God’s Future of Hope
Jeremiah 29:1, 4-14

Mississippi is a great place to live for Christians! Ninety-one percent of Mississippians self-identify as Christians. Of that ninety-one percent, fifty percent are Evangelical Protestant (mainly Baptists), eleven percent are Mainline Protestants (Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Methodist, and Lutherans), twenty-five precent are Historically Black Protestants (African Methodist Episcopal, African Methodist Episcopal Zion, Church of God in Christ, as well as Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterians), and five percent are Roman Catholics. Forty-nine percent of Christians attend weekly worship services and seventy-five precent pray daily. Of the remainder of the population of the state, eighty-two percent believe in God with certainty and seventy-four percent consider religion to be important.

Mississippians, and the deep south in general, still enjoy what has been termed “American Christendom.” Some Christians, especially in Evangelical Protestant circles, view Christendom negatively. They speak of it as “cultural Christianity,” which is a synonym for nominal Christianity. Although their critique has validity, there is also a blessing in living in a predominantly Christian culture. For instance, public schools still hold prayer walks on their campuses before the beginning of a new school year. Public meetings are still opened with prayer, and a Christian ethos continues to pervade our society in general.

Now all of this is not to say that we are living in a Christian utopia. There are a number of glaring phenomena that remind us daily of the evil that persists in our society. My son David and I recently helped one our members move from Jackson to Ridgeland. As we were loading the moving truck, we heard a volley of some twenty or more gun shots in the middle of the day. In fact, eleven people have been murdered within a one-mile radius of the individual’s previous home. If you watch the local news, you are well aware that reports of shootings in Jackson occur every week. To date there have been 130 murders in Jackson in 2021. That is a higher percentage of murders per capita than the city of Chicago!

But the problems are not limited to Jackson. Our children grew up in the Madison public school system. There were virtually no issues of note in elementary or middle school, but once they entered high school, we became aware of a pervasive drug culture in the county. It was mostly marijuana and alcohol abuse, but there were harder drugs too.

All of this makes the point that despite enjoying the remnants of American Christendom, all is not right in our world. Still, compared to many other places in our nation, we are blessed.

Now imagine, if you will, that you were forcibly removed from Mississippi and plucked down in one of the large urban centers of our country: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, Chicago, or New York City. Only a small percentage of the population self-identify as Christian. Violence, crime, drug abuse, worldliness, and godlessness are much more prevalent in these urban centers. You would feel like a stranger in a strange land.

Such an imagined scenario of forced relocation is akin to what the Jewish people actually experienced when the armies of King Nebuchadnezzar conquered Palestine and deported the populace wholesale into captivity in Babylon.

This morning’s reading from Jeremiah 29 preserves correspondence between the exiles in Babylon and the Prophet Jeremiah, who continued to reside in Jerusalem. “These are the words of the letter that the Prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the remaining elders among the exiles, and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. This was after King Jeconiah, and the queen mother, the court officials, the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the artisans, and the smiths had departed from Jerusalem” (Jer. 29:1-2).

Everything was different and alien to the Jews in Babylon. The language, attire, geography, food, religion, and culture of Babylon were vastly different from that of Judea. Although the exiles were allowed to live together in the city, they were surrounded by a new, foreign, and threatening cultural ethos. They did not know how to live as a distinctly Jewish people in a foreign land. They wrote to Jeremiah for guidance in order to learn how to continue to live faithfully as Jews during their captivity.

Jeremiah’s response was not what they expected. Self-appointed prophets and diviners with them in captivity promised that the Babylonian exile would be short-lived. Babylon would fall quickly, they claimed, and the Jews would be able to return to the Promised Land. In contrast, Jeremiah reiterated that their captivity would last for seventy years. Only their children and grandchildren might hope to return to Palestine.

Jeremiah’s counsel to the exiles was “Bloom where you are planted.” He wrote, “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” (Jer. 29:5-6).

Not only were the exiled Jews commanded to thrive in Babylonian exile, but they were also commanded to do all in their power to prosper Babylon. “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” (vs. 7).

The exiled Jews were instructed to work and pray for the welfare of their captors. The word “welfare” occurs three times in verse 7. The Hebrew word utilized is “shalom.” Shalom connotes well-being, harmony,
flourishing. The Jews in exile were to work and pray for the shalom of Babylon! They would discover their own peace and joy and blessing in Babylon’s welfare.

The Jews' experience of exile in Babylon has always been a powerful metaphor for Christians who are in the world but not of the world. This world is not our true home. Even Mississippi, with its fraying remnants of American Christendom, is not our true home. As the Apostle Paul wrote to the Philippian Christians, “Our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Phil. 3:20).

For now, we are exiles living in enemy- occupied territory, whether it is Mississippi or California or elsewhere. As the author of the epistle to the Hebrews says, “For here we have no lasting city, but we are looking for a city that is to come” (Heb. 13:14). We are looking for new heavens and a new earth wherein righteousness dwells. We are looking for the New Jerusalem to descend from heaven, a city whose architect and builder is God.

Most important of all, we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the great theme of the season of Advent, not Christ’s first coming but his second coming. Our continual prayer is “O Come, O come Immanuel and ransom captive Israel that mourns in lonely exile here until the Son of God appear.”

Israel’s captivity in Babylon lasted for seventy years. Our captivity has lasted two thousand years! Yet, God’s promise to ancient Israel extends to us too. “For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope” (vs. 11).

We have a future with hope. In the interim, we can call upon God, who answers prayer. We can search for God with all our heart and find God, even in the midst of Babylon (vs. 12-13). We do not know how long our captivity will last, but we do know that God will yet gather us from all the nations and bring us to the promised land of God’s kingdom. As Jesus said of himself, the Son of Man, “He will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other” (Mt. 24:31).

For now, we must seek the welfare of the city of fallen humanity where God has placed us in exile. We must pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare we will find our own. This text from Jeremiah 29 forms the basis and rationale for our Thursday prayer initiative. Whether you come in person or pause to pray at home or work, our prayers to the Lord on behalf of Jackson, our state, our nation, and our world are a way of seeking the welfare of the city of man.

In the year before us, we must, like exiled Israel, work diligently to multiply and not to decrease. God still has plans for our welfare as individuals and families, as a state, a nation, and a planet. God has plans for our welfare as a family of faith too. Collectively, we still have God’s future of hope.

This new church year let us pray and work as never before as we await the fulfillment of God’s promise to send us the Savior from heaven who will usher in the fullness of God’s kingdom and actualize our heavenly citizenship. Let us not be weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Alleluia! Amen.