Pentecost 20 year C SermonEverything’s changed. Nothing is familiar.
You’re surrounded by strangers... with weird clothes and bizarre customs and...... speaking a strange language you can hardly understand...
You look out your window... and try to get your bearings...but it’s all so different...the sharp pang of longing for the way things used to be...
almost brings you to tears. [pause]
And everything that’s happened... has happened against your will. You worry about lost traditions...everything you’ve worked so hard for going down the drain...slipping away... out of control...your fearful... that everything you believe in...is just going to wither away and die...
Even the music...and the sacred ritual’s... Even the understanding of God...seems alien to you in this place. How on earth can you be expected to worship God in this environment...
Does that sound familiar to anyone?
In one way or another... at some time in your lives... every person here... has experienced this sense of being a stranger... an alien... an exile. Some of us know exactly what it feels like...
to be uprooted from our beloved homeland...
to be strangers in a strange land.
Today in our church family we have people from Korea, England, the United States, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Scotland, Australia, Canada...
people who’ve had to say good-by... to family and friends... people who’ve said farewell...
to familiar customs and... their favourite foods.
Still others may have come here from a big Kiwi city... or the farm... to a strange place... where everything’s on Wanaka time...and done the Wanaka way ...
rather than the comfortable familiar way they know.
But there are others of us... who sometimes feel like exiles in our own community... even in our own church. People who’ve had to say good-by to friends and family who moved away or died. People who used to know everybody in town... and now feel they’re surrounded by strangers.
People who grew up here... were even born here beneath these beautiful mountains and shining lakes...people who can not longer see the old familiar landmarks... because of all the building and development that’s happened.
And in church... there are people who feel like strangers in a strange land...some used to know all the hymns by heart...and grieve for the music they’ve loved... and the songs that helped them worship.
Still others... ache to hear guitars and drums and singing as they arrive at church...
singing that lasts ...until they sense a soaking of the Holy Spirit.
Most of us know what it’s like... to experience exile even in our own families...even from our friends...
I’d like to try an experiment in community right now... Would those of you who were brought up here... please walk back to where Stan and Elsie are sitting? Would those of you who immigrated from another country... please go to the kids corner.
And those who’ve shifted from a big city in New Zealand...go right over here. And what about coming off a distant farm...over here.
Every one of you... knows what it means...or will know what it means... to feel like a stranger in strange land ...particularly those who grew up here and for whom so much has changed. Ok you can all sit down
Now, if I were a false prophet... and wanted to be popular...I’d tell you to pray and to wait... for an intervention from God... to bring you back to the comfort and familiarity you once knew.
But instead... I’m going to show you what God’s remedy is... for those who find themselves in exile? And how God brings salvation and deliverance...
in unexpected ways...So let’s go back to our unhappy captive standing so sadly at their window.
Suddenly your musings are shattered... by a sharp knock at the door...You look up as a shaft of light pierces the gloom around you...two messengers thrust a letter into your hands
and disappear down the stairs...
You’re heart pounds when you see where it’s from...
You can’t wait to read it...but you want to savour the moment...so you make a cup of tea and cut a piece of cake. And take the letter back to the good light of the window.
You open the letter slowly... almost ceremoniously... and read...its from that old prophet Jeremiah
This is what the LORD Almighty,
the God of Israel says… to all those…
I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon:
"Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce.
Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease.
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Also, seek the shalom… the peace and prosperity and the wholeness…
of the place… to which I’ve carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for that placet, because if it prospers, you too will prosper."
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You're… not… going… back… anytime soon despite what the false prophets are telling you."
It’s Babylon...not Wanaka...And its six hundred years before Jesus was born... Nebuchadnezzar's army ransacks Jerusalem...and destroys the Temple...
Somewhere around ten thousand people… are taken captive and forced to relocate… to the city of Babylon, the capital of the Chaldean empire.
Only the most prominent citizens…people with political, religious and financial clout… professionals, priests, artisans, and the wealthy… were taken to Babylon…everyone who’d been part of the royal Jewish Temple establishment.
The peasants were allowed to stay behind… to work the land…and the prophet Jeremiah… outcast from the Temple had stayed behind with them.
And just when those who’d been dragged off
against their will… just when they so desperately... needed hope and comfort...just when they were praying for God to intervene...
the prophet Jeremiah...sends them an oracle from God... ‘Immediate deliverance is out of the question...they’d better get used to Babylon.
Don’t just sit around waiting for me to rescue you...
When I put you there in the first place...
so build...and plant...and increase... where you are...
Pray and work for the peace and wellbeing of the whole community...including and especially people that are not like you.
Exile is not the end...and nothing can stop God’s purpose of Shalom from being accomplished...even your so-called enemies...
God’s story isn't over after all...
and God’s family...isn't yet complete...
You see...to those who thought they were the chosen people... their captivity their deportation to Babylon was crushing... because God had promised to protect them God had promised to use them for his purposes. Judah was meant to be the promise land.
This crisis of faith... plunged the exiles into the most profound despair...we can hear it echoed in Psalm one thirty seven.
By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept ...when we remembered Zion. How can we sing the LORD’s song in a strange land?
But they obeyed... God’s command to build and plant and increase…and pray for the wellbeing of Babylon… and as the city of their enemy flourished...they flourished...
The exile caused the Jews in Babylon…
to reshape their view of reality…to advance their understanding of how and where and with whom God would work out his purposes of Shalom..
In fact they were so successful... after the seventy prophesied years of exile had passed...the majority decided to stay on. And so with two thriving centres…
in Babylon and Jerusalem…the Jewish people
were far better equipped… to survive the conquests…
of the Persians, and the Greeks and Romans.
And to get them there...it seems God used their enemies... to keep them there...their prayers for deliverance... were answered by a resounding...
‘not yet’...not till they worked... for the peace and prosperity of the whole community... to which God had brought them.
Long after the Persian King Cyrus conquered Babylon … and allowed the exiles to return to Jerusalem... a young rabbi would continue to reshape the Jewish world view… Jesus of Nazareth would teach a Gospel of shalom …peace compassion and mercy… intended for all humankind. And Jesus would announce this good news… over and against the deeply rooted…
Jewish belief… that God would soon intervene…
to cast out their Roman enemy.
Love your enemies... Jesus taught his disciples...
do good to them...Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. …give...and it will be given to you.
A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
Two thousand years later...here at the ends of the earth... what is an angry, lonely, doubting and fearful exile… to do with this story?
Well it seems to me…the lesson is clear…
no matter how uncomfortable we feel about change…no matter how strange the people around us seem to be…
we have a call from God to build and plant and increase wherever we find ourselves. We have a calling to pray and work…for the shalom…the wellbeing…of the whole community we’re in. Who knows…our definition of salvation might change…and we might just want to stay.
Why?
Because God’s story isn't over... God’s shalom is still needed... and God’s family isn't yet complete.
