One Story: Exile

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Have you ever taken a new job, or moved to a new town, or just been in any type of new situation, looked around and thought to yourself, man this place is just not my home and its never going to be. It might have everything that you could want or need, but still theres just something that’s not quite right. Heck, you might even call this new place “home” and not ever actually want to leave, but some things just can’t ever be replicated.

You know, I’m not from this place. And I don’t just mean Fort Pierce. I mean Florida. I moved to Florida in 2011 from Philadelphia. And I love Florida, and I love Fort Pierce. I really do. I don’t have to shovel snow, have a separate closet for coats, worry about cleaning out a musty old basement, ice storms, all of that mess that comes along with sub-freezing temperatures. The sun shines here like 365 days a year. I’m never going back.

But deep inside of me, Philadelphia is still the place I call home. Every time I attempt to walk barefoot on this crabgrass/razorblade hybrid st. augustine grass you people plant all over the place I miss the soft touch of a nice kentucky blue/ryegrass/fescue mix that you can roll around in like it’s a cloud. I miss autumn. And this baseball team you all have, The Marlins… they just won’t do for this lifelong Phillies fan.

But none of that causes me to disparage, dislike, or want to ditch this place. I love it here. I’ve been called here for a purpose. This is where God needs me to help fulfil the mission of Jesus in the world.

I think the way that I feel about Philadelphia, the way maybe you feel about your hometown, or even just the neighborhood you grew up in pulls on a subtle but persistent truth about the human experience. That truth is this -- regardless of where we find ourselves on this good green earth, we are not home. Because our true home is the coming Kingdom of God. Until then, we live as what the Bible calls exiles in this world. So today we are going to discover what it means for us to live as exiles while we wait for Jesus to come and establish his kingdom forever.

Into Exile

We’ve been working through a sermon series called “One Story” here at First Church over the past 5 weeks, looking at how the entire Bible is one story that leads to Jesus. We began by talking about how God created the world to be a place that promotes and sustains life, but that humans have really messed that up. But God set out on a program of recovering all that was lost, calling one family to himself, and tasking them with being the people through whom he would bless the whole world.

This family, later called Israel, would find themselves in slavery down in Egypt, and God would rescue them, create a covenant with them — saying “I will be your God and you will be my people.” He gave them a law, a practical and ethical way of creating a society that promoted and sustained life. Then he gave them the land, and a king, and Israel finally became a force capable of living out their calling to bless the world by spreading God’s life promoting and life sustaining way of existing across the ancient world.

But things don’t really go well, and that’s where we are going to find ourselves today. Israel’s kings are not very good at allowing God to be the ultimate authority in Israel. They tend to forget the law, start worshipping other gods, and adopting the practices of the nations around them rather than spreading God’s influence outward. And it doesn’t go well. The nation splits in half — a nation called Israel in the north, and a nation called Judah in the south.

The northern Kingdom is conquered mercilessly by the Assyrian Empire, and then several years later, in the year 587 BC (before Christ) Jerusalem, the capital of Judah and former capital of the unified kingdom of Israel is besieged by the empire of Babylon, also referred to as The Chaldeans.

So what’s happening is this final king of Judah is doing all kinds of evil things. And God is looking at this mess and is trying to salvage this people that is supposed to be carrying his blessing. So he keeps sending them prophets to try to influence the king and the people and change the trajectory towards destruction that they are on. This is what the writer of Chronicles has to say about it all

2 Chronicles 36:15–21 NRSV

The Lord, the God of their ancestors, sent persistently to them by his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place; but they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words, and scoffing at his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord against his people became so great that there was no remedy. Therefore he brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their youths with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on young man or young woman, the aged or the feeble; he gave them all into his hand. All the vessels of the house of God, large and small, and the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king and of his officials, all these he brought to Babylon. They burned the house of God, broke down the wall of Jerusalem, burned all its palaces with fire, and destroyed all its precious vessels. He took into exile in Babylon those who had escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and to his sons until the establishment of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had made up for its sabbaths. All the days that it lay desolate it kept sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.

There’s a lot here, but the main point is that God is pleading with these people, “stop all of this madness. You are destroying yourselves. Turn back to me and reclaim your calling to carry my blessing and ethic and to spread my kingdom across this world.”

But the nation insists on continuing in evil, and so God allows Babylon, a quickly expanding and powerful empire to overtake them, destroy their home, destroy the temple which is like God’s little home among them, and then carry them off into captivity once again.

Things are not good. Israel has found itself in exile, living in a foreign land. This is far from the hope, the happy destiny that they had held to since God first showed up and spoke to their Ancestor Abraham. How are they supposed to live now? What is their purpose? Is there any hope?

And it’s here, in this place of captivity, of displacement, as prisoners of war, that the people of Israel receive these instructions from the prophet Jeremiah, giving them their purpose in this particular season of their lives:

Jeremiah 29:4–7 NRSV

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.

What we find here in these words of Jeremiah is a general posture that God wants Israel to take during this season of their lives. As you can imagine, people didn’t take too kindly to being forcibly removed from their homes and transplanted in a foreign land — especially not these people who’s foundational story was rooted in the sufferings of their ancestors at the hands of Egypt and their redemption from that suffering at the mighty hand of God.

Some wanted to outright revolt against their Babylonian captors. Some went the extreme opposite and wanted to assimilate into Babylonian culture — which was fraught with all of the things that God was diametrically opposed to — the worship of idols, power, sex, and money. But God’s plan was different. It was a third way of existing in this world. A way of living peacefully while keeping true to God and God’s purposes for them in this world. Essentially the way that God’s people were meant to live was a life of loyalty and subversion.

This can be seen most clearly in the book of Daniel, which details the rise in influence that a handful of Israelites had in the house of the King of Babylon. They displayed loyalty to the king, up until the point when they were called to worship him. It was at that point that they laid down their lives, and God saved them — which brought the King of Babylon to an experience in which he recognized the supremacy of the God of Israel.

But Israel’s exile was really part of a much more widespread phenomena.

Turning Back

You see, when God first created the world and placed humans within it, they were given really three main tasks. Look after the garden, be fruitful and multiply, and walk with God. But humans messed up, and were exiled from the garden. But those three main tasks never changed. And if you remember all the way back to our first week of this series, humans continued to fail — all culminating in this climactic scene at a place called Babel — aka Babylon — where human iniquity was dealt with by God spreading people across the world. And then out of that very place, God called Abraham and this entire Israel project began.

So humans have really been dealing with exile from the beginning. Exile from the garden which lead to this place called Babylon. And Babylon is like the biblical way of referring to the Anti-kingdom. There’s the kingdom of God — which is the place that spreads God’s life promoting and life sustaining goodness, and the kingdom of Babylon which spreads the opposite. It spreads the love of power and the worship of anything other than God across the world.

So human sin in the very beginning of your Bible leads to this place called Babylon. God calls a family out of Babylon to create a new kingdom — the people called Israel. But Israel’s sin leads them right back to Babylon. And to most it would seem that the plan had failed. The kingdom of Babylon has won. The Kingdom of God has been defeated.

Until you read those words of Jeremiah.

Remember God’s original plan for humans: Keep and see to the welfare of the garden, be fruitful and multiply, walk with God.

God says - through the prophet:

Plant gardens and see to the welfare of the City: keep the garden

Take wives and have sons and daughters: be fruitful and multiply

Pray to the Lord: Walk with God

Do you see what’s happening here? The vocation never changed. Regardless of how far from home these people have gone, God’s calling on the lives of God’s people has not changed. The Kingdom of God can and will persist within the midst of Exile, because it really always has.

The hope for Israel was of course that they would end up back at home, but the purpose of God was for them to recommit and reconnect with their purpose to create life promoting and life sustaining pockets of God’s Kingdom wherever they were. And from within the midst of this vile empire, the people of God thrived. And they softened the hearts of the kings of Babylon and then Persia until they were allowed to return home.

But when they got home, things were not really good. You see home was not really theirs anymore. It as a place that lived in the shadow of empire after empire. Babylon, Persia, Greece, and then Rome. Home was never what it once was. God’s people never really returned from exile. They found that they were exiles in their own land. They waited, wondering if God would ever restore the kingdom to Israel. They hoped and they prayed for a Messiah to come. And 400 years passed.

King of the Exiles

Jesus was born right into the mess of this world. And as an adult he lived his life as a perpetual exile. He had no home, but rather he wandered around speaking truth into a universal human experience. That experience is this — no place really feels like home. Regardless of how much we have or how much we accomplish, we are inevitably left feeling alone and alienated. And that’s because we are exiles. But, Jesus announced that there was a home, a home that we are all invited to become a part of. A home called the Kingdom of God.

And what Jesus, what Jeremiah, what God in the Garden all understood about this Kingdom of God was that it is a place that can and does exist in the midst of exile. And the way to get there is through Jesus -- The way, the truth, and the life — To follow in his example of self giving love and life giving hope.

Home is what we create together when we live out those three purposes — To see to the welfare of the messy neighborhoods, towns, states, and countries we live in, to be fruitful and multiply ourselves through evangelism and discipleship, and to walk with God — keeping Jesus as the guiding light and driving force behind our lives.

And I know that this is true because as much as Philadelphia is my home, it never satisfied me. I lived my entire adult life dreaming about getting out of there. Thinking that it was the problem. And then I moved to Florida and the problem moved with me. Because the problem folks — well the problem was me. My heart was the problem. But when Jesus got ahold of that thing and got ahold of my life, it was then that I felt home for the very first time.

Where’s home?

So I don’t know where you’re at in all of this. Maybe you’re still trying to find a place to call home. Still looking backwards or forwards, living in the should haves and the if only’s, seeking a place to call home in the midst of this world. And maybe you’re tired. Because this world has beaten you down. Jesus is calling you home, saying

Matthew 11:28–30 NRSV

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Let me tell you, that rest that Jesus gives you is a rest you’ll never want to let go of. It’s a release from all of the constant discontent with this world and with yourselves. It’s a rest that will allow you to finally find a place worth calling home, a place that you can find and live in all of the days of your life, regardless of where you are in this world physically.

But for us as a church, I know where we are in all of this. It doesn’t take a very keen observer to see that we are located in a place that has been beaten and battered by darkness. Yeah, there might be nice things happening over there just on the other side of US 1. But none of that is translating to life over here on the west side. We are deep in the middle of a land filled with all of the things that we hope our kids will never experience.

We live in the best of what this broken world has to offer. Addiction, poverty, prostitution, homelessness, violence — you name it, we got it. And then there’s us. And others like us. Little slices of God’s kingdom sitting in the midst. We are living in exile. But the question is, how do we live the way of the exile.

How do we live in a loyal but subversive way here on our side of the railroad tracks? How do we live out our mandate to see to the welfare of our city, to be fruitful and multiply disciples, and walk with God over here?

I think it starts with opening our eyes and our hearts to seeing our town, our district for what it is. Seeing it as an opportunity rather than a threat. Seeing our neighbors as people who just need some hope, and an invitation to come on home.

And then after we see them, we need to create a space that allows them to flourish. We need a means of helping them meet their physical needs as well as their spiritual needs. We need to follow the direction of the Holy Spirit in discerning how we are called to bring fellow exiles home.

Church, I deeply believe that this is our purpose, that this is our true calling and identity for the city of Fort Pierce. I believe that we have been called to be a beacon of hope to those who are suffering all around us. I believe that we have deep deep roots here and that the branches of our influence are just waiting to shoot out and provide shade and rest to those who are scorched and weary in and around our neighborhood.

We are being called to live the way of the exile. To see to the welfare of our city, to transform lives, and to take people by the hand as we walk together with God towards a place called home. This is the way of the exile. This is the way of Jesus. Come, let’s follow him.