How Do We Respond?

Dearly Beloved, 

Jeremiah 29:4-14 is a passage of scripture worth spending a lot of time with these days. The prophet speaks a word from God to the people who had been forced into exile after the Babylonian empire seized Jerusalem, destroyed the temple, and conducted two waves of mass deportations. It’s a pattern repeated over and over throughout the Bible and Christian history. Geopolitical winds force a crisis, the world as we knew it is upended, and God’s people are forced to the margins with nothing to cling to but the promises of God. 

As both Christians and Americans, we find ourselves in a similar season of disruption and displacement. There are deep cracks in the structures and models of church we have inherited, and it is clear business as usual is no longer a faithful or sustainable course. And the ascendance of a populist authoritarianism committed to sowing chaos is testing every limit of our democracy. 

Jeremiah 29 seeks to answer the burning question for both the people of ancient Israel and us: how are we to respond? The prophet offers us at least three important postures to adopt in such a season:

Settle in to the unsettledness

Even as Jeremiah reassures the exiles of God’s provision, care, and promise, he tells them to build houses and plant gardens. You only build houses and plant gardens if you plan to stay put for a while. The massive changes and challenges facing both the church and the world will not be resolved quickly or easily. We will have to spend some time in this liminal wilderness. We are no longer what we once were, and who we will be has not yet emerged. We will meet God right here, right now, by being fully present where we are, and to the margins. We need not force a resolution or wait for a solution. 

Look to the past to harvest its wisdom, not to nurse our nostalgia

While God promises deliverance and restoration to the exiles, he makes the promise as “plans to give you hope and a future.” We so often long to return to some imagined past in the church when the pews and Sunday schools were full, budgets were flush, and we enjoyed an abundance of political and cultural influence. But there is no golden age in either the church or the nation to which we can or should return. God’s action is always forward, and we look to the past—studying the scriptures and the saints of our own history—to learn how our spiritual ancestors navigated seasons of exile before us, not to try to reclaim it by force.

Embrace God’s economics

The economics of empire tell us that our value is determined by what we have or accomplish. They tell us that life is fundamentally a fight to the death for scarce and limited resources, and that the point of our lives and congregations is to acquire more. The economics of God, on the other hand, affirm the truth that we have when we give, we are fed by feeding others, and we truly live only when we die to ourselves. The economics of God ask us to “seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile.” The economics of God invite us to practice radical love and generosity wherever we are planted, and wherever we sojourn. 

Today, as in every season of disruption and crisis, we are invited to stand as small communities who witness to God’s coming reign of justice and love, and who resist the forces of violence and despair by living as people of hope, clinging tightly to the gift we have in each other, and the promises of almighty God, of which the resurrection we acclaim each and every time we worship is the sure and certain sign. 

Grace and Peace, 

The Right Rev. Craig Loya