. Amos, who we heard last week, is one of several prophets to predict the fall of the northern kingdom to Assyria. Their predictions have come true. The northern kingdom has fallen and been destroyed.
In the southern kingdom, the remaining remnant in Judah watch as the Babylonians make massive inroads into their country. Closer and closer they get to Jerusalem. Although the city is still functioning, it is operating under duress. The enemy has already taken the king and some of the people off into exile. Within another few years, Jerusalem will fall.
It is to these people already in exile that the prophet Jeremiah sends the letter that is our text this morning. It is a surprising letter. After all this time that God has insisted that the people of Israel stay apart from other peoples, that they not intermarry, or take on surrounding cultures or worship other gods, one would expect to hear the same in Jeremiah’s letter. One would expect a word that is reassuring. An encouraging word. Be faithful. God will bring you back. Resist the culture where you have been exiled.
Instead, this is God’s word given to them through Jeremiah: “Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile. Pray to the Lord on its behalf. For in its welfare, you will find your welfare.”
It’s not an instruction to rebel. But an instruction to keep the faith and live deeply into the place where you’ve been sent. To be good citizens in exile. Because you will be there for a long, long time.
As we hear this story. As we watch the video and hear of refugees across the world in exile. As we sit here in relative safety and comfort, it’s perhaps hard for us to imagine or fully understand what it means to be in exile. To have lost everything. To be fully dispossessed of all we own. Of country. Of culture. Of lifestyle.
Yet, I wonder, if we think hard enough or look deep enough into our own context, we whether we can see or think of many in our own place--our own “city” if you will--who are in exile.
Let me share with you my experience this week of what exile might look like here in northern Kentucky.
On Tuesday afternoon, I received a call here at the church from a young man. I will call him David. Please know that I have his permission to use parts of his story this morning.
The call was like many calls we receive here at the church. He was calling because his water had been turned off. He had been unable to pay his bill this month. He had called Eastern Area Ministries and, because they had already provided assistance to him a few months ago, they could not help him this time. Their rule, like many agencies in our area, only allows assistance once in a 12-month period.
I asked how much he would need to get it reconnected. He told me. Four hundred two dollars and 90 cents.
Now, normally, if we know this person, we will try to figure out a way to help them. We have a Good Samaritan fund here at church. Sometimes, if it's a small amount, we can help. But this fund has a total of $600 in it. Four hundred dollars would nearly deplete it. There was no way we could help him, at least not fully. And, besides, we didn’t know him.
I asked David to tell me more about himself, particularly, about how his financial situation had become so dire. He told me this incredible story. About how, 2 years ago, out of the blue he had received a call from a old friend of his, begging him to take in and care for her son. (We’ll call her son Noah.) How she had found out that her husband, Noah’s stepfather, had been physically abusing him while she had been away at work. That this abuse had been reported to the authorities. And that they were now threatening to take Noah into the foster care system and would David please take him in so that he wouldn’t end up in this dead-end system.
Now David and his partner had no plans for a family. They were living a pretty good life. Able to go on good vacations, to live well, to even buy a used Mercedes.
Yet, after hearing his friend’s story and talking it over, they finally agreed. Within a week, Noah was living with them. And within a few more weeks, they found out that this 4-year-old little boy had not only been physically abused, but that he had been sexually molested, as well.
David told me that, because of all of this abuse, Noah was traumatized. He required extensive medical and psychological treatment, which required endless visits to doctors’ offices. Parenting this deeply traumatized little boy David required him to leave a good-paying, full-time job, to reduce his hours to part-time and to take a hourly job where he made much less money. It was this loss of income that had eventually brought him to this place. To this place of exile.
It was an extraordinary story. In some ways unbelievable. It’s hard sometimes, especially when we story after story like this, not to become cynical. To not believe this story. To wonder how a mother could possibly miss the signs of abuse. To wonder how someone driving up to our food pantry in a Mercedes could possibly need our services.
It’s hard not to judge, isn’t it?
Over these past few weeks surrounding the celebration of the Reformation anniversary, I’ve had the opportunity to hear the Bishop speak a few times. Each time he has mentioned how he used to ask candidates for ordination what the first of Luther’s 95 theses was. (I have to say I’m very glad he had stopped asking that question by the time I was ordained.) He has been surprised at how few have known the answer.
Thesis No. 1: “In saying, ‘Repent,’ our Lord and Master Jesus Christ wanted the entire life of the faithful to be one of repentance.”
When we judge others without fully understanding their situation or having lived it, we sin. When we become cynical and refuse to believe their story, we sin. Over and over we look at others who are not like us and we fail to see God’s image in them, to see their dignity and their worth. And, we sin. Over and over, we sin. And over and over we are called to repentance. To turn away from these judgments and these thoughts and to begin to see in the eyes of people like David, or Noah’s mother, the image of God. A person, just like us, created in God’s image, who is just as deserving of and needing of God’s grace and forgiveness as we are. A person, just like us, for whom Christ died on the cross.
It is then, after we have repented that, through the power of the Holy Spirit, we can begin to change. To move from a surface relationship into a deeper place. To believe their story, to walk beside them, to experience what their life is like, to accompany them in exile. To be Christ-like. Even if we can’t do this with refugees from Syria or Afghanistan or Sudan or any of the other countries around the world, we can do it here. We can seek the welfare of our city. Because it is in our city’s welfare, that we, just like the exiled Israelites, will find our own welfare.
Who is the refugee in our neighborhood? Who around us is in a place or time of exile? Who in our community is experiencing displacement? How are you seeking their welfare?
It took us four days. Four days to find the $400, to push back against the water company bureaucracy that has developed to protect them from a few dishonest people and which, in return, punishes the vast majority of those who are honest. Four days to develop a plan together to improve the financial condition of David and his family and, finally, on Friday evening, to get the water turned back on. By the end of that four days, we were friends. By the end of that four days, in David’s welfare I found my own welfare. And, together, we found hope.
“For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord,” writes Jeremiah. “Plans for your welfare and not for harm. To give you a future with hope.” This was God’s promise for the exiles of Jeremiah’s day. It is God’s promise for the exiles of our day.
From this point forward, may we open our eyes, see them among us, believe their stories and walk beside them, and together, in Christ, find a future with hope.
Amen.
Preached November 19, 2017 at Grace & Glory Lutheran Church.
Christ the King Sunday
Readings: Jeremiah 29:1, 4-14; John 14:27
No comments:
Post a Comment