Scripture: A Prophetic Showdown between Expectation and Acceptance
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.
After Babylon had conquered Judah, looted and destroyed the Temple, and taken its population captive, carrying them into exile in Babylon, some Israelites still held out hope that their expulsion would be short-lived.
Right before today’s scripture, there is something of a prophetic showdown between Jeremiah and another prophet named Hananiah (cf. Jer 27-28). Jeremiah had fashioned an ox yoke and put it on himself, prophesying that the people of Judah would now live in bondage under Nebuchadnezzar for a long season. His message was not divine retribution but simply a call to acceptance. His point was not that God had abandoned the people but that exile was a reality now that would not quickly go away. Yes, the exile happened because Judah had previously abandoned the Lord, but this was not some divine tit for tat—"you leave me, I’ll leave you.” Exile was just the natural consequence of Judah’s waywardness and social dissolution. Their society had crumbled, and now they would live in captivity in Babylon for a long season (70 years, to be exact).
But against Jeremiah there rose a rival prophet named Hananiah. I imagine Hananiah was a darling of the people because he gave voice to the popular hope that the people’s Babylonian exile would be brief. In a dramatic confrontation with Jeremiah, he breaks the yoke that Jeremiah had fashioned for himself, and he declares that God will soon break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar and that within two years the people will return to their homeland. I imagine the crowd cheers as they see Jeremiah’s yoke broken, that they go wild as they see Hananiah triumphantly proclaim an imminent restoration to their homeland. Against Jeremiah’s cry to accept this new reality, they choose to cling to Hananiah’s expectations of triumph. They choose expectation over acceptance.
But around half a year later, Hananiah dies. Immediately after his death, Jeremiah writes the words that we read today.
Scripture:
“Their Peace Is Your Peace”
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.
To summarize these instructions in a few words: Make yourselves at home. Even though the language is different and you’re a second-class citizen and people look at you funny…live as though this is your home.
Now, at this point in Jeremiah’s instructions, the audience may have in their mind the creation of an Israelite enclave, a sort of Israelite island amid the chaotic sea of Babylon. They may be thinking, “Let’s circle the wagons as best we can and make do among ourselves. We’ll have each other’s back.” But Jeremiah continues….
7 But seek the welfare of the city—literally the “shalom” of the city, which can also be translated “peace 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 its peace you will find your peace. 8 For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let the prophets and the diviners who are among you (like Hananiah from before) deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that they dream, 9 for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them, says the LORD.
If thus far Jeremiah’s audience had been planning to live in an isolationist manner, an Israelite-first manner, only doing business with fellow Israelites, avoiding the Babylonians at all cost—then Jeremiah’s words here present quite a challenge. In an invitation that seems awfully prescient of Jesus’ own invitation to love our enemies, Jeremiah effectively says, “Seek the peace of the enemy among whom you live, and pray for them. Their peace is your peace” (29:7).
Welcoming
Others “Home” into God’s Kingdom
Recent events in our own world have raised yet again the question of the Jewish people’s place in our world. Some people look upon Jewish folks with suspicion if not outright fear or even hate. It is an age-old discrimination that the Jewish people have faced for thousands of years. And the reason for this discrimination is unique. It is not because the Jewish people plan revolution or actively threaten the standing governments in the nations they reside. It is simply because their loyalty to a nation or kingdom cannot be taken for granted—because their first loyalty is to God. As a Christ-follower, I’m envious of this trait. Christians all over the world have readily swallowed the kool-aid of their own nations, have happily identified themselves as German Christians or Russian Christians or American Christians, as though those two words and sets of loyalties bear no contradiction.
But what we see here in Jeremiah is that the difference, the holiness, the set-apartness of God’s people is not ultimately the threat that the world perceives it to be. God’s people do not so much stand against the kingdoms of the world but for the people in those kingdoms. “Their peace is your peace,” Jeremiah declares, meaning that in the end there is no “us” and “them.” In God’s eye, there is only “us.”
Wherever God’s people live, they are called to make their home. To be clear, Jeremiah is not calling for the Israelites to acculturate, to become Babylonian themselves, to make Babylon great. Babylon, as we will learn momentarily, is still destined for its own downfall, as all the kingdoms of this world are (including the kingdom of the nation in which we live). Jeremiah is not calling for the Israelites to become Babylonians but rather for them to welcome the people in Babylon “home” into God’s kingdom. Indeed the prophets’ vision is ultimately for a dissolution of nations into God’s one kingdom, as we hear in proclamations such as Isaiah’s: “In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it. Many peoples shall come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord…that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.’” (Isa 2:2-3).
Scripture:
“Like Lambs amid Wolves”
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.
You are likely familiar with these verses of hope. “Surely I know the plans…” (Jer 29:11). One of my seminary professors delighted in reminding us students that we should be careful of reciting these words too glibly from the pulpit, with too much self-assurance, that we should not let them be adopted into an easy spirituality of “Because I’m a Christian, everything’s going to be okay.” Because, as he pointed out, the context for these words of hope is actually an unimaginably difficult scenario. The promise of restoration is delivered primarily to a generation who will never see it (“only when Babylon’s seventy years are completed…”). Even so, that doesn’t mean these words aren’t hopeful. It’s just their hope isn’t borne of selfish expectation but of faithful acceptance.
Acceptance of what? That God’s people are always on the move. That home is not a place but a way of life—whether they’re living in Babylon or returning to their “homeland.” In one sense, there is a certain incongruity or oddity in the fact that God calls the Israelites to make their homes in Babylon and grow their families there, only to yank them out seventy years later. It’s like planting something and then only when its roots begin to spread, pulling it up to plant it somewhere else. But this incongruity or oddity makes sense when we begin to see God’s kingdom not as a place but a way of life that is meant to be lived and modeled and shared wherever God’s people live.
When Jesus sends out the seventy-two to proclaim the good news, he says, “Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. Do not take a purse or bag or sandals” (Luke 10:3-4). In other words, travel light; you’ll be on the move. And live “like lambs” amid the “wolves” of this world, until—as the prophet Isaiah foretold—the wolves are so changed by your way that they decide to live like you, peacefully lying down by your side (cf. 11:6).
Martin Luther King, Jr. once said that the church “is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state,” hitting upon a distinction as old as the one we see in Jeremiah. God’s people do not bear loyalty to one land or another, but to God and to living in God’s way wherever they are.
Today is Christ the King Sunday. And perhaps it is fitting that we find ourselves with the people of God in a foreign land. In the land of their enemy. Because Christ is not crowned king by conquest, by planting a flag in the soil, by playing a triumphant anthem.
A part of me finds it curious that we even have Christ the King Sunday, considering there is a passage in scripture where the people try to make Jesus king and he runs away, refusing the honor (cf. John 6). Jesus does not want to be king, at least not the kind of king our world wants. Jesus doesn’t want packed auditoriums with people praising his name once a week. He doesn’t want soundbites on the television, with people talking a big talk in his name. They already have their reward, he says. He wants not wolves but lambs, people who humbly live in his way all the time, especially the little moments, the moments when no one is looking. Like when people cook food for someone who is grieving, or build a ramp for someone who is injured, or write a card to someone who needs encouragement. Like when people make a phone call or visit to someone who is lonely in the hospital or confined to their home, or make a craft filled with joy and inspiration, or tell stories of good news (whether from scripture or our own lives), or sing beautiful songs that break our hearts open.
Jesus doesn’t want a crown, he wants God’s kingdom come on earth.
So today, on Christ the king Sunday, maybe we can talk about Christ’s coronation not in terms of a high ceremony but in terms of how we live. Christ is “crowned king” when we live like he did. When we love our enemies, do good to those who hate us, bless those who curse us. When we turn the other cheek, embrace the excluded, and show mercy to all. When we live simply, serve others, and live in gratitude. Which is all to say—going back to Jeremiah’s vision—when we seek the peace of the place where we are; when we live like “lambs amid wolves,” after the example of our lord, whom John of Patmos calls “the lamb that was slain [now] standing [in the midst of the throne].”
Who is our lord,
We marvel still
At your way of mercy
…
Grant us courage
To live as peaceful ambassadors of your kingdom
Amid the kingdoms of the world,
That we might share with others
The joy of being at home with you.
Amen.
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