A Sermon for Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church
23rd November 2025
Jeremiah 29.1, 4–14; John 14.27
Let us pray.
Loving God, giver of life and justice,
you plant us in your world and
invite us to flourish in the midst of change.
Give us ears to hear your word today,
eyes to see your presence in
the places we least expect,
and courage to live your hope
now. Amen.
A letter sent into exile
Jeremiah’s letter is written to a
people whose world has fallen apart.
The Babylonians have destroyed
Jerusalem, ransacked the temple,
and marched the leaders,
priests, and artisans of Judah into captivity.
All the symbols of divine favour —
land, king, temple —
have been swept away.
The people are left asking the
hardest question of all:
Where is God now?
Into that despair comes a letter
from home.
But it’s not the sort of
message they were hoping for.
It doesn’t promise an immediate
rescue or call them to armed revolt.
It’s not a manifesto for quick
restoration or a rousing cry of national pride.
Instead, Jeremiah tells them to settle down.
To build houses and plant
gardens.
To have children, and live
ordinary lives.
It’s extraordinary.
At the very moment when the exiles
want to flee,
Jeremiah tells them to stay.
When they want to keep their bags
packed,
he says, “Unpack.”
When they want to curse Babylon,
he says, “Pray for it.”
But hear this, what we have here is
not passive acceptance of injustice.
It is rather a profound act of
theological resistance.
Jeremiah is saying that Babylon
does not have the last word on their lives.
That the empire cannot erase
God’s purpose.
He is telling the exiles that they can live faithfully, even in exile.
That God’s covenant has not
been cancelled by geography.
So when Jeremiah says,
“Seek the welfare of the city
where I have sent you into exile,”
he is reminding them — and us — that God’s sovereignty
extends even into the places
of displacement.
The exiles thought their faith
could only survive in Jerusalem.
But Jeremiah says, “No — you
can worship, serve, and live justly
even here, in exile in
Babylon, even now.”
And then we reach that beloved
verse:
“For 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.”
We often quote this as a personal
comfort, and rightly so,
but it’s not a promise of easy
success or guaranteed happiness.
It’s a declaration that God’s
purposes endure even in exile.
The ‘plans’ it speaks of are not
about individual prosperity;
they are about collective
restoration.
God’s future emerges not by
escaping Babylon,
but by being faithful within
it.
So, Jeremiah’s letter invites us
to discover
that exile is not the end of
the story.
Sometimes, exile is the place
where God teaches us how to live again.
Hope that shapes action
Hope, in Jeremiah’s world, is not
a warm feeling or a wistful wish.
It is a concrete way of
living.
Jeremiah doesn’t say, “Wait
patiently and everything will get better.”
He says, “Start living as if
the future God has promised is already true.”
Build. Plant. Marry. Multiply.
Pray.
These are words of movement,
creation, and care.
They root hope in daily life,
in the soil beneath your feet.
Jeremiah’s instruction is not to
retreat into pious isolation
or hide away until it’s all
over,
but to engage fully in the life of the city,
even when the city feels
foreign and strange.
This kind of hope is deeply
political.
It resists despair, but it
also resists illusion.
It acknowledges suffering and
injustice
but refuses to let them define
the limits of possibility.
Jeremiah’s vision undermines
empire’s power
by insisting that real life —
meaningful, flourishing, God-shaped life —
can happen even under imperial
domination.
For us, this means that Christian
hope
is never detached from the
public realm.
It’s not an inward spiritual
comfort that leaves the world unchanged.
It’s an embodied commitment to
live differently
in the midst of the world as
it is.
When we, as the church in
Bloomsbury,
work with others for housing
justice, or campaign for fair pay,
or welcome those whom society
or church excludes,
we are living Jeremiah’s
vision.
We are saying that Babylon does
not have the final say over human flourishing.
And notice something subtle:
Jeremiah doesn’t call the
exiles to convert Babylon,
or to make it more like
Jerusalem.
He calls them to seek its welfare.
That’s a remarkable phrase.
It means our wellbeing is tied
up with the wellbeing of our neighbours
whether or not they share our
faith.
For a church like ours, rooted in
this diverse city, this is vital.
The flourishing of London,
the wellbeing of those who
live and work around us,
migrants, artists, students, workers,
the unhoused, the lonely, the asylum seeker and the
refugee,
is bound up with our own.
When the city thrives, we thrive.
And when the city suffers, we
suffer too.
Jeremiah’s letter calls us to that
deep solidarity,
the recognition that God’s
shalom is not a private possession
but a shared ecosystem of
justice and compassion.
Living faithfully in a culture
of displacement
There’s a deep resonance between
the exiles of Babylon
and our experience as the
church today.
We, too, live in a kind of exile,
not a physical one, but
cultural, moral, and spiritual exile.
Once, the church was at the centre
of society’s story.
Its voice was heard, its
rituals respected, its buildings filled.
But now we find ourselves at the
margins,
in a post-Christendom world
where the church is often
ignored, misunderstood, or treated as irrelevant.
Some Christians lament this,
longing for a return to what was.
But perhaps, like Jeremiah, we
should see this not as disaster but as invitation.
Exile can be painful, but it can
also be purifying.
It strips away our illusions
about power and privilege
and invites us to rediscover
what faithfulness really means.
In exile, the people of Judah had
to learn to live without the temple,
without the trappings of
authority.
They had to learn to trust that
God was still with them.
And perhaps the same is true
for us.
We are being called to let go of
nostalgia,
to stop yearning for a
“Christian nation”
that never truly
embodied Christ’s way,
and instead to live faithfully
in the world as it is.
Our calling is not to recover
influence but to model integrity.
In a consumerist, distracted,
and often unjust culture,
we are to show what life looks
like
when shaped by generosity,
forgiveness, humility, and courage.
Our exile can be holy.
It can teach us to rely less
on status and more on grace.
It can free us to act in solidarity
with those who have always
lived on the margins.
It can remind us that God’s presence is not confined to our sanctuaries,
but pulses through the streets
of the city,
through the lives of those who
hunger and thirst for righteousness.
And so, like Jeremiah’s exiles,
we are called to seek the
welfare of the city,
to pray for our neighbours, to work for justice,
to cultivate beauty in
unlikely places.
Because even in Babylon, the
Spirit still moves.
Even in exile, God is near.
The peace of Christ and the
promise to the church
In John’s Gospel, Jesus offers his
disciples a gift
that seems almost impossible
in the moment:
“Peace I leave with you; my peace
I give to you.
I do not give to you as the
world gives.”
He speaks these words on the night
of betrayal.
He knows the cross is coming.
His friends will scatter.
The movement they have built
will appear crushed.
Yet he speaks of peace.
This peace is not about calm
circumstances or the absence of conflict.
It’s not the peace that comes
from being safe or successful.
It’s the peace that arises from
knowing that God’s love cannot be defeated.
It’s the deep, resilient peace
that holds us steady
when everything around us is
shaking.
When Jesus says, “Do not let your
hearts be troubled,”
he’s not telling us to
suppress fear or pretend we’re fine.
He’s inviting us to trust that even in the darkest moments,
we are held by a love that
will not let us go.
This is the same peace Jeremiah’s
exiles needed,
the confidence that God was
still at work, even in a foreign land.
The peace of Christ empowers us to
live faithfully in the midst of uncertainty,
to act for justice even when
the results are slow,
to speak truth even when the
world mocks or resists it.
And notice: Jesus contrasts his
peace with the world’s peace.
The world’s peace is fragile,
maintained by violence,
enforced by control, dependent
on winning.
Christ’s peace is creative,
vulnerable, and enduring.
It doesn’t depend on
circumstances;
it depends on presence; the
presence of the God who dwells with us.
That’s the peace we are invited to
receive.
And it is this peace that
equips us to live hopefully in exile,
without bitterness, without
fear.
Living as exiles — agents of
hope
So what does this mean for us,
here and now,
in this church, in this city?
What does it mean for us to live
as resident aliens
in our own city of exile here
in London?
Well, firstly I think it is no
excuse for passivity.
Rather, it’s a summons to
creative action.
Jeremiah calls the exiles to build
and plant,
to create life in the midst of
loss.
For us, that means committing
ourselves to this place,
to this city, this
congregation, this work.
It means building relationships
that sustain us,
planting seeds of compassion
and justice that may outlast us.
When we partner with Citizens UK,
when we host interfaith
gatherings,
when we welcome refugees,
when we offer hospitality in
our building,
we are living as exiles
who believe that Babylon is
not beyond redemption.
It also means seeking the welfare
of the city,
and not just in prayer but also
in action.
Our calling is not to withdraw
into purity or comfort,
but to engage the messy,
beautiful, broken life of London
with courage and love.
To challenge systems that exploit
the poor,
to speak out for the
voiceless,
to hold hope when others
despair.
And we must also resist the false
prophets of our age,
those who offer easy answers,
who preach prosperity without
justice
or spirituality without
solidarity.
Jeremiah warns against voices that
deny the reality of exile
or promise shortcuts to
restoration.
True faith faces the world as it
is
and still chooses to act with
compassion and courage.
Finally, Jeremiah calls us to seek
God with all our hearts,
to look for the divine not
only in worship
but in the daily work of
living.
Because even in exile, God can be
found.
When hope feels fragile
Jeremiah’s letter has a quiet
tenderness that I find deeply human.
He doesn’t tell the exiles to
cheer up.
He acknowledges their pain. He
honours their loss.
And then he tells them to live
anyway.
That’s what real hope looks like.
It’s not denial; it’s
defiance.
It’s the stubborn insistence that life is still worth living, even in Babylon.
There are times when we all
experience exile,
when our prayers seem
unanswered, when our energy runs low,
when our efforts for justice
feel like droplets in a vast sea of indifference.
When inclusion feels like an
uphill struggle,
and compassion seems in short
supply.
In those moments, we remember that
the call to build and plant
is not conditional on success.
It’s rooted in faithfulness.
God doesn’t ask us to fix
everything;
God asks us to keep sowing
seeds of hope,
trusting that they will bear
fruit in God’s time.
And we remember, too, that the God
who calls us to plant gardens
also calls us to bear the
cross.
The peace of Christ doesn’t remove
us from struggle;
it accompanies us through it.
It steadies us, renews us, and
reminds us
that the resurrection life is
already breaking through,
quietly, persistently, in acts
of love and justice
that may seem small but are
never wasted.
When hope feels fragile, when the
night feels long,
we hold fast to the promise:
“You will seek me and find me when
you search for me with all your heart.”
That’s not a demand for perfection,
it’s an assurance that God is
already seeking us, even as we seek God.
Conclusion – Hope, peace,
action
So, my friends, what do we take
from this letter to the exiles
and the words of Jesus?
First, that exile is not the end
of faith,
it is often where faith begins
again.
When the familiar structures fall away,
we discover a God who is not
confined to our comfort zones.
Second, that hope is not waiting
for the world to change,
but living as if it already
has.
We build, plant, and work for justice
not because success is
guaranteed,
but because this is what it
means to be faithful people of God.
Third, that the peace of Christ is
not a promise of ease,
but a promise of presence.
It is the deep assurance that, even in exile,
we are held by love, guided by
purpose, and empowered to act.
And finally, that our wellbeing is
bound up with the welfare of our city.
The kingdom of God is not
something we bring down from heaven;
it’s something we uncover,
nurture, and live into,
here, in the heart
of London, among our neighbours and friends.
So go, and build houses. Plant
gardens. Seek the good of the city.
For in its welfare, you will
find your welfare.
And may the peace of Christ, not
as the world gives, but as love gives,
be with you now and always.
Amen.
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