Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7
2 Timothy 2:8-15
Howard W. Roberts
October 14, 2007
           
Scott Peck opened his book, The Road Less Traveled, with the line, “Life is difficult.”  That is an understatement.  He could have said that life is difficult and unfair.  The fact that life is unfair is much of the reason it is difficult.  We are so cause and effect oriented in our thinking that we expect a rational, logical, acceptable reason for everything that happens.  Many of the unfair things that happen in our lives so flatten us emotionally that even if there is a logical reasonable explanation, we are unable to receive it, believe it, or accept it.  A three year old gets cancer.  Unfair.  A ten year is killed in her front yard by a car that runs out of control off the street, over the sidewalk, into the yard and strikes the child playing “safely” in her own yard.  Unfair.  Someone drives through a neighborhood randomly firing shots from a gun and a bullet goes through the window of a house killing one of the people living there. Unfair. 
           
Children and adolescents are keen to unfairness especially when the words and actions of important adults in their lives are inconsistent and incongruent.  Perhaps nothing has less credibility than for a parent to say to child, “Do as I say, not as I do.”  The unfairness of such a statement erodes the trust the child has in the parent. 
           
The Babylonian exile was an experience of tremendous unfairness for the Israelites.  The Israelites in exile decided to resign from life.  They continued to breathe but not to live.  There is a difference. 
           
Jeremiah came along with a different message that challenged the exiles’ thinking.  In essence, Jeremiah said, ”Live.  Don’t just breathe.  There is more to life than breathing.”   
           
It is difficult for us to relate to and understand the passage from Jeremiah read earlier.  It deals with a very difficult time for many of the Israelites that occurred 2500 years ago.  The Israelites were defeated in battle by the Assyrians.  As a way of maintaining control of the Israelites, the Assyrians deported many of them from Jerusalem to Babylon.  In other words they were forced to live in exile.  This was tremendously unfair treatment and those living in exile were convinced that just as soon as they could get back to Jerusalem life would be wonderful for them.  There was growing unrest in the Assyrian political arena so the exiles tied their hopes to an immediate, imminent release from exile and a return to Jerusalem. 
           
Then came the message from Jeremiah.  “Forget it.  It’s not going to happen in your lifetime.  It may be unfair.  Play the hand you’ve been dealt.”  And the way to do that Jeremiah said was, “Build houses and settle down.  Plant gardens and eat what you grow in them.  Marry and have children.  Then let your children get married, so that they also may have children.”  Jeremiah could not have stated it more clearly that the exiles were there for the long haul.  It was futile keeping their bags packed, thinking any day they would be leaving.  They were not going to be leaving so they needed to start living. 
           
Does that sound like anything you have experienced?  There are some in our congregation who have been prisoners of war and some have been detained by airport security during international travel, but most of us have never been in exile like the people were to whom Jeremiah sent his letter.
We are people on the move.  We are a mobile society.  Records indicate that people in this country move once every six years. Peggy and I are above average.  We’ve only moved once every seven and a half years.  Or does that make us below average?
           
Mark Twain said that periodically he got the urge to move to a new town.  Whenever that urge would strike him, before he did anything else, he would subscribe to the newspaper for thirty days from the town to where he thought he would like to move.  He always decided to stay in the town where he was because when he read the newspapers, the potential new towns had the same problems that were in his current hometown that he wanted to escape and none of the towns seemed to have benefits greater than the town where he was. 
           
A woman had a conversation with two of her friends on separate occasions.  Both were considering joining her congregation.  The woman asked her first friend what the congregation was like where she currently was a member.  She responded, “Oh, no one is very friendly.  People are always talking about how things used to be and how wonderful things were when the former minister was there.  There seem to be lots of cliques.  Backbiting and gossip seem to be common fare.  I never seem to fit in.”  And the woman said, “I’m not sure you’ll like our congregation any better.  I think you’ll find it to be a lot like the congregation where you are.”
           
The woman asked her other friend the same question, “What is your current congregation like?” Her friend responded, “Well, it’s one of the friendliest places I’ve ever been.  People are warm and welcoming.  There are so many engaging opportunities.  Members seem to be looking toward the future like they’re convinced that the best thing that has happened to the congregation is yet to be.  It really is an exciting place to be.”
           
And the woman said to her, “I think you will really like our congregation.  I think you’ll find it be a lot like the congregation where you are.” 
           
We are continually in transition.  I’m not sure there is such a thing as a “settled” life.  Certain aspects or elements of our lives may be settled.  Perhaps we’re in a job we’ve been doing for awhile.  Consider my job.  I’ve been here for nearly six years now.  I have an established work routine and yet I don’t think I’ve been able to follow exactly the same routine any two weeks during the last six years.  There are circumstances and situations that arise each week that are not on the schedule—some celebrative event, a hospital visit, a family in crisis, a member dies.  So my job is settled and unsettled at the same time.  Similar things are true in your jobs, in our families, in our friendships, and in our congregation.
           
Unrest in Babylon gave the exiles false hope that soon they would be returning home.  For Jeremiah hope and assurance were not to rest on naïve patriotic and unreasoned expectations that God would swiftly put an end to the power of Babylon.  Rather hope and assurance are built on the painful acceptance of the reality of Babylonian rule.  They needed to adapt to their situation and learn to endure it. 
           
They’d journeyed from Jerusalem to Babylon, from traditions to change, from the familiar to the strange, from the beloved to the be-loathed.  Many Israelites simply didn’t want to let go. Many of them, longing for their former ways, wept by the rivers of Babylon and wailed the anguished question, “How could we sing the LORD’S song in a foreign land?” (Psalm 137:1-4).
           
Jeremiah sends a letter to the homesick Jewish exiles in Babylon. The northern kingdom of Israel had disappeared at the hands of the Assyrians 200 years earlier, and now Babylon has successfully subjugated the smaller kingdom of Judea. Many of Jerusalem's best and brightest have been carried off to Babylon, where the new Jewish population isn't quite sure what to do. They felt stuck in an unfamiliar Podunk, so far from their holy city.
           
They wouldn’t release their grip. This is essentially what the prophet Jeremiah encourages them to do. In a letter to these homesick exiles, he delivers this word from the God: “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 God on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare” (Jeremiah 29:5-7).
           
This is a revolutionary message. The Jews who expected a speedy return to Jerusalem are told to stay put, establish homes in Babylon, and even assist in the welfare of the city. Jeremiah is saying that God's people shouldn't resist, resent, or reject their current location. They shouldn't pack up and move, nor should they dig foxholes and fight. Instead, they should put down roots in a foreign land, live productive lives in exile, and even pray for the welfare of their new hometown.
             
Most surprising of all, they are to pray not for the peace of Jerusalem, but for the peace of Babylon, for “in its welfare,” promises God, “you will find your welfare.”  The challenge for them as well as for us today is to find peace in a time of anxiety, and to build homes and families and a congregation in a strange and difficult time.
          
We are to pray and work for peace in our faith community because in its welfare we will find our welfare.  Conflict arises in congregations.  It is a normal thing to occur.  The challenge is dealing with the conflict in constructive and healthy ways that will lead to growth and strength.  More than fifty members of Glenview Community Church participated in a Conflict Transformation Workshop last weekend and discovered many positive, insightful things about ourselves individually and about our congregation.
           
Churches fight over many things, from predestination to parking, from worship style to budget priorities, from securing the building to how to make members feel secure.  And even some “peaceful” congregations are mired in ineffectiveness or spiritual lethargy.       
           
Why do so many churches struggle? Tom Bandy says it’s because they don’t know who they are. They lack a clear, articulated identity.
           
Bandy, a popular church consultant, has devoted his career to making churches healthy and effective. He doesn’t lack for work these days, as more and more churches find themselves in a struggle to survive, or out of touch with the communities they are trying to reach.
           
“My sense is that every church needs to be changing,” says Bandy, who with Bill Easum leads the consulting firm of Easum, Bandy and Associates, based in Port Arkansas, Texas.
           
Bandy’s not talking about minor redecorating or reorganizing the Sunday school, but revolutionary, transformational change that he says should focus on the question: “What is it about your experience with God that this community can’t live without.” (Greg Warner, “What’s your church’s genetic code?” FaithWorks Web Site, Faithworks.com. Retrieved April 7, 2004.)

Our vision statement expresses this for us; “A strong community of Christian faith that welcomes and engages all people in personal and spiritual growth.”  We continue to attract members who come from varied and different backgrounds who state clearly that the openness and welcome they experience here are major reasons for their becoming part of the congregation. 

Our reasons for being a part of Glenview Community Church are very different from the experience of the Jews in exile in Babylon.  We are here voluntarily.  No one surrounded us in another congregation and transported us miles away and forced us to be a part of this congregation.  We have chosen to be part of this congregation.  But the instructions Jeremiah gave the exiles applies to us and our involvement in this congregation.  We need to be connected.  We must develop roots in this congregation.  We do that by becoming engaged in the ministry of the congregation.  We put down roots by establishing relationships with people who are part of the congregation.  We do that by investing ourselves in what the congregation does and what it stands for.  We have ownership in this place.  It matters to us what happens here.  Three years ago our Planning Committee worked diligently to engage people in the life of the congregation.  That was a scary process.  It caused a certain amount of emotional upheaval because it meant some things were going to change.  Maybe the only change that would happen would be that you would consider whether you were going to be more involved in the congregation in some way.  But change is troubling and disturbing.   

 Jeremiah’s challenge is revolutionary for us as well.  Seek the welfare of neighborhoods where neighbors down the street may be Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist or Muslim. Seek the welfare of workplaces where colleagues may be agnostics or New Age seekers, folks who think of themselves as spiritual but certainly not religious. Seek the welfare of communities where activists may be trying to separate everything church from everything state, or to inject some righteousness and religion into the laws of our secular society.

We are to play the hand we are dealt.  We must not waste time and energy bemoaning how terrible, unfair life it.  Life is unfair and difficult.  Life is unfair and difficult for everyone.  In short, we are to seek the well-being of a diverse, confusing and often conflicted culture. Engage it, says Jeremiah, don't escape it. For in its welfare you will find your welfare.
           
As Christians in a post-Christian culture, our challenge is to work and pray for the wholesomeness of the society with which our own well-being is inextricably linked.  This means we recommit ourselves to work for the physical, moral and spiritual welfare of the world around us, the corner of the world where we live. It is an important, healthy way for us to deal with life when it is unfair and difficult.  It means that we see our community as the very place God calls us to put down roots, grow in faith, and reach out in love.  We do this by having a base of operation, a support structure that strengthens our interior lives.  This makes a community of faith vital.  We must have deep roots to grow strong to weather the upheaval that life naturally brings.  So we must seek the welfare and well-being of Glenview Community Church because in its welfare God promises we will find our welfare.