A Narrative Lectionary Sermon on Jeremiah 29:1; 4-14
Jeremiah 29: 1
These are the words of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the remaining elders among the exiles, and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.
Jeremiah 29: 4-14
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. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let the prophets and the diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that they dream, for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them, says the Lord. For thus says the Lord: Only when Babylon’s seventy years are completed will I visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart, I will let you find me, says the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.
The Message
God did not choose to give me the gift of navigation. My Dad? He’s brilliant with directions. You could drop him anywhere in the world and he could find his way home. My sister? She’s the exact same way. But somehow, those genes missed me. I still need Google Maps coming home from the grocery store half the time. I’m what you might call a directory person. In malls and museums and every other public place you can think of, I look for the displays and the brochures that give me the lay of the land. That show me the little red star that says, “You Are Here.” If I can get a reminder of where I’m standing, I can make sense of my surroundings and chart out my next steps.
Our passage this morning is something like that little red star. It’s a spiritual “You Are Here” marker for an entire community of God’s people who have been exiled—that is, forced out of their homeland in Judah.
Now, we don’t talk about “Judah” a lot, so I just want to give us all a reminder of what we’re referring to when we do. Remember King Solomon? The wealthy, bougie ruler who built the beautiful Temple we talked about a few weeks back? After he passed away, the leadership structure in Israel changed. Israel split into two, distinct regions: the Northern Kingdom, which was, of course, to the north, and Judah, which was to the south. Sometimes, when we talk about exile in the Bible, we think of the Northern Kingdom. Last week, when we heard that almost poetic passage from the Book of Isaiah, we were nearing the end of the 8th century BCE. During the 8th century, the Northern Kingdom was struggling. Assyria was the dominant political power in the region, and Assyria had exiled a lot of the Northern Kingdom. Assyria had conquered a lot of the Northern Kingdom.
This morning, we’ve jumped ahead about 100 years. We’re actually in the very beginning of the 6th century, and by now, Assyria is old news. Babylon has risen to power, and they’ve invaded Judah. The first rebellion—the first organized resistance we know of—took place in 597 BCE. But it wasn’t successful. The leaders and the social elites who led it were exiled. That means that they were sent away from their homes and made subject to Babylonian rule—Babylonian life—somewhere else in the empire.
We’re reading a letter that the Prophet Jeremiah wrote to this exiled community of God’s people. A letter that he transcribed directly from God. A letter that has one, central promise: God wants God’s people to thrive. Period. Full stop.
Jeremiah knows that this message is getting lost. Jeremiah knows that this message is hard to believe. God’s people living in Judah are interpreting this exile—and really, this entire Babylonian takeover—in a lot of different ways.
A very common, underlying Jewish assumption at this time in history was that if you were following the laws and covenants laid out in the Torah, God would be pleased and reward you in relationship. If you had strayed—if your following of those laws and those covenants was getting a little loose—God would be angry and punish you. There was no in-between state. There was no other option. So, when Babylon came storming in, projections and accusations and uncertainties about God’s role (or maybe God’s place) in everything got murky, fast.
Those people who were sent away might have wondered what they did wrong. They assumed that they were suffering judgment from God, but they might have suffered judgment from the people who got to stay, too.
Those people who got to stay might have been relieved to know they did something right. But anxiety began to plague them. How close am I to the edge? To being exiled? What if I slip up?
Divisions were popping up everywhere, and community harmony was not exactly at an all-time high. Serious questions, and serious disagreements, began to emerge about how to live as people of faith under a new power that did not share or recognize that faith. Finally, debates over how to deal with Babylon consumed both the community in exile and the community still dwelling in the homeland.
Many prophets had come out of the woodwork encouraging more rebellion; more resistance; more vim and vigor. They spoke of visions where God promised a breaking of the Babylonian yoke! A restoration of everything taken from Judah and a glorious return of God’s people! Some of them predicted this happening in as little as one or two years. “Don’t get too comfortable,” they were saying. “God is doing big things. God is so very near to us. We won’t be here long.”
Jeremiah agrees that God is doing big things—that God is so very near, even among all of this chaos and confusion. Jeremiah even agrees that God will break that Babylonian yoke. That God will restore God’s people and gather them again in a return to Judah. But here’s the thing. It’s not going to be one or two years. It’s going to be decades.
We will be here, exiled, for a significant amount of time. So, we should get comfortable. Our little red star is smack-dab in the middle of exiled Babylon. “You Are Here,” Judah. And you will be for a while. So go live a full, beautiful life. A faithful and faith-filled life.
There’s a quote attributed to Martin Luther that I think is appropriate here. Full disclosure: he probably never said these words, but by now, they are canonized lore, and they make a good point.
When asked what he would do if he knew that tomorrow would bring the end of the world, he answered, “I would still plant my apple tree.”
Here in the exile; in the biggest interruption these people of God have ever faced; in what feels like a devastating ending for so many; God is using Jeremiah to call people to the work of beginning. God is using Jeremiah to call people to the work of creation. We hear echoes of our origin story, Genesis, in this letter. Jeremiah is encouraging God’s people to work fertile land. To eat its fruits. To increase in number instead of disappearing into oblivion.
Through Jeremiah, God says to God’s people, “Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you. For in its welfare, you will find your welfare.” Other translations use, “Seek the peace to find your peace;” “Seek the prosperity to find your prosperity;” “seek the well-being.” Any way you word it, it’s clear: God wants us to thrive.
Jeremiah is basically saying that, in the Venn Diagram of our vision for a relationship with God and God’s vision for a relationship with us, there is some pretty significant overlapping in the middle. But in times like these when our circle…our vision…doesn’t match our lived reality, we need to trust the parts of God’s circle…God’s vision for relationship with us…that we don’t know. That we can’t know. That we don’t understand. That we can’t understand.
And while that trust seems really abstract, it actually comes out in the little things. Our day-to-day habits and decisions. The minutia of our lives. We are wired to believe that living day-to-day becomes impossible if you can’t see the bigger picture or how you fit into it. God is saying to us that the bigger picture has already been sorted. Sure, we can chase after it. Ponder it. Explore it. Ask questions about it. Pray about it. Mourn it. Fight it, sometimes. But, by design, we will never understand the bigger picture the way God understand it.
And it is precisely because of that that we are liberated to put our energy into into the things we do understand. Very little, beautifully human, life-giving things.
You see, the most tempting thing to do with this passage is to isolate the first part of Verse 11: “For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord.” I mean; how well- known are those words? They’re on every mug and pillowcase and bumper sticker and cross-stitch and yearly planner that I can imagine. I think I’ve seen about 30 different tattoo designs: “For surely I know the plan I have for you.” When we isolate this idea; when we repeat these words and these words only, we subconsciously tell ourselves that God is off scheming, doing whatever God wants to do, and if we don’t understand what God is up to right now, that’s just too bad. When we isolate this idea; when we repeat these words and these words only, we paint a neglectful picture of God. A sterile, distant picture of God.
Jeremiah is trying to bring our attention to the latter part of Verse 11: the fact that God’s plans are “plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.”
Living in the present doesn’t mean ignoring the past or the future. Living in the present doesn’t mean denying the past or the future, either. It simply means remembering that we have God here with us now. We have God’s grace here, guiding us now. If we understand where we are, we can make sense of our surroundings and chart out our next steps in faith.
What a perfect message for us as we enter into the season of Advent, balancing our anticipation with a sense of here and now.
Amen.
This sermon was written and delivered on November 28, 2021.
Helpful influences include:
“314” Seek the Peace of the City” episode of the Bible Worm Podcast with Amy Robertson and Robert Williamson Jr (October 24, 2021)
“#469: Jeremiah’s Letter to the Exiles” episode of I Love To Tell The Story: Working Preacher Narrative Lectionary Podcast (November 21, 2021)
“Commentary on Jeremiah 29:1; 4-14” by Charles L. Aaron, Jr (November 28, 2021)
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