Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7

Earlier this week, I watched a documentary about certain events in the history of our planet that were crucial to the existence or the extinction of certain species. For example, scientists found out that 66 million years ago, a huge asteroid hit the earth and it landed on a large Sulfur reserve, the sulfur rock vaporized, sending billions of tons of polluting gas into the atmosphere and blocked out the sun light for a long time. The earth froze and 75% of the living creatures died, including the dinosaurs.

Now, this asteroid had been journeying for millions of years before it arrived to the earth. And since the earth spins, if the asteroid had arrived few seconds later, it would have crashed out in the ocean, causing no fire storm, no global icing and no dinosaur extinction. That of course is good news to us, humans, because we wouldn’t have existed or been able to coexist with the dinosaurs.

What always amazes me about such discoveries is how massive destructive events turn out to be essential to life on earth as we know it. Earth’s history is full of events like this. It’s a tale of destructive good fortune.

The prophet Jeremiah in today’s scripture sounds like one of those National Geographic commentators. He explains the most horrific and traumatic event in the life of the Hebrews –namely the exile- as an occasion or a new chance for them to thrive and move forward. A very daring message to preach to people in catastrophe.

First, let me define the exile to those of us not very familiar with the story. In 597 B.C. the Babylonians besieged Jerusalem, and a first group of Hebrews living in Judah was exiled to Babylon. Battles continued for years and later groups would leave Judah 10 years and then another 5 years later. The prophet Jeremiah lived and prophesied at that exciting time of Israel’s life.

To help us understand the tragedy of the exile experience, think about the Japanese internment camp and how life as it was just stopped all of a sudden. No one knew when they were going back; they didn’t even know IF they were ever going to go back, they couldn’t take with them many of the things that were important to them. They had to live in places they did not choose, lives they did not choose, and they felt shamed and defeated. But the exile for the Jews was even worse than that, because it was also a spiritual alienation. They believed that God dwells in the land of Palestine and being isolated from the land meant disappearing from God’s presence.

Now to those people, Jeremiah writes a letter while he himself is still in Jerusalem and tells them that everything is okay!

Before I go into the content of this letter we need to know an important historical fact: Jeremiah was born during the reign of King Josiah. This latter is most known for the discovery of the Torah book in the temple during his reign, after which he called for a reformation. So the era preceding the exile was characterized by an emphasis on returning to the Torah law. And this latter could be very detailed in certain areas. I’ll give you some examples of rules or statements found in the Torah that will give us a taste of that time’s dominant theology.

On the importance of the land, the book of Deuteronomy says:

• 11:8-9 Observe therefore all the commands I am giving you today, so that you may have the strength to go in and take over the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess,and so that you may live long in the land the Lord swore to your ancestors to give to them and their descendants…
• 11:11-12 But the land you are crossing the Jordan to take possession of is a land of mountains and valleys that drinks rain from heaven. It is a land the Lord your God cares for; the eyes of the Lord your God are continually on it …
• 30: 4-5 Even if you are scattered to the farthest corners of the earth, the Lord your God will gather you together and bring you back, so that you may again take possession of the land where your ancestors once lived.

You see, the land itself played a major role in their theology, losing the land was equivalent to losing God’s promise.

On prayer and the right way to do it, Deuteronomy says:

• 12:4-5 You must not worship the Lord your God in their (the nations’) way. But you are to seek the place the Lord your God will choose from among all your tribes to put God’s Name there…

On interactions with foreigners:

• Do not intermarry with the nations. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons. (7:3)

Leviticus 17 says: 23 When you come into the land and plant any fruit tree there, first look upon its fruit as if it were uncircumcised. For three years, it shall be uncircumcised for you; it may not be eaten. 24 In the fourth year, however, all of its fruit shall be dedicated to the Lord in joyous celebration. 25 Not until the fifth year may you eat its fruit.

You see how detailed those commands are. Now let’s hear what the letter of Jeremiah says to the internees at Babylon:

This is what the Lord says: “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce.(no rules just plant and eat) 6 Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage … 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.”

While the Torah emphasizes the significance of the land for God’s presence, and the importance of praying in designated places and ways Jeremiah says God is there even in the foreign land of Babylon. And you can pray right where you are.

While the Torah says do not intermarry with foreigners, Jeremiah now says, get married to and let your kids marry Babylonian foreigners.

While the Torah specifies all these rules for eating fruits, Jeremiah just says grow and consume, plant, eat, live …

But wait a minute. That almost sounds like an invitation to live healthy and happy lives away from the Promised Land! Jeremiah dares to challenge the theology of his day. He addresses people in deep grief and loss and says: you could think of this as imprisonment, as provisional, as just a waiting time, and be miserable. And you could think of it as a twist in the road you have to deal with and build a life with what you have. And by the way, you are free from the law!

People of the exile were stuck in between two worlds: the world of Judaism that was formed around the Law on one hand and the reality of their estrangement on the other. But there, God offers them freedom and a new start. It is a message of hope in a place where hope was lost.

Friends, we may not realize it but we too, constantly live in between two worlds. As individuals, we experience life changing events that seem to divide our reality: so there is where we are, and there is where we want to be, and we are bouncing in between: we don’t want to accept reality, and we virtually live in the hope of the future.

As a community, as a congregation, we are currently bouncing between two worlds: our past, our history that we cherish and that made us who we are, and the future laying ahead of us, and it might seem like the present is lost in between. But we hear the freeing voice of scripture: Life doesn’t wait; life happens now.

How many times do we hang not only hope but even life on possibilities and future events? If I get that job, when I go back home, if I pass that test, if I get a raise… but what if those things never happen? What if the Hebrews never got back from the exile? What if it took us 5 years to find a new pastor? What if you were stuck with what you have now? Life happens now, Jeremiah says to us today. Yes, we still hope for a better future, but in the meantime we live, we make the best out of it, and then we hope some more.

In our life as a congregation, our goal is not to find an interim pastor, or even an installed pastor, our goal is to find our calling, our new mission and vision, today, in 2019 Downtown Sacramento. That’s the destination, but meanwhile we have a journey to live and to enjoy. And it matters, so much. This time we spend together isn’t time lost or wasted, it isn’t just a waiting period; it is a time to be alive, to flourish, and to evaluate who we are and where we are now, and who and where do we want to be.

What the scripture is saying to us today, as individuals and as a community is that God’s will for us is life and freedom. Life to the fullest and freedom from all that is static. Freedom from rules that used to work. Freedom from traditions that have become irrelevant. Freedom from shame over past mistakes. Freedom from guilt over things we should or shouldn’t have done. Freedom to hope and envision a future that is different. Freedom from the conventional ways of being church. Freedom from the way we’ve always done it. And freedom to live and to hope.

May we follow the Spirit’s lead. Amen.