A Home Away: Jeremiah 29:1, 1-14 - Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Since its founding as an orphans’ home in 1854, Glade Run Lutheran Services in Zelienople has expanded to provide educational and mental health services to children with special needs.

One question they had was what happens to youth who age out of their programming who have nowhere else to go?

They answered their own question when they broke ground on Jeremiah Village, shortly before the Covid-19 pandemic. The project, which was completed in 2021, aimed to provide long-term affordable housing to adults who would’ve otherwise lived the remainder of their lives in institutions, because 21^st century America is not accommodating to their needs nor appreciative of their gifts.

To offset the cost, there are apartments and townhomes available for lease at market rates to people without special needs but who want to live among neighbors with autism spectrum disorder or cognitive limitations.

Blue Suitcase by Drew Coffman on flickr. CC BY 2.0

Their naming of this community was inspired by our first reading Jeremiah 29: a letter to the exiles living in Babylon, encouraging them to make a home for themselves in this strange and inhospitable place, building houses, planting gardens, getting married, and bearing children. They should pray for the city and promote the welfare of all who live there. 

But to many, Jeremiah’s words were offensive and absurd.

When the armies of Babylon laid siege to Jerusalem, they led its citizens on a 900-mile death march to Babylon. When they got there, they were forced to fend for themselves. Most were forced to sell themselves into slavery to survive. 

The aim of the exile was to absorb the people of Jerusalem into the Babylonian melting pot, so that they were no longer a threat. Naturally, living in Babylon was like being boiled alive. 

Despite that, most of the exiles believed they’d be going home soon. But Jeremiah knew the exile was going to last a long time. He also knew that God had not brought them there to die. That is why it was written: “For surely, I know the plans I have for you, 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.”

Jeremiah’s message was that their exile was part of God’s greater plan for the redemption of the world. Though they are far from home, God is near. Salvation is near. But will they respond with faith to God’s promise?

Ever since the Exodus, God’s people have been a backward-looking people. When the wilderness was frightening and food and water ran scarce, they wanted to go back to Egypt. After they settled the Promised Land, they wanted a king, like the Pharoah, to rule over them. From the time of the exile to the time of Jesus, they wanted to go back to the glory days of King David. They saw their salvation as a return to the past.

We can identify with them, to an extent. The world has been changing so rapidly as to make the present feel like an exile. Wasn’t life better when the steel industry was thriving and our church was full? I miss the pre-9/11 world, when life was simpler, its pace was slower, and technology enhanced our lives rather than running our lives. 

Any more, we feel like strangers in a strange world, and the temptation, which many Christians succumb to, is to treat the world as the enemy. Rather than seeking the welfare of our communities, we fight culture wars. Life has become a battle of “us” versus “them.”

We treat the world as something that we need to escape from. We embrace this idea of the rapture, when God [allegedly] takes all the true Christians up to heaven, leaving everyone else to battle it out until Jesus returns in triumph. If I adopt that mindset, which concerns me more: if the neighborhood children have enough food to eat, or if I’ll be left behind? 

The exiles in Babylon were never going to win any culture wars, and they certainly weren’t going to convert massive numbers of Babylonians to faith in God. But God was giving them a future. Big things happen when people trust God in the face of insurmountable odds. Think of Joseph, whom God prospered in Egypt; Moses, who led God’s people out of Egypt; or Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego, who showed the corrupt kings who really was the one true God. Much of the Old Testament, as we know it today, was compiled during the exile as well as during the perilous years following its conclusion. God’s purposes will never fall victim to circumstance.

So do not think of yourself, and do not think of your church, as languishing amid the winds of misfortune. God doesn’t want the world to be the way it is, but God has put you in this world, and raised up our church, for a time as this. God has a purpose. God has a plan. We are right where we belong.

To truly be at home is not to be where you want to be in a distant past or a far-away fantasy. Home is where and when God dwells. Home is here and now. 

God’s salvation will be revealed in due time, if only we will seek him with our whole hearts. With God’s help, we will bear much fruit for the Kingdom of God. We will be a church that makes a difference. We will be people who are so full of Jesus Christ that our neighbors will be drawn to us. There will be healing. There will be transformation. There will be resurrection. 

Jeremiah 29:1, 4-14

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. 

 

⁴ Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: ⁵ Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. ⁶ 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. ⁷ 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.⁸ 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 your dreams that you dream, ⁹ for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them, says the Lord.

¹⁰ 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. ¹¹ 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.¹² Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you.¹³ When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart, ¹⁴ 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.