Thriving in Exile

The prophet Jeremiah is writing at the beginning of the Babylonian exile and he is dreaming of a future time. The people are pretty disheartened. Those with skills, wealth or power were taken away. Left behind were the poorest of the poor. Jeremiah 31:7-9 is intended to offer comfort and encourage the people during the time of exile. He reminds them that they have not been abandoned by God and there will be a different time. There will be a time when they can celebrate and rejoice. Covid sometimes feels like an exile from everything we know. There is layer upon layer of trauma. There might be weddings, funerals or other occasions missed. Loved ones we can’t see before they die. Routines that are disrupted. We watch as people die unnecessarily. We wait as our healthcare system is overwhelmed. We miss family and friends. Our work is different. Even something as normal as coming to worship is no longer normal. It feels like nothing is as it should be. It is easy to be disheartened and distressed.

The Hebrew people were exiled to a strange land and in chapter 29 Jeremiah tells them to embrace the new land in which they find themselves. Make a new life there. Have families, build houses, plant vineyards. If they are able to thrive in that place, they will survive. They don’t know when they will return. It isn’t just putting in the time and waiting impatiently for the day they will return. Jeremiah’s instructions are clear…You have to keep living fully in this new place. It will be different, but you can make a new life…and even when you return, it will be different. The exile lasted 70 years so the people left behind learned to function as a society without the rich, powerful, skilled people. Their way of life changed during that time. Those returning were coming back to a land they had never seen. They only had the stories of parents and grandparents, so it won’t be like what they imagined. The exile was a time of upheaval for the Hebrew people. It was a time of loss, of weeping, of challenge, of distress. Families were torn apart and separated. Rituals and customs were disrupted. They didn’t have a choice about going through this time but they did have a choice about how they spent that time.

They could spend the whole time weeping and moaning and waiting for the good old days—for normal to return or they could embrace the new life they were given and figure out how to live fully and thrive in a challenging situation. That’s often easier said than done and I know that I have found it challenging to thrive in the midst of covid. Everything is different. I’m having to constantly learn new skills and new ways of doing ministry. I miss family and friends. I miss “normal” activities. It feels like my ability to thrive is limited at the moment.

Every generation has difficult times…A war, drought or other natural disasters, famine, disease. Many of the saints we identified earlier lived through these experiences. If we think about their lives, we might notice that they found ways of thriving even in difficult circumstances. Their lives give us hope for our own lives.

And Jeremiah also offers hope (v 9)
With 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;

I think one of the challenges for us is that we are waiting for a return to “normal.” But what if the return that Jeremiah is describing isn’t getting back to what we thought we knew. Maybe our return is the ability to thrive and live a full life in the midst of challenges. If we wait for normal, before we find joy and celebration, before we embrace life again, we might miss the return that Jeremiah is describing.

So my invitation for all of us is to embrace the place we find ourselves now. We need to learn how to live fully and thrive in this time and with these circumstances. That isn’t always easy but Jeremiah reminds us that God has not abandoned us. Even in what feels like exile, we are not alone and there is the possibility of fullness of life—even here.

Apocalyptic Hope

You might find the reading from Mark 13:24-37 somewhat disturbing. Most of the Advent readings over the next few weeks come from Apocalyptic literature. The images in apocalyptic literature make us think of the end of the world. This reading begins by saying “the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give her light, the stars will be falling from the sky, and the powers that are in the heavens will be shaken.” It seems like a bleak outlook.

You might think these are odd readings to choose for Advent when we are looking forward to a birth. We think of Advent and Christmas as celebratory times and the scripture doesn’t feel very uplifting. As I read it, it felt more like a warning. Something is coming that will create an upheaval in the world. The scripture doesn’t indicate whether this upheaval is good or bad, just that it will occur.

Apocalyptic literature isn’t intended to predict the end of the world. It’s purpose in scripture is to describe the shift between what is and what might be when God is fully present in the world. We might think of this as the end of an era or the end of the current time. We might even say it is the end of the world as we know it.

Advent is, by nature, an apocalyptic time. There is the world as we know it and then Jesus’ birth disrupts everything. All of the characters in the Christmas story find their lives disrupted by Jesus’ coming among them. Zachariah and Elizabeth, an older couple without children, find themselves raising John who will prepare the way for God among us. Mary, a teenager, finds herself pregnant with the child of God. Joseph finds the woman he planned to marry already pregnant. The shepherds are startled by angels singing to them and leave their sheep to go find the baby. The magi see unusual signs in the sky and set off on an adventure. Each of these characters found their lives upheaved and changed forever.

Apocalyptic literature draws our attention to the moment when everything changes. We might feel like we are in our own apocalyptic time. Things, that a year ago were unimaginable, are now a reality. Who would have thought that we would need to wear masks whenever we leave our house? Who would have thought we would have restrictions on how many people could gather for Christmas dinner? Who would have thought that we wouldn’t gather in our church sanctuary for worship?

The world hasn’t ended but the landscape is different. How we live and interact with others is different. An apocalyptic moment creates an opportunity to be aware of God’s presence among us in ways we might not have noticed before. It is a moment where God becomes visible and we can discern more clearly our priorities and values. The scripture gives us advice for moments like this: “Watch, keep alert, and pray.”

On this first Sunday of Advent we celebrate hope. Hope recognizes the reality of the world in which we live but invites us to “Watch, keep alert, and pray.” When we watch, keep alert and pray it helps to put the upheaval in perspective and find God in the midst of the uncertainty. The characters in the Christmas story didn’t immediately say, “Thank-you God for turning my life upside down.” They started from fear, anxiety, uncertainty. It was only as they watched, waited and prayed that they discovered God in lives. As they discovered God at the centre of events which had originally seemed like disaster, these events became a gift.

I invite you, this Advent season, “to watch, keep alert, and pray.” The world is not ending but perhaps we are seeing the end of an era. What might God be birthing in our world through this time? How is God inviting us into this new world that is being created? Watch, keep alert and pray. Seek hope this season.

Jonah is Not the Centre of his Universe…and Neither are We.

We don’t always hear the whole story of Jonah. The part we hear most often is about Jonah refusing to go to Nineveh and then getting swallowed by the fish and surviving. It is pretty dramatic but there’s more to the story. I made this video that tells the story.

After Jonah prays to God, recommits himself to a life of faithfulness and gets spit out on the beach God still sends him to Nineveh. One of the struggles Jonah has throughout the story is that his wants and his view of the world do not fit with God’s view.

Jonah avoids Nineveh because it is filled with his enemies. Maybe he’s afraid. Maybe he doesn’t think they are worthy of God’s compassion. He tries to escape from God’s call. But it didn’t work.

When he finally gets to Nineveh, he preaches God’s word. Guess what? It works. His message is heard. The people pray to God and change their ways. You would think Jonah should be happy about this. A job well done. Success.

But instead, Jonah is angry that God didn’t destroy the city. Jonah goes off by himself to sulk. God is still looking out for Jonah—even when he’s angry. But there’s a point to be made.

The story tells us that a tree grew up overnight and gave Jonah shade. Jonah was content in the shade of that tree. Then the tree is destroyed and again Jonah’s anger rises. God’s point to Jonah is that he is not the centre of the universe.

The world does not revolve around him, his desires, his wants, his way of seeing the world. Jonah is a part of God’s universe. Being part of God’s universe means that God cares about Jonah’s enemies.

Being part of God’s universe means that God calls Jonah to do difficult things. Being part of God’s universe means that Jonah will not always get his way. Being part of God’s universe means that Jonah needs to care about the people and situations that God cares about.

As I’m reflecting on what’s happening in the world right now, I see lots of Jonah behavior. I see some people resisting caring for their community by avoiding masks, sanitizer and ignoring physical distancing. There is sometimes a sense of not wanting to be inconvenienced by caring for others.

When we become focused only on ourselves, we lose sight of God’s view for the world. Covid has highlighted the differences in access to medical care, technology, and other supports. There might be an inclination, to see people with less access as “not like us.” They might be seen as different or less valuable because of poverty, racism or age.

They aren’t the enemy (as in Jonah’s case) but we might be challenged to wonder why we should be inconvenienced to care about those other people. The end of the Jonah story might give us some insight.

I get the sense that Jonah doesn’t want to be inconvenienced and he wants everything in the world to be about him. He feels the world exists to serve him, not the other way round.
Yet, going back to the creation story we heard a few weeks ago, God created humans to tend the earth…In other words, to serve.

Serving is part of the call God places on us as God’s people. I mean serve in the broadest sense of the word…to care, to look out for, encourage, to challenge injustices. Jonah struggled with this call and didn’t want to do it.

We all have Jonah days when it is hard to care, to love, to serve. I think that’s part of being human. But God doesn’t say to us “oh. You’re having a bad day and you get to be selfish every day.”

God says to us, “You’re having a bad day, and I’ll look out for you today” And then God calls us again. God’s call to us never ends, no matter how bad a day we are having or how much we would like to just be left alone to do our own thing….the thing that is easiest or most convenient for us.

There are many ways we might try to escape from God’s call: maybe TV, Netflix, Facebook, a good novel or an online game. Maybe our escape is a drug or alcohol addiction. Maybe we just stay too busy to have time to really care. There are lots of ways we try to escape from God.

Most of us want to be faithful and we try really hard but sometimes serving God’s world is difficult. There are days when we feel angry, frustrated, or tired. God didn’t give up on Jonah when he ran away. God didn’t give up on Jonah when he got swallowed by a fish (and should have died). God didn’t give up on Jonah even when Jonah was sulking.

God didn’t give up on Jonah and God doesn’t give up on us. God continues to re-orient us so that God and God’s world is the centre of our universe. Jonah needed the drama of being swallowed by a fish and having a tree grow up quickly and die to be re-oriented.

Our re-orienting might not be quite so dramatic. It might come from a conversation or interaction with another person. It might come from something we see, read, or hear. God only lets us be the centre of our own universe for a short period of time before trying to call us back to our true selves as servants of God and God’s world.

• How do you try to escape from God’s call?
• How is God trying to re-orient you?