Jeremiah: Speaking into our Experience of Exile

Jeremiah and Our Experience of Exile

“Exile is traumatic and terrifying. Our sense of who we are is very much determined by the place we are in and the people we are with.  When that changes, violently and abruptly, who are we? ...Israel’s exile was a violent and extreme form of what all of us experience from time to time. …Experiences of exile, minor and major, continue through changes in society, changes in government, changes in values, changes in our bodies, our emotions, our families, and marriages.”  (Eugene Peterson, Run with the Horses, chapter 12 “To All the Exiles,” p. 143 ff)

For Eugene Peterson, the essential meaning of exile is that

• we are where we don’t want to be,
• around people we don’t necessarily like.

What is your experience of exile?

• Past. What unwelcome changes have happened on your life’s journey?
• Present. Are you in the midst of one of these trying times?
• Future.  It can be scary to consider that our hopes for everything to go smoothly according to plan might not work out that way exactly.  Is there a scenario that strikes the chord of fear in you?

Where is your experience of exile?

• What about work?  How might our workplace be “where we don’t want to be, around people we’d rather not be around?”
• How about family life?  Are there phases of or situations in family life that lead us to feel stuck and alone like exiles in our own homes?
• How about church?  Do you ever feel like a stranger in a strange land when you gather with other believers?

What is God saying to you in the midst of this experience of exile?

Let's consider what God said to the Judean exiles through Jeremiah...

Jeremiah: A Prophet to the Exiles

The Old Testament records the names and the words of many prophets God called to bring a message to the people.  In general, their message was a word of warning about a coming day of judgment for being unfaithful to the covenant agreement with God.  These prophets include those whose names are enshrined as the names of biblical books, such as Isaiah, Amos, Micah, and Hosea, as well as prophets who loom large in the history narratives of Kings and Chronicles, such as the great Elijah and Elisha.

But of all the prophets mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, it was Jeremiah who prophesied as the events of the exile were taking place.  That’s right, as they were taking place…in real time.  Jeremiah spoke of a time of judgment in all three major tenses: future, present, and past. 

He lived through a time of spiritual renewal under King Josiah as the great Assyrian empire was on the decline, continuing to serve God’s purposes when the wheels of that reform movement fell off and the people went back to business as usual.  He witnessed his nation’s corrupt leaders attempting to navigate while being caught “between a rock and a hard place” between Babylon and Egypt, two major powers striving for world domination.  And after Babylon had taken away all of Jerusalem’s leading citizens 700 miles across the Middle Eastern desert, Jeremiah remained in Jerusalem and continued to prophesy. 

While many of his prophetic announcements were to people living in Jerusalem, in chapter 29 we find his words directed to those who had already been taken into exile. 

"This is the text of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders among the exiles and to the priests, the prophets and all the other people Nebuchadnezzar had carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon…" (Jeremiah 29:1)

Jeremiah’s message to the exiles is this: Make the best of life, while waiting for God’s deliverance

Make the best of the situation

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.  Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”  (Jeremiah 29:4-9)

• How might God be inviting you to make the best of a current less-than-ideal situation?
• What activities can you do to “build, settle, plant, eat” in the midst of your current situation?
• What will make this particularly challenging?
• Why might God want to encourage you in this direction?

While waiting for God’s Deliverance

This is what the Lord says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place.  For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.  Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.  You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.  I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity.  I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.”  (Jeremiah 29:10-13)

• What difference does it make to believe that God has a plan for you and will operationalize it when the time is right?
• What are your hopes for the future?  How is God involved in those hopes?
• How do you (or might you) remind yourself of God’s promises in the midst of daily life?
• What difference might it make to “call on God” and “seek God” in the midst of the waiting?

A concluding quote from Eugene Peterson:

“Exile is the worst that reveals the best.”

Check out the SPU Lectio Commentary on Jeremiah: www.spu.edu/lectio