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Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost

Jeremiah 31

7For thus says the Lord:
Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob,
and raise shouts for the chief of the nations;
proclaim, give praise, and say,
“Save, O Lord, your people,
the remnant of Israel.”
8See, I am going to bring them
from the land of the north,
and gather them from the
farthest parts of the earth,
among them the blind and the lame,
those with child and those in labor, together;
a great company, they shall return here.
9With weeping they shall come,
and with consolations I will lead them back,
I will let them walk by brooks of water,
in a straight path in which they shall not stumble;
for I have become a father to Israel,
and Ephraim is my firstborn.


Our third month of exile is complete. For those of us who usually spend time through the week in this building, the experience of being out of the building has been unique to say the least. For the food bank volunteers and the clients, the dislocation has been particularly difficult, with a considerable shift in routine and a reduction of programme. It’s the soup and sandwiches I miss, having discovered in retrospect how much I enjoyed my status as a honorary volunteer and lunch recipient.

I think each of us has felt some level of dislocation. For the people who like to “drop in” and visit, or simply take a stroll around, the renovation has been an anxious time. It’s hard not to wonder what exactly is happening behind the big tarp, and to see some of the changes that happen day by day.

Take heart. Your time in exile is nearly complete. Work proceeds, and all the key players continue to look us in the eye when they say the project will be done on time. As any renovator will tell you, the “optics” of a project happen in a predictable fashion: destruction, utter chaos, sudden progress, long periods of imperceptible change (usually twinned with the unexpected disappearance of contractors) and finally a period of slow but steady progress toward an inevitable end. Things are taking shape.

The theme of exile, and the end of exile, is the subject of Jeremiah 31. It is a hopeful passage, a poem that anticipates the return to Israel and describes the “great company” on their way home. I want to walk with them in a moment or two, but only after we look again at exile and the experience of dislocation.

***

Walter Brueggemann describes exile as “a community of faith living a peculiar identity in an indifferent or hostile environment” (Reverberations, p. 71). The Israelites fell victim to the geopolitical intrigue of the seventh century BC and were not only a conquered people but also a people removed from Judah and the holiest places. They struggled in Babylon to maintain their identity and their relationship with God and at the same time remain hopeful. Much of the Old Testament was written, edited, or collected in this period, one more way to safeguard the unique identity of this people.

“A community of faith living a peculiar identity in an indifferent or hostile environment.” Brueggemann had other things on his mind. Any thoughts?

The official launch of Emerging Spirit (rebranded “Wondercafe”) will happen in a week or so and the first magazine advertisements will appear in the December issue of several popular Canadian magazines (and will also appear in the next week or so…a little trick publishers like to play). The basic hope is this: people will see the ads and be drawn to a website called Wondercafe.ca and join a discussion or read more about the United Church. This will pave the way for an eventual visit to a local congregation, where we will do our best to welcome them and live out the kinds of things that are being said about the United Church of Canada. More on that later.

The groundwork for Emerging Spirit included surveys and focus groups led by companies (such as Environics) that specialize in such things. These experts polled and interviewed people outside the church began to discover that makes them tick. What are their core values? What gives them the most meaning in their lives? How do they perceive organized religion? Have they heard of the United Church? Did they believe that such a church actually exists? The professionals returned a lot of data.

It turns out that the values of the non-church people are similar to our values and the values of most Canadians: they value family and community, they want to make meaningful connections, they want to enhance the quality of their neighbourhood or community. They are looking for deeper meaning, but are highly doubtful that they can find it in a church. They were surprised to hear our description of what the United Church is like, and many were skeptical that such a place could exist. If it did, then 77% of respondents were interested in knowing more.

“A community of faith living a peculiar identity in an indifferent or hostile environment.” That sounds like us. The only difference between us and the Israelites is that they had to leave town to experience exile, and we have it right here. Somehow, while we looked away, society changed around us, and we in the church became exiles in our own land. But as we know, we are not alone.

Brueggemann takes this one step further to include the increasing number of “internal exiles” that exist in our society: poor, unemployed and underemployed, the marginalized, the disabled. Anyone who does not participate in our community or our economy is in exile. In a society that is increasingly dedicated to consumption and the accumulation of wealth, there is a growing underclass of people who simply cannot participate. Anger, dislocation and resentment grows while fewer and fewer people seem to notice the divide.

Finally, the “age of terror” that we live in is a kind of exile. We can try as hard as we can to ignore a certain president of a certain county as he drones on and on about September 11, 2001, but the fact remains that our lives have changed. We have a new reference point, a new moment in time that defines much of our public discourse. Individually, we are continually being reminded of a changed reality. Imagine my frustration on a sunny day in August: at the airport with my son, set to throw out every toiletry he owns, wondering how on earth a bottle of foot powder could possibly be a threat to our way of life.

***

8See, I am going to bring them
from the land of the north,
and gather them from the
farthest parts of the earth,
among them the blind and the lame,
those with child and those in labor, together;
a great company, they shall return here.

The prophet Jeremiah was one of the few that remained after most of the Israelites were carried off. He continued to speak for God to anyone who would listen. Eventually he too was sent into exile, in his case to Egypt, and from there we hear no more from the prophet or even know his fate. What he left behind, the true legacy of his life amid such chaos, is a set of reflections, warnings, and eventually promises.

In the only plausible way for the Israelites to fathom what was happening around them, exile was the work of God and God’s desire to punish Israel for failing to remain faithful. No other explanation fit. Foreign kings and armies were the “divine hand” at work in the world and exile was the price a nation paid for failing to keep the covenant made long ago. This response seems both understandable and oddly foreign. On one hand, the impulse to imagine divine retribution is very human and timeless. Time and again people ask, “what did I do to deserve this?” On the other hand, the willingness to take personal and corporate responsibility for an unfolding disaster seems to belong to another age. Not a day goes by without some politician, business leader or public official saying “it was not my responsibility.” No wonder the Bible seems so foreign.

Jeremiah was trying to do several things at once: explain how world events were tied to the ongoing relationship between God and God’s people, call for continued repentance, and offer a word of hope.

9With weeping they shall come,
and with consolations I will lead them back,
I will let them walk by brooks of water,
in a straight path in which they shall not stumble;
for I have become a father to Israel,
and Ephraim is my firstborn.

God’s relationship with Israel has changed. Suddenly the conversation has shifted from judgement to love:

4You are precious to me,
and so I will rebuild your nation.
Once again you will dance for joy
and play your tambourines.
5You will plant vineyards
on the hills of Samaria and enjoy the grapes.
6Someday those who guard the hill country of Ephraim
will shout, "Let's go to Zion and worship the LORD our God."

It is God’s desire that we return home, that we are no longer stranger in this land, that our time of exile end. It is pure gift that the response of forgiveness and love leads the way, that we open ourselves once more to the love that surrounds us. The God who came to us in Jesus, healing us, forgiving us, setting us free is the God that is present in prayer and song, present in those around us, and present in the people we have yet to meet. “We are the hand and feet of Christ,” so the poem says, and we also meet Christ in the vulnerable people to enter this place seeking hope.

A word of caution. People who have experienced exile together seem to develop a strong bond. Daydreaming about the success of Emerging Spirit and Wondercafe, I can’t help but worry about the underlying reaction to the new people:

We were here remaining faithful and keeping the doors open, where were you?
We understand church and all it means and have nothing to learn from you Johnny-come-lately’s.

How can I trust you to stay and not take off like all the others?

Do you see the pattern? We can follow all the tips and tricks that come with a welcoming campaign, we can create a coffee station and call it Wondercafe, we can blanket the neighbourhood with “branded” and professionally created flyers, but if our inner voice says “where were you guys?” then we are in deep trouble.

The other way, the way of the exile, is to understand that in the same way we experienced a kind of exile, the nameless/faceless newcomers waiting to join us are in exile too. They are in exile from a community of faith, they are in exile from a place of structured meaning, they are in exile from the God proclaimed as Word and praised within a collection of believers. We welcome them as fellow travelers.

We also welcome them in the way God welcomes all returning exiles, the way the father welcomes the prodigal, the way God sets aside all that has been and all that has happened and can only say “you are precious to me.” This is the message for all exiles, inside and outside the church: God loves you, God calls you precious, come home. Amen.

posted by michael jacob kooiman @ 4:14 PM