For.
I was sitting in the coffee shop working on my sermon, figuring which text would be this week and which would be next week. I overheard the folks next to me say they were from North Carolina. Having lived there, we began talking. They told me they are members of the Baha’i faith and told me a little about it. One thing that struck me was their story of human interconnectedness and how that has affected how they lived out their faith. They said that for them to live out interconnectedness in its fullest they chose to live in several different countries. How they viewed it was what I found most intriguing. They said they try and live in foreign places as a local and here in America as a foreigner. Obviously this can only go so far, but it’s worth looking at what this can mean. This also cleared up which text I was going to preach on, because it connected perfectly with Jeremiah 29.
The prophet is telling his fellow Israelites that have been displaced from their home and are living in exile among their captors, to live among them like locals. They will be there a while. Make this your home and seek its welfare. Live there like you chose it, love it, and want it to not just survive, but thrive.
I find churches often use this text as a mandate to go places and to renew them, generally urban renewal, but it often ends up being gentrification. So what does this mean? Well, first off, the Jews here were the ones taken captive. They were the oppressed. They did not choose to move to Babylon, because it seemed like the latest sexy destination that needed saving. It also meant, they were to love their enemies, preceding Jesus’ command to do so.
Imagine if you were captured by Mexico, taken down there, forced to live there, and then God says, seek their welfare. Become good citizens. Pray FOR them and act FOR them. This is the mindset Jeremiah is speaking of here. He is not saying to find a town that you think needs help and make it “better” by your standards with your wealth without actually connecting with the locals.
So what does this mean for us? Some of us are from here. Many of us have moved here. Some with more means than others. Some of you in Idaho may be picturing in your minds wealthy people from California and Texas that
have priced people out and blocked off land that used to be accessible. This is not the kind of welfare Jeremiah is speaking of, commanded by God. Jeremiah is saying, which later gets demonstrated by Jesus, that we come to our place with the humility and the heart and mind of a servant. Seeking the welfare of the place has to be welfare for all, not just for those of us seeking it.
So, the church I serve has been here a long time. It was not brought here recently in terms of this text, but this text does teach us about what it looks like to be a good neighbor, a good citizen, etc. This text, because of its context, because it speaks of captives seeking the welfare of their captors, sets the tone for the mindset. Our church cannot act as the power and throw our weight around, rather, to seek the benefit as a servant FOR and this is the crucial part, WITH the people here. Those of us newer to this area need to seek the welfare of this place FOR and WITH the people who have been here longer. And this does go all the way back to the Nez Perce people in our case.
Now, as Christians, there should be this sense of living in exile, because until all is made right, we are not “home.” I do not mean our home is in heaven, because the scriptures speak of the renewal of heavens and earth. Earth might just be our home, but not in the extent that it will be one day. However, the earth, as it is now, is not our eternal home, and our souls know that. BUT, as Jeremiah says to the Israelites, just because it is not your eternal home, seek its welfare. All too often, Christians use the “heaven is my home” mantra as an excuse to be poor stewards of our envirenment, our society, and our relationships. Jeremiah is pushing the Israelites to not fall into that trap. While Jeremiah may not be speaking to us directly, it is in our scriptures for a reason, and not just to understand our history, but to use that history to inform our actions. I do not believe this command from God, through Jeremiah was meant to be one and done with Israelites in Babylon.
I believe this means God is calling us to be a church FOR our culture, FOR our environment, and FOR our community, grown-up out OF the people here and those of us not here, to do so in humble collaboration with those who have been here. That is a mandate inner-city churches really need to grasp, but it is not limited to the cities as gentrification can happen here too.
So what does this look like? What does it look like to be FOR the longterm benefit of our area? Ponder that. Think about it.
