Empires

Read Jeremiah 29:1-14

In 597 B.C., the Babylonian army surrounded Jerusalem, and the eighteen-year-old king surrendered. Nebuchadnezzar took the gold and silver from the temple, and resettled the king, the queen mother, the officials, and every craftsman he could round up in Babylonia. The exiled captives were in a rage, and understandably so. They later authored Psalm 137, celebrating whoever smashed Babylonian children against the rocks. In Jerusalem, the survivors proudly clung to the words of the prophet Hananiah. In God's name, he claimed that everyone who was exiled and all the temple's treasures would be returned in just two years. But he died two months later. In both places, the people used religion to argue that God would support what they already wanted. As God sees the political and spiritual ruin of his people, he sends them a message through Jeremiah, challenging the false prophets in both Jerusalem and Babylonia. It's an unpopular move. God starts by clarifying who is responsible for this disaster. Verse 1 says Nebuchadnezzar carried them into exile. But in verse 4, God says he deported the exiles, and in verse 10, he pledges to bring them back. Since he's in charge, he gives the marching orders, and they're crushing. As the exiles process the apparent evidence that the Babylonian gods had defeated their god, and try to hold onto their identity far away from the temple in Jerusalem, God tells them to prepare to stay for a long time. Living in the suburbs, I read God's command differently. I like the idea that God wants me to build houses, plant gardens, get married, and have kids who, one day, do the same. I'm encouraged that God wants me to seek the good of Atlanta and pray for it to thrive. We crochet these promises and hang them on our kitchen walls. But it's likely the exiles wept when they heard this letter; it told them they would die in enemy territory. These exiles heard that God wanted them to help Babylon thrive, when it had recently sent an army to forcibly relocate them to Babylonia. In that auditorium, I couldn't instinctively welcome an undergraduate who voted differently from me. It's easy to pray for our side to win, but I clench my jaw whenever I pray for my opponents to do well. Translated literally, verse 7 reads, "in its shalom you will have shalom." Shalom is a theological-political word. It's when everyone and everything is functioning well. It's when loving families live in good homes, doing good work, with good food, so that everyone in the community does well with each other and with God. How can God ask them to love their political enemies? Because what the exiles are to give to Babylon, God promises to give to them. Even though they had abandoned him for idols, mistreated the poor, and used religion to benefit themselves, God promised to give them shalom. He's always been like this, and we see its fulfillment in Jesus. To bring peace, or shalom, between God and us, and between cultural groups that had warred for millennia, he brought the hostility into himself and died. God has absorbed our hatred because he wanted to fill us with his love.