The heading at the top of our worship bulletin indicates that this is the 28th Sunday in ordinary time, a term used to mean we are not in a festival season like Christmas, Easter, or Pentecost. Ordinary time—but this is not an ordinary worship service. We have received into this congregation, and into the Church universal, two children, Sally and Amelia, who have been eagerly expected and warmly loved by their parents, Kim and Mike, and by a large supporting cast of characters. Extraordinary time is more like it.
Hold that thought in the back of your mind while I invite you to think about the readings from the Bible we have heard. The first reading is from a letter the prophet Jeremiah sent from what was left of Jerusalem to those of its citizens who had been taken to Babylon as exiles. The Babylonian army had captured the city of Jerusalem in 586 B.C.E., sacked it, and transported many of its citizens to Babylon as forced laborers.
Jeremiah's letter said, in effect, "This is not a short-term matter. You will be in exile at least seventy years. Make the best of it. Build a life for yourselves while in Babylon. Enter into significant relationships, establish families, plant crops—and pray for your captors, because your well-being is tied to theirs." Jeremiah's message wasn't easy to understand or accept twenty-five hundred years ago when its was sent and received, and it is still challenging for us today.
I don't take Jeremiah's message as a call to accept servitude or oppression in all circumstances, or as advice not to struggle against abuse or mistreatment. For me it is a word to people who find themselves in circumstances where immediate relief is not a possibility. Not all situations lend themselves to direct action. "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change..."
What do you do when someone whose values are radically different from yours gets elected to office in a democracy where governments are not changed in street-fighting but in elections? What do you do when that person gets re-elected as mayor, governor, or president? What do you do when the company employing you cares only for the bottom line and you are forced to take a pay cut or find another job in a tight economy? What do you do when your spouse or partner of many years becomes disabled and there is little or no hope of recovery? What do you do when the people you think are your friends begin to exploit you and use you for their selfish purposes?
In all those circumstances, and many others, the dynamics of exile are present. It feels like being in a foreign country against one's will. Jeremiah's letter says, "In circumstances like that, life can go on. It can even become good. Build supportive relationships, nourish your body and your soul. Pray for the people who cause you to feel like an exile in an alien land." (And in praying for them, don't ask God to punish them or confound them. Simply say, "God, I pray for X,Y, Z. I place them in your love.")
I have talked about keeping a gratitude list and reviewing it regularly. I also recommend keeping a list of people you are praying for—people in situations of special need, people you are thankful are part of your life, and people who are difficult. I have found that praying for difficult people sometimes brings about a change in them, but always brings about a change in me.
Now take the baptism thought from the back of your mind and bring it to the front. When people becomes "followers of Jesus Christ," to use the language of this church's mission statement, they are baptized into a community whose core values are not the core values of the larger culture, although there may be some overlap. As Sally and Amelia grow up, and we don't want to hurry that process, they will hear stories about Jesus. They will discover that he valued people more than possessions, that he had a special concern for the poor, the powerless, and the marginalized. They will come to understand that reducing taxes has never been as important to Christians as taking care of the basic needs of all people. They will come to realize the importance of personal integrity, and the wonder of genuine caring for others as well as self.
Jeremiah reminds us of how marvelous it is to know we are loved by God, and to know that God's love is with us in all the circumstances of life, the painful ones and the joyful ones. A man seems to have won a presidential election, but a judicial body of nine people rules that he has lost. Seven years later he receives the Noble Peace Prize, reminding people how different the world would be if one of nine justices has voted differently in the year 2000. Jeremiah tells us not to lose hope. He says there is a force for good at work in the world even when its ways are not evident.
It's easy to be cynical in America in 2007, but I find myself feeling hopeful. It's not so much that people are becoming disenchanted with the greed and arrogance that have been shaping the dominant policies of our culture, although they seem to be. It's not so much that there are new faces and new voices offering the possibility of new directions for our nation and the world.
It's more that I keep running into people who are genuinely loving and willing to pay the price of holding true to their values, values based on mutual respect and care. Some of them are political activists, some of them are pacifists. I keep running into people who can look beyond their own pain and see, really see, the pain of others, and get involved.
This week I was at a three-day conference in Mobile, Alabama. The focus was the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), how to move it in the direction of a facilitating document rather than a regulating document. There was an opportunity during the two days before the conference began to participate in the rebuilding of houses destroyed by Hurricane Katrina two years ago.
A woman who did that spoke briefly to the one hundred and fifty of us who were in Mobile for the meeting. She described herself as somewhat "girly," not liking to get her hands dirty, asking other people to carry out the garbage rather than touching it herself. When she reported for helping with rebuilding houses, she was given a supervisor she described as knowing about construction and knowing how to motivate people. She said he had her and others lying in mud, hammering nails and tightening screws, carrying rotted wood out to a dumpster. At the end of the day the homeowner returned from her day at work and thanked all the volunteers with tears in her eyes. The volunteers were sleeping in comfortable hotel rooms; the homeowner would be sleeping in a house without running water or electricity.
The woman who had volunteered said her life had changed in the two days of house-rebuilding. She said that never again will she take for granted the comforts she enjoys, and she is going to volunteer for work in helping other people when she goes back to her home in another state.
I see the hand of God at work in enough places and in enough people that I can live in hope. And like the one man with leprosy in the other lesson, I can say, "Thank you, God. Thank you for being with us whether we are in alien places, close to home, or somewhere in between."
Amen.