Sent Into Exile

You may be one of the many who do not believe you have a viable vote for US President in 2016. You cannot enthusiastically vote for either of the major party candidates but are reluctant to vote for a third party candidate lest the candidate you hate or fear the most gets elected. I am not going to tell you how to vote, but I think the reading from the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) for this coming Sunday (Revised Common Lectionary - October 9, 2016) in Jeremiah 29:4-7 suggests a constructive way of thinking about this for those of us who aspire to be serious disciples of Jesus Christ.

The Babylonian Empire had invaded Judah around 586 BCE and were taking captives into exile. The prophet Jeremiah who was still in Judah wrote a letter to those who had already been carried off to Babylon. Some with a false hope of a quick return to a liberated Judah and others in resistance to their captors were refusing to go on with life. Though not especially welcome, Jeremiah’s eloquent letter on God’s behalf echoes with wisdom through the centuries right to our own time.

He wrote: “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”

I suggest that the ambivalence many Christians feel about this election is a symptom of not recognizing that by following Jesus we are ipso facto in exile. I further suggest that this is not new at all but has always been the status of authentic disciples of Jesus, who had nowhere to lay his head, whose lordship was an intolerable threat to the Roman Empire. Until the Roman Emperor Constantine usurped his own distorted version of Christianity the official religion of the realm as a tool of military conquest, neither Jesus, nor the Apostles, nor the early Church could ever have imagined Christianity as a national religion.

Many of the documents quoted in support of the idea of the United States as a “Christian nation” come from the New England Puritans of the colonial era. They left Europe, not for religious freedom as we would understand it, but to found a new Israel in the wilderness that would be a city set on a hill to enlighten the rest of the world (or at least Europe which they saw as still bound by the “rags of Popery” (Roman Catholicism). In the Massachusetts Bay Colony, only male landowners who were members of the Congregational Church in good standing could vote or hold public office. Within a generation this seemingly noble aspiration collapsed, and they instituted what was called the “halfway covenant.” That allowed for perfunctory church membership without participation or discipline. All such efforts to have established churches were abandoned with the adoption of the US Constitution which makes no mention of God and forbids established religion and religious tests for public office. (Among the Thirteen Colonies, only the Baptists of Rhode Island and the Quakers of Pennsylvania insisted on freedom of religion without an official church.)

I have included this very brief historical note, not to explore why I am convinced the idea of a “Christian nation” is detrimental to authentic Christian discipleship (I’ve done that elsewhere), but because I believe it gives some context to how understanding that those who follow Jesus are exiles is liberating and empowering as we face the sorts of challenges and conundrums of which the current presidential election is but one example. By relinquishing a fear-driven pursuit of the unrealistic, and I believe unbiblical, hope of a “Christian nation” and accepting that we who aspire to seriously follow Jesus are, always have been, and always will be exiles.

Though two and a half millennia after Jeremiah, his letter to Judah’s exiles in Babylon can stimulate us to be positive and constructive even when we live in a culture that wants to dilute discipleship by making Christianity a cultural artifact, or pretends to ignore the challenge the lordship of Jesus is to all human authority, or even sometimes opposes those who seriously aspire to follow Jesus.

Though I would hardly claim to be the exemplary disciple of Jesus I aspire to be, I do see my personal identity totally tied up with Jesus’ identity. My roles as husband, father, grandfather and even pastor are all expressions of my identification with Jesus. Jeremiah wrote to the exiles that God had sent them to Babylon. By virtue of my birth and the path of my life I believe God has sent me to the United States. God might well have sent me elsewhere, and God has certainly sent most of Jesus’ people to countries other than the United States. I am first and foremost a citizen of the Kingdom of God and called to live that way as a citizen of the United States, just as most other disciples of Jesus are called to live as citizens of the Kingdom of God in whatever country to which God has sent them.

Jeremiah’s letter tells those of us who follow Jesus how to practice good citizenship in our human countries as those whose sole loyalty is as citizens of the Kingdom of God. Live your life with gusto! Get married; raise families; participate in the economy. Your presence will light a path for others who seek something more satisfying, more enduring than our daily human pursuits. Your allegiance to Jesus points people who are disillusioned with fallible even corrupt political leadership to someone they can trust with enthusiastic confidence. Seek the welfare of the city where God has sent us. Contribute to the common good, even the good of those who mock or oppose your faith. As the community prospers, we prosper too, and all will have the opportunity to know the God who sends his rain on the just and the unjust. This is the beginning of experiencing God’s grace which is predicated on loving those who don’t deserve love. And perhaps most of all, pray for the city in which God has sent you to exile. Yes, pray for the presidential candidate you hate and fear the most. Pray that peace and justice, righteousness and mercy may flourish for those among whom you are in exile.

I believe Jeremiah’s letter precludes living in fear that national foundations are being destroyed. When the psalmist pondered that question (Psalm 11:3), the answer is immediate, “The Lord is in his holy temple; the Lord’s throne is in heaven.” (Psalm 11:4) As exiles we who follow Jesus are harbingers of hope and joy even in the midst of chaos and confusion. I know we will disagree with each other about exactly how best to seek the welfare of the city to which we have been sent in exile, but I do believe we should pursue that goal positively, full of faith, hope and love. As far as deciding how your vote this election as a disciple of Jesus can make that contribution, I’ve suggested the prayer for the king in Psalm 72 as a template for voting, and you can read that at http://nstolpewriting.blogspot.com/2016/06/principles-for-deciding-for-whom-i-will.html .

I’m not looking for arguments but hoping to stimulate thinking and discussion among those who follow Jesus as how best we can seek the welfare of the United States in this present moment.