Disciples Make the Best of "Babylon" (Oct. 9, 2022) Jer. 29.1, 4-7

Sometimes we come in on the tail end of a conversation and wonder what we have missed. Or we read a book or watch a television show only to discover that we have missed a previous volume or episodes. We fill left out and without a sense of direction in where to go to fill in the void. That is where the text has taken us today.

To get some context we must back up and look at the preceding chapter. There we are told what has been happening in the land of Judah. The Babylonians are invading and the people have been taken into exile. The king, the queen mother, aristocrats, and artisans, those who make a society and culture hum. This would have been a time of despair and humiliation. The people would have wondered what was happening and where was God.

Into this time there are prophets who are stating that they have the word of the Lord. “Not to worry,” they say, “In just a little while, two years to be exact, the yoke of Babylon will be broken and the people and all that was taken from the land will be returned.” This is what the people want to hear. But into these prophecies comes a lone voice. Jeremiah is also saying that he speaks a word of the Lord. He begins by saying that he hopes that the prophet’s words are true, that it will only be two years and the yoke will be broken. But his words from the Lord tell a different story. The Babylonian yoke will be stronger than supposed; that the people will be under a yoke of iron rather than one of wood.

It is with this that we come to the text for today. Jeremiah is sending a letter to those in exile in Babylon. There the people have been in despair: they are in a foreign land, a place that is in ruins and needs to be built up before it is habitable, and they are under the yoke of a gentile race. They felt that God was abandoning them. The only good thing that was going for them was that they were together as a group; they had not been mixed with other nations, a tactic that was used to dilute peoples. They still had a sense of identity.

But in this sense of identity there is despair. The people are not home and those who have captured them are taunting them and making sure they know who the ones on top are. It is in this atmosphere that one of the lament psalms was written. Here is what it says: “By the rivers of Babylon— there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our harps. For there our captors asked us for songs, and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” How could we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?”

Though they are miserable and in despair, the people are still clinging to hope and they are wanting to know when their exile will end. With the people are the prophets who are still claiming that the yoke of Babylon will be broken and that in two years they will go home. Therefore, the people are to just wait it out.

But then comes a letter from Jeremiah. Jeremiah, the speaker of doom and gloom. Jeremiah, the one who was telling them that what was happening was punishment from God. Jeremiah, the one who was telling them to submit to the Babylonians. Jeremiah, bummer man. So, one can expect that the people are a bit leery of what he has to say. And they are correct.

Here is a paraphrase of what Jeremiah wrote that we find in verses 4-7, 10: “This is what God told me to tell you: I, God, who sent you into exile in the Babylonian wilderness say to you: put down roots. Build houses, plant gardens, sell and buy the produce at the Farmer’s Market, make neighborhoods. Find wives and husbands for yourselves and your children. Have children, have grandchildren. You are going to be here awhile. I know that some have said that you will only be here two years. I’m sure you are saying, “What is two years? We can do that.” But I am telling you now, you will be here 70 years, a lifetime, before I bring you back to your homeland. So, get busy living and do not dwindle away to nothing. And above all: pray for the wellbeing of the city you are in because in its wellbeing, you will find your wellbeing.”

One can only imagine the confusion, the heartbreak, the anger that this letter produced. The people heard so much from the other prophets that they would be home in two years. Now, Jeremiah is telling them that they will be staying for at least 70 years, a lifetime. Many knew that if this were true, they would never see their homeland again. They again would sing the song of lament that we find in Psalm 137.

But in this letter of Jeremiah is a note of positivity. There is to be life where they are. God is saying that God is not just in the city of Jerusalem where the people always thought. No, the temple and the city cannot contain God. God is here, with the people where they are and God will keep them even when they despair. Because God is with them, they can build houses and plant gardens, things that take time and would require work to bring about. Because God is there, they can have families with children and grandchildren, celebrating marriages and births. They are to continue to increase just as they did in Egypt when they were enslaved there.

But there is part of the letter that prompted some consternation. The part where God tells them to “…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.” In this verse there is an unbelievable demand. God is telling the people to pray for the welfare, or shalom, of the very people who have brought them here. One can hear the people saying “Really?! God would have us pray for the welfare of the people who brought us here?! The godless, brutal heathen that we were always told to pray for their destruction?!?!?! God wants us to pray for them??!! And what does it mean when God said that in the city’s welfare, we would find our welfare?”

This is, I believe, the most important verse of this passage. The word translated welfare is shalom and it appears three times in this verse. When this happens in any passage, one should pay attention. Shalomcan be translated as peace, completeness, soundness, welfare, or wellbeing. What God is saying to the exiles is that when they pray and seek the welfare for the city where they are, they will find that which they seek for themselves. They will find peace, they will find soundness, they will find completeness, they will find their own shalom.

Have you ever been to Babylon? Have you ever felt like you were in exile?

Allow me to tell of a personal experience. In 2010 I had to leave my home in Maryland and move to WV for several reasons. I left the place I called home, I left friends, familiar places, and worst of all, my two sons. I had to leave a place I loved and go to a place that, while it was where I had been raised, was not anywhere I wanted to be. And like the Judean exiles I was sure that my exile would not last long. I was sure that I would only be there for six months. Surely there would be a break for me and I would return and life would go on as it should. So, I went to work, went back to where I lived and waited for my exile to end. However, God had a plan and God knows best. I was never told how long my exile would be but I realized that I was dwindling away doing what I was doing, which was nothing. I had to pray for shalom of my place of exile and really mean it before I could find shalom for myself. It was only when I did this and began to live in my place of exile, began praying for the welfare of where I was, sort of blooming where I had been planted, that I began to find the hope and the peace, the shalom, that the Judeans did in Babylon. I began to go back to church, get involved with the community and living life where I was. My Babylon was where I began to live and have a new outlook on life. It was where I realized that God was bigger than I imagined or could ever imagine. My anger and resentment dissipated and was finally erased. It was then that I could, like the Judeans, live my life and look forward.

Have you ever been to Babylon? I believe that we all have. When the job ends and there is no work to be found, that is Babylon. When a relationship fails and what you built with your life with that person ends, that is Babylon. When we are afraid to bring up topics of conversation because we know it will bring conflict among family and friends, that is Babylon. When a spouse or child dies and you are so angry with God that you cannot think about God, that is Babylon. We all have our personal Babylon.

So, what are we to do with our Babylon? Are we to dwindle away and say that we have lost everything that God gives? No. We can do several things. First, we are to pray for the wellbeing of the place where our Babylon is. It will be hard, but in the end, it changes us and allows us to have the hope to move forward. Second, we are to get involved in the life of our Babylon, help a neighbor, be a part of the community. Last, remember who and whose we are as this will help keep our identity as the exiles in Babylon did.

Throughout all the Babylons where we find ourselves, we must remember that God is the one who is in control. God knows our place and will always be there for us and with this we have the hope that we can last through any exile. Jesus told us to seek the shalom of those who would do us harm (I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.[1]). We can know that in Jesus we have the one who can enable us to pray for those for whom it is difficult to pray. We have one who will never leave us and who will always be with us when we are in Babylon no matter where or how that may be. When we remember who we are and whose we are, then, and only then, will we be able to willingly seek shalom of those upon whom our own shalom rests. Amen.

[1] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989. Print.