When Dreams Unravel

Jeremiah 29:1-7

October 17, 2021

Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley

Image: New Roots

by Lauren Wright Pittman

Note: A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here: https://youtu.be/gj8UkEXR1p4

I’m going to describe a scenario. See if it sounds at all familiar.

Something very bad happens. The event is widespread. It effects people of all ages and stages of life. It effects the entire country. In fact, it is an international event. As it is happening, people try to make sense of it The historians speak. The politicians pontificate. The preachers and prophets weigh in. But of course, they don’t all say the same thing. They each speak from their own point of view, about the outcome they desire or to shift the narrative in such a way that they preserve the most power. And some just tell the truth as clearly as they understand it.

In the country where this devastating event happened, the people listen. Some listen to those who promise the outcome they desire. Some listen to those whom they admired before the devastating event. Most listen to those they believe are telling the clearest truth. After all that listening, the citizens are aligned with the historians or the politicians or the preachers and the country continues to suffer. It suffers because of the event itself and because the people are not united in their response to it.

Does that sound familiar? If it sounds like something you might have experienced, would you please raise your hand?

Thank you.

That scenario was, of course, a description of the capture of Judah by Babylon in the sixth century BCE. If you thought I was talking about something else, maybe that’s just a reminder that human beings may not have changed all that much.

The event was the capture of Judah. The armies of Babylon had ransacked the capital and destroyed the temple. They had hauled off to Babylon the king and his mother, all the officials and warriors and skilled craftspeople along with the best treasurers from the palace and the temple. Most of Judah’s wealth and leadership was in Exile. It was a devastating event. It was felt at every level. Jeremiah 7 mentions that weddings are not happening any more. No one can summon the feeling of celebration necessary for such an occasion. Chapter 16 says that the old and young are dying and no one laments them – there are no more funerals.

People are stunned. They are traumatized. They never thought this could happen to them, even though some of the prophets had been warning that something just like this was probably going to happen if they didn’t change their ways.

And even now that it has happened, even now that the king is in exile and the temple is in ruins, some people don’t want to believe it. Faced with the reality that it did really happen, they want it to be over, to be resolved as soon as possible, so that life can get back to normal.

The prophet Jeremiah stayed in Judah where he had been ministering for 45 years. The same people who didn’t listen to him when he warned them about Babylon don’t want to listen now, even though his prophecies have come true. They prefer to listen to a guy named Hananiah. Hananiah says that the Temple treasures are going to be returned and all those in Exile are coming home soon. His definition of “soon” is within two years. He claims that this is a word from the Lord.

But Jeremiah has a different word from the Lord. He says that things are going to get worse before they get better. The temple treasures are not coming back within two years. In fact, whatever is left there will also be taken away. According to Jeremiah, the Exile will not end for another 70 years.

Jeremiah and Hananiah are both in Judah. Hundreds of miles away, in Babylon, the people are divided along the same lines. Using the social media of the day, Jeremiah and his opponents write public letters back and forth. Our reading from chapter 29 is one of Jeremiah’s letters.

God’s message to the people has two parts. The first part is “live fully now.” The second part is “keep hope alive for a new and different future.”

“Live fully now,” says Jeremiah. Build houses and live in them; plant gardens. Buy washing machines and other major appliances. Embrace the life that is yours in exile. Stop expecting things to be like they used to be. Live the life that is yours now, not the life that was. Suck it up and deal.

If that’s Jeremiah’s best pastoral care, that might explain why he was called a prophet and not a priest. These are the people who wrote Psalm 137 about weeping by the river because they were so homesick. These are the ones who said “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” “How can we worship God when we cannot even gather together in our holy place?”

But Jeremiah’s word from God is to settle down, to make the best of the situation, to live fully now. Embrace the life that is yours in exile.

We have been trying to do that, haven’t we? We have adapted to the life that is ours now. Going to work and school, finding ways to worship together. We’ve even figured out how to do graduations and weddings and funerals again. We are making the best of it, but most of us are not exactly embracing this life.

I am hearing from several of you and also from friends beyond Emmanuel that you feel like you’re in exile. Actually you don’t say that. What you say is that you aren’t enjoying life as much as you used to. You’re grateful for your health and family and all those good things, but there’s a kind of heaviness that wasn’t there before. What you say is that you keep messing up little things like forgetting to sign a check before you put it in the mail or screwing up the time and days of appointments. People are quitting their jobs in record numbers – 4.3 million Americans quit their jobs in August and that was the sixth month in a row with sky-high quitting rates.[1] People are burned out and fed up and not willing to work in conditions that they used to. Big things feel overwhelming and even the small things of every day life seem to take a lot more effort. We are not exactly embracing this life.

I have been describing some parallels between the Biblical exile and our current situation. It is always dangerous to put ourselves into any Biblical story and assume that the word of God understood in that time and place applies directly to us. So, I am doing this cautiously. And I’m doing so, trusting that you will also examine it carefully to find the truth for our own time.

I do think that this letter from Jeremiah might be good counsel for us. Embrace life as it is, because it is the only life we now have.

As they settle in, Jeremiah says, that they are to seek the shalom of the city. Work for the well-being of all. They cannot withdraw into a separate existence, because even in exile, they have a missional responsibility.[2]

They are to care for their own needs – planting gardens, raising children, adapting worship without the temple. Those are good and faithful tasks. And also, this small, vulnerable minority is to understand that their well-being is bound up with the well-being of those around them. Seek the shalom of the city where you now live, Jeremiah says.

The first part of Jeremiah’s letter tells them to embrace the life they have, to adapt as necessary and seek the common good now. The second part is there is hope for a different future in the long-run.

It is the people who are in Babylon, not the ones at home in Judah, who offer the best hope for the future, as Jeremiah sees it. A future generation will arise, a generation shaped by those living through exile right now – that generation will sustain God’s dream for the people of Judah. In spite of this serious upheaval to their way of life, in spite of the wrecking ball that is tearing down their understanding of God, the good news here is that God’s dream goes on. Future generations will have faith; they will continue to participate the abundance of life God offers.

But the message is also that there are long-term consequences to what they (and we) do now. We no longer have the life we once did. Some used to say that the golden age of the American church was in 1950’s. Now, we look back on 2019 with nostalgia.

The exiles in Babylon learned many things – how to relate to their enemies, how to speak another language, to function in another culture, how to sustain faith beyond the walls of their holy building. They adapted, and because of that, the next generation was more resilient.

Legend has it that the reformer Martin Luther, said “Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.”

I think this is where we are right now. The world might go to pieces tomorrow, or maybe it already did yesterday, but we still plant apple trees. We are adapting, not just to the pandemic, but to a seismic shift that has come with it. A shift in our thinking about what really matters, about what work is for, about where God is, about how to sustain a faith community, a shift in our awareness about our inter-connectedness with our friends and our enemies and the planet. We will be adapting to this shift for at least the next 70 years, I expect. There will be long-term consequences for the actions we take now.

Which is why I believe that Jeremiah’s counsel to those in exile in the 6th century BCE is still relevant: Embrace the life we have now. Adapt with wisdom and courage. Hope relentlessly for a different future.

Yes, this is a difficult word. As hard for me as for you. As the apostle Paul said to the church in Rome, “suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts.”

Suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts. Thanks be to God.

[1] https://time.com/6106322/the-great-resignation-jobs/

[2] Walter Brueggemann, A Commentary on Jeremiah: Exile and Homecoming, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmanns, 1998), p 257-258