{"id":4505,"date":"2022-10-09T17:38:28","date_gmt":"2022-10-09T17:38:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/2022\/10\/09\/now-based-on-jeremiah-291-4-7\/"},"modified":"2022-10-09T17:38:28","modified_gmt":"2022-10-09T17:38:28","slug":"now-based-on-jeremiah-291-4-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/2022\/10\/09\/now-based-on-jeremiah-291-4-7\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cNow\u201d based on Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Sometimes,
\nI get tired of preaching about the exile. \u00a0I get tired of thinking
\nabout the exile. \u00a0I get tired of the fact that the exile metaphors
\nresonate with me, and I’d strongly prefer that they didn’t.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But
\nI’m ahead of myself, because we don’t talk enough about the exile to
\nassume that people can follow what I mean by it. \u00a0So, a quick
\nhistorical summary: After King David and King Solomon, the ancient
\nnation of Israel split into two. \u00a0The northern part had the name
\nIsrael and the southern part the name
\nJudah. \u00a0That was stable for a few hundred years, then the northern
\nnation was subsumed by Assyria in 722 BCE. \u00a0The southern
\nkingdom held on for a while longer (mostly by paying tributes to
\nlarger empires) but was destroyed in 586 BCE. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

At
\nthat point the leaders, the literate, and the priests were forced
\nmarched to Babylon, while the poor, illiterate majority were left in
\nthe ruins of a destroyed Jerusalem without the protection of city
\ngates.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

That’s
\nwhat we call \u201cthe exile.\u201d \u00a0In 539 BCE (47 years later) the first
\nof the people who’d been exiled were freed to come back. \u00a0Meanwhile
\nthe people who stayed had been decimated by famine, disease, and
\nattackers, and \u201chome\u201d wasn’t what people had remembered or been
\ntold about.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The
\nreality of the exile is formative in the writing down of the Hebrew
\nBible, and the questions that were being asked and answered in how
\nthe stories got written down. \u00a0It is also one of the great narrative
\narcs of the Bible, and I think that’s true because it was written
\ndown when it was still so vibrant in people’s lives and memories. \u00a0I
\nalso think it is true because the sensation of being displaced from
\nlife as we know it and\/or life as it should be is quite common, and
\nhaving the narrative of the exile helps us make sense of life as we
\nknow it.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

And
\nnow we’re back to the beginning. \u00a0I appreciate the ways the stories
\nof the exile make sense of life, but I’m rather tired of identifying
\nwith it. \u00a0I’d rather resonate with some stories of stability instead.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But,
\nhere we are.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

And
\nin the midst of this is Jeremiah’s profound, shocking, amazing,
\nunexpected communication on behalf of God. \u00a0He writes to those in
\nexile, the ones who have been torn from their homes, the ones who are
\nprevented from going home by exactly the people who tore up their
\nhome and tore them from their homes and he says on behalf of God:\n<\/p>\n

\nBuild houses and live in them;
\nplant gardens and eat what they produce.
Take wives and have sons
\nand daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in
\nmarriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and
\ndo not decrease.
But seek the welfare of the city where I have
\nsent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its
\nwelfare you will find your welfare.<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

I
\ncan’t imagine that this is what the exiles wanted to hear. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I
\nwould imagine this was the opposite of what they expected. \u00a0Wouldn’t
\nthey want to be ready to leave at any time? \u00a0Why settle in? \u00a0After
\nall, the passover celebrates God calling the people from Egypt so
\nquickly they had to cook unleavened bread! \u00a0Build houses and plant
\ngardens? \u00a0That sounds wrong.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Get
\nmarried? \u00a0Have kids? \u00a0Keep on living? \u00a0Keep on trying to thrive and
\ngrow? \u00a0But, that doesn’t fit either. \u00a0They’re in a temporary place,
\nshouldn’t they wait until they get home and can be in the \u201cPromised
\nLand\u201d and connected to life as they know it, life as it is supposed
\nto be? \u00a0Why bring kids into the mess of the exile? \u00a0I mean, does an
\nexile marriage even COUNT?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

And
\nthen, then God gets INTO it. \u00a0This is one of the most shocking things
\nattributed to God in the Bible, and that’s saying a lot. \u00a0God says,
\n\u201cBut seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile,
\nand pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find
\nyour welfare.\u201d \u00a0Seek the welfare of…. Babylon? \u00a0Pray for Bablyon?
\n Work for the wellbeing of Babylon? \u00a0Our well being is correlated
\nwith the well being of our oppressors?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

We
\naren’t trying to undermine them? \u00a0We aren’t trying to destroy them?
\nWe aren’t trying to \u2026 at the very least just keep our heads down
\nuntil we get to leave? \u00a0We’re working for their WELFARE? \u00a0(It may be
\nhelpful to know that I don’t think the exiles were slaves, but nor
\nwere they free to leave.)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

That’s
\nabout how I think the exiles would have responded. \u00a0But maybe I’m
\nwrong, because while everything God says is counter-intuitive,
\neverything God says also sounds like God. \u00a0And they, too, knew God.
\nSo maybe they knew to expect the unexpected, to know compassion for
\nothers would come at the most annoying times, to experience God’s
\nreminders about loving everyone when they least wanted to hear it.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I
\nhear the echos of this message from God when Jesus heals the
\nsenator’s daughter, when Paul has compassion for his jailers, and
\nwhen MLK reminded his listeners that the goal was not to harm the
\noppressors but transform them so they too could live a more wonderful
\nlife.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This
\nis a very, very Godly message, this \u201cBut seek the welfare of the
\ncity where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its
\nbehalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I’m
\nnot sure when it gets easy.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Because,
\nright now, this feels like a message to settle into this
\nlate-pandemic reality. \u00a0Let go of what was, and build houses HERE.
\nPlant gardens HERE. \u00a0Savor relationships and build up families HERE
\nand NOW. \u00a0And, seek the welfare of the city where we now are.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But
\nmost of us still aren’t all the way here yet. \u00a0(Maybe the young are?)
\n We’re still remembering what was. \u00a0Maybe, even, we’re still letting
\nGod know that we are ready to bake the bread \u2013 even the unleavened
\nbread \u2013 and walk away from this mess right now! \u00a0We don’t want to
\nsettle into this reality. \u00a0We want to go HOME. \u00a0We don’t want to seek
\nthe welfare of this time, we want this time to be different than it
\nis.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But
\nGod meets us in the now.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not
\nthe past, the future, nor the time we wish it was. \u00a0The now.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

That
\npre-exilic time never returned. \u00a0But there was a vibrant post-exilic
\ntime, which included things like the Bible being written, the Second
\nTemple being build, the walls of Jerusalem being restored, and as a
\nthing that is pretty relevant to us, the life of Jesus.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It
\nseems to me, from where I’m standing, that the temptation of the
\nexile is the yearning to return to how things used to be. \u00a0But God
\nurges the people to be present in their NOW, which prepares them for
\nthe next things God is going to be up to with them.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I
\nguess, like the exiles, God is dragging us into the now \u2013 sometimes
\nwhile we kick and scream like toddlers. \u00a0And I think that’s the word
\nas I hear it today. \u00a0God is with us in the now, calling us into the
\nnow, and preparing us for the future. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

And
\nthis is where we meet God.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

May
\nwe be open to meeting God here. \u00a0Amen <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

October 9, 2022<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Rev. Sara E. Baron
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305
Pronouns: she\/her\/hers
http:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/<\/a>
https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/FUMCSchenectady<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes, I get tired of preaching about the exile. \u00a0I get tired of thinking about the exile. \u00a0I get tired … Continue reading \u201cNow\u201d based on Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[34,28,39,33,1265,1552,1484,540,56,57,1553],"class_list":["post-4505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-fumc-schenectady","tag-rev-sara-e-baron","tag-thinking-church","tag-umc","tag-first-umc-schenectady","tag-now","tag-pandemic-preaching","tag-progressive-church","tag-schenectady","tag-sorry-about-the-umc","tag-what-will-our-post-exile-look-like"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4505\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}