Jer 29: 4-7

When I was in seminary I fell in love with this particular section of scripture. Most people when they think of the words of the prophet Jeremiah, especially in chapter 29, think of the often quoted, “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.” But for me, when I think of Jeremiah I think of his call that comes for the folks in Israel to settle in and to pray for the peace of where they are located.

And where exactly are the people of Israel and Jeremiah at in chapter 29? Babaloyn. Exile. They have been taken from Judea and now are refugees in a strange and foreign land. A land of their enemies. A land where they are being held captive. 

In the midst of all of the heartache of being far from home and not of their own choosing the people start to do what many of us would do in their shoes - they look out into the unknown future and they start to long for what once was. They are thinking about all of the trauma they have experienced and the loneliness that marks their current lives and they wish it would just go away and go away quickly.

There are even prophets, albeit false prophets, who are telling the folks that’s what’s going to happen. If they could only just weather this for a little while, two years at most, then they will be able to return back to home. Back to normal. 

To which the prophet Jeremiah has a different message - yes the future is unknown. Yes, there’s a lot of ambiguity right now. But stop expecting a quick and easy return to Judah.  In fact, settle in because we are in this for the long haul. 

Not a popular message to be sure.

But nonetheless true. 

In the words of the prophet Jeremiah - Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have kids. Keep doing life, just differently and in a strange place, because this is our current reality. 

I first learned this particular scripture in the context of being a faith based community organizer with Communities of Shalom. I was sent to Texas one summer to live and settle in and be with the people to build community. Even in the midst of tension. Even in the midst of poverty. Even in the midst of violence and decline and pain. 

But while I was there I talked about what could be. That this is where we are now - but it’s not God’s vision for the future. See God’s vision is one of Shalom - peace, wholeness, completeness, well-being. But while that is God’s vision that we are to put our hope in, we had to       journey through where we currently were to get there. When I was in Texas we had to journey through our current reality to get to the promise of hope. For the people of Israel, they had to settle down into Jerusalem for this part of the journey in order to return to the Promise Land. For us, my friends, we need to settle down into this season in order to get to a place of healing and wholeness.

See, while I like this particular scripture, it honestly would not let me go this week looking at our current reality. Friends, it seems like there is no quick fix to be had with the situation with COVID-19, and like the Israelites many of us are longing and yearning for our former life. And to us, just like those Israelites long ago, it would seem the prophet Jeremiah’s words are harsh at first - settle on in, hunker down, we are going to be here a while. Yet, they are also an invitation. 

A companion text to Jeremiah that is perhaps more well known is Psalm 137 (made popular in our time by Don McLean with his 1971 song “By the Waters of Babylon” based on this text). Psalm 137 asks this question of a desperate people, “how are we to sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?” In other words, how are we to seek the Lord in this place? How are we to know who we are in this land? 

To which Jeremiah replies you are to seek the welfare of the city you are in and pray to the Lord for it, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. Who are you in this strange time? You are still the church - even when we can’t meet in our buildings. How are we to seek the Lord in this place? By crying out to God in prayer. And not just pray for the people we know or the people who are like us - but the people of the world, Church, who are struggling like we are struggling here.

We may be in a strange land - a land many of us have never experienced before - but we still sing the Lord’s song. We may not know the future, but we know where healing and wholeness and peace will come from - from the Lord alone. We know our comfort will come from the Lord’s hand, in the words of the prophet Isaiah. 

But Pastor Michelle, shouldn’t we think that all of this will end soon? That my friends is optimism and optimism is not the same thing as hope. Earlier this week, a colleague and I were talking about a project that we oversee. We were talking about scheduling a date for said project on the calendar, to which he said to me, “that’s very optimistic”. As I reflected on his words, I realized that optimism or what I want to be true is not the same thing as the hope of Jesus Christ. 

Who is my hope in right here and right now - Jesus Christ. And what hope has been coming to me again and again this week - “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” I may feel like I want to resist or resent our current circumstances because they make me feel weak and out of control - but friends, I never really had any control in the first place. And what seems like a weakness on my end is all to the honor and glory of the power of Christ on the Kingdom end. 

So what are we to do in a time such as this? The same thing the folks in Jeremiah’s time were called to do - to settle in and pray. To pray for even those we once considered enemies, because they are facing the same thing here and now as us. To pray for grace. To pray for acceptance and to pray for healing - because we have hope in the One our healing comes from. St. Theresa of Liseaux puts the spiritual wisdom of settling down and being in prayer this way, “One must have passed through the tunnel to understand how black the darkness is.”

But there is a light, my friends. Perhaps it is just the light of a single candle in what seems like a world of darkness, but it is still there. So I want to invite us this week to be in prayer every single time we see or light a candle. When we do so, I invite us to pray for three things. First, pray for each other. Remember each other in prayer, for it is one of the ways we support one another as the body of Christ. Two, like Jeremiah encourage the people of Israel, pray for someone you don’t agree with (or perhaps may even consider an enemy.) This isn’t just praying that they be changed. It’s praying for them as you pray for each other. Pray for their peace, for in doing so, we will find our own peace as well. Three, pray for the city in which you live, the county, the state, the nation, the continent, and the world. For we are all in this together.

If you want to take it a step further, take a picture of the candles you see and share them as a call to pray. Often when an event rocks an area there is a prayer vigil with candles - only right now we cannot be gathered together in one place to pray. So let us share our candles far and wide as a call to prayer. By accepting we are in this together and handing it over in prayer, we know that our healing is coming. It may seem like we are in the darkness, but Shalom is coming my friends. Amen.