Jeremiah 29.1-2, 4-14
John 14.22-27
The news this week, of 27 refugees
including
children and a pregnant woman drowned in the English Channel,
having
risked everything in a desperate search for a new life,
is yet another reminder to us that people-displacement
as a result
of violence and exploitation
is a very
real and tragic part of our world.
It is my firm belief that our society should be a place
where the
refugee finds welcome and support,
and that as Christians our scriptures offer us ample
justification
for arguing
that this should be the case.
As we begin the season of Advent this week,
we will be
addressing the theme of hope,
and I think we are called to hope for a better world,
to hope for
a country where strangers are made welcome,
to hope for communities where generosity displaces selfish
motives,
where
inclusion displaces prejudice;
and for that hope to become within us a deep longing,
which
drives us, in our actions and interactions,
to be part
of creating the world in which we long to live.
If you, like me, found yourself horrified and appalled
that people
should die like this, within sight of our shores,
then we need to be asking ourselves what we are going to do
about it?
What actions can we take to build a world
where the
outcome for refugees seeking a new life away from war
is not
death in the English Channel?
As a church we are a key member of the West End Welcome
project,
and I know
many of you have been praying for Fatima and Amina
over the last couple of years since
they arrived with us
from the refugee camp in Iraq.
And I also
know that many of you have provided practical support
to them during this time too.
We should not underestimate the impact of our welcome and
generosity
to those
who have come to our part of London in this way,
and we will continue to welcome and support others in
similar ways.
The welcoming and integration of refugees into our society
through
community schemes such as West End Welcome
not only helps the refugees themselves,
it builds a
culture of acceptance, of generosity,
from which
we all benefit.
But of course, small-scale acts of assistance, significant
though they are,
are only
part of the bigger picture.
From our voting decisions in local and national elections,
to our
engagement with charities and NGOs that advocate for refugee rights,
there are many ways that we can seek the welfare
of those
who are exiled to our city.
Which brings me to Jeremiah,
and to an
ancient but compellingly contemporary story
of exile,
people-displacement, refugees, war, and violence;
and the question of where God is to be found in the middle
of it all!
Our reading today from the book of the prophet Jeremiah
picks up
the story of Israel’s history,
some 100 years on from last week’s
reading from Isaiah 9,
and the creation of Israel’s
messianic expectation.
If Isaiah saw that the writing was on the wall for Jerusalem
and its temple,
by the time
of Jeremiah the walls had come tumbling down.
Jeremiah was a prophet living in Jerusalem,
and he
witnessed the destruction of the city at the hands of the Babylonians.
What happened was that in 597BCE,
the army of
King Nebuchadnezzar invaded Jerusalem,
and carried off the newly-crowned Israelite King Jehoiachin into
exile,
along with
a whole bunch of nobles and prophets,
including
Ezekiel and other elite members of the Jerusalem establishment.
In his place, Nebuchadnezzar installed a puppet king called
Zedekiah
onto the
throne in Jerusalem,
expecting him to keep the Israelites in check and pay their
taxes.
However, about ten years later, Zedekiah revolted against
Babylon
and sought
an alliance with Egypt to secure independence for Jerusalem.
To say Nebuchadnezzar was unimpressed would be an understatement,
and in
587BCE the Babylonians swept in to destroy Jerusalem and the Temple,
and to carry much of the rest of the population of the city
into Exile in Babylon.
So, among the ruins of Jerusalem,
Jeremiah
the prophet wrote to the exiles in Babylon.
He had been counselling Zedekiah to submit to Babylon,
but had
been ignored;
and so he then wrote to those who have been deported
with a
similar, and perhaps surprising, message.
He told them not to rebel,
not to seek
to harm their enemies the Babylonians.
Rather, he said they should seek the welfare of the city where
God has sent them.
And there is a key point here that I think we need to hear
very clearly,
if we are
to get to grips with what it means for us to live faithfully in our world.
None of us should ever think of ourselves as natives.
We are all,
theologically speaking, exiles.
Our true eternal home is the Kingdom of God.
Our only
King is Christ,
as we
proclaimed last week at the feast of Christ the King.
All other homes and rulers are secondary and temporal.
They may be
long-term, but they are not permanent.
However, this does not mean that we should seek their
downfall or destruction.
The theologian William Willimon uses the phrase ‘Resident Aliens’
to describe
the people of God in the world.
He says we are not to think of ourselves
in terms of
being part of this tribe, or that tribe,
but rather as a people with a different allegiance,
that leads
us to work for the good of the whole world.
Listen to this quote. He says,
“We reject the charge
of tribalism,
particularly from those whose
theologies
serve to buttress the most nefarious
brand of tribalism of all
—the
omnipotent state.
The church is the one
political entity in our culture
that is global, transnational,
transcultural.
Tribalism is not the
church determined to serve God rather than Caesar.
Tribalism is [any political state],
which sets up artificial boundaries
and defends them with murderous
intensity.”
― William H. Willimon, Resident Aliens: Life in the
Christian Colony
It is often said that the definition of being a ‘Londoner’
is simply
being someone who lives in London,
regardless
of where you were actually born and raised.
There is a tension here:
I am Simon
from Sevenoaks,
but I am
also Simon the Londoner.
And I think that this tension
of being
both an integral part of a city,
but also significantly distinct from
it,
is at the heart of what Jeremiah is trying to say
to the
Jewish exiles in Babylon.
It is their home,
but it is
not their ultimate place of belonging.
Their eternal home, their place of deepest belonging,
was in
their holy city of Jerusalem;
but the place where they were going to live out their lives
was Babylon.
And so their calling before God
was to work
for the good of the city
to which
they had been sent as exiles.
We too need to hear this calling.
There is a lamentable history of Christians dis-engaging
from society,
retreating
into their holy huddles
to focus on the purity of their
worship
or the correctness of their
doctrine.
The Jews in Babylon could so easily have taken this path,
but this
was not, said Jeremiah, their calling.
And neither is it ours.
It is entirely appropriate for the people of God to enter
the world of politics,
whether
through election
or through
non-partisan organisations such as Citizens UK,
to seek the welfare of the city to which we have been sent
as exiles.
But there is a flip-side to this, too.
For all of our calling to work for the good of the city,
we must
never lose sight of the fact that we are only here as exiles.
However, if some strands of Christianity
have
disengaged from seeking the welfare of society
in their
quest for moral and doctrinal purity;
others have gone to the opposite extreme
and sought
to create society after their own image.
The legacy of Christendom, with church and state fused into
one entity,
is still
very much with us.
And I think that those of us who seek to be faithful
followers of Christ
in this
country, in this city,
need to resist the temptations of longing for a return
to the
so-called ‘Christian Country’ of previous generations.
As Baptists, we were founded on the principle of religious
freedom for all.
Our founding father, Thomas Helwys,
argued
against the idea of a ‘Christian Country’,
facing imprisonment for writing to the King
to suggest that
the freedom to choose one’s religion
was an essential human right,
and that it
should be for all, whether Baptist, Muslim, or Jew.
We are exiles, we are called to be never fully at-one
with the
city to which we are called;
even as we work for its welfare,
even as we
pray for it,
believing that in the welfare of the city we will find our
own welfare.
We have to recover, or possibly discover,
our
identity as the people of God.
Not in a way that isolates us from others,
and certainly
not in a way that gives us permission to dominate others,
but in a way that frees us to live differently,
according
to the priorities of the Kingdom of God.
And what we also need to discover
is that
this freedom is a freedom to truly live:
to enter into the life of the world,
to build
houses, plant gardens,
and take
action for the common good.
As Stanley Hauerwas puts it in the book Resident Aliens:
“The loss of
Christendom gives us a joyous opportunity
to reclaim the freedom to proclaim
the gospel
in
a way in which we cannot
when the main social task of the
church
is
to serve as one among many
helpful
props for the state.”
- Stanley Hauerwas,
Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony
And so we come to the most famous verse from Jeremiah
Chapter 29.
It’s a
verse which has starred
on a
thousand fridge magnets and coffee cups:
Jeremiah 29:11
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.
This is, surely, the ultimate expression of faithful hope.
To those in exile, to those living in darkness,
to those
who feel they will never truly belong:
God says that there is a hopeful future.
But this verse of hopeful promise
has to be
heard alongside the command
to work for the good of the city to which we have been sent
in exile.
It is not some get-out-of-jail-free card,
to be
cashed in when things get difficult.
It isn’t an excuse to abdicate our responsibility for our
actions in the world.
Rather, it is an invitation to enter into a way of living in
the world,
where we
are free from the deep existential worries
that beset those whose lives are judged
by the prevailing
standards of society.
Stanley Hauerwas again:
“That which makes the
church "radical" and forever "new"
is not that the church tends to lean
toward the left on most social issues,
but rather that the
church knows Jesus
whereas the world does not.
In the church's view,
the political left
is not noticeably more interesting
than the political right;
both sides tend
towards solutions
that act as if the world has not
ended and begun in Jesus.”
Those of us whose citizenship is in the Kingdom of Heaven,
those of us
who are exiles to this world,
who live as
resident aliens in our society,
are invited to discover the freedom
that comes
from not having to answer to the demands of the world.
The pressures that drive so many people,
pressures
of materialism, militarism, and economic exploitation;
the pressures that oppress so many people,
pressures
of racism, sexism, and homophobia;
these pressures do not own us, and neither do they constrain
us.
We are
judged not as the world judges,
but by Christ who loves us.
So to those of us who live as exiles in this strange land,
called to
work for its welfare but never to let it own us,
Jesus echoes the message of Jeremiah,
offering us
a word of hope, a word of peace.
We heard it earlier in our reading from John’s gospel,
when Jesus
said to his disciples:
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.
I do not
give to you as the world gives.
Do not let your hearts be troubled,
and do not
let them be afraid.” (John 14.27)
Through Christ we receive the gift of hope,
through
Christ we are gifted the gift of peace.
Through Christ we are released from the troubles and fears
that drive
so many to acts of hopeless self-destruction
and
violence towards others.
As we work for the welfare of the city to which we have been
sent in exile,
we discover
within ourselves
the
capacity to love, to hope, and to embody peace;
because these are the gifts of Christ to us,
and through
us they are Christ’s gift to the world.
So as we welcome the stranger,
advocate
for the dispossessed, and include the excluded,
we are living into being
the truth
that Christ has planted deep in our hearts:
that in Christ there are no strangers, in Christ none are
excluded,
in Christ
all are worthy of equality.
This is the gift of hope, and it is ours to receive, and
ours to give,
as we pray
and work for the welfare of the city
to which we
have been sent in exile.
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