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Our Next Steps: Jeremiah 29
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
In the commodification of our sexuality and the polarization of our politics, this is what pushes back against the breakdown of our neighborhoods and the loneliness of life in the city. Welcome to the Commons cast. We're glad you're here and we hope you find something meaningful in our teaching this week. Head to commons.church for more information. If we haven't had a chance to meet yet, my name is Jeremy.
Speaker 1:I get the privilege of helping to lead our team here at Commons, and we're glad to have you here, especially if you're new. And if you are, we mentioned this earlier, but feel free to text hello to the number that's on the screen behind me, and that will put you in touch with us. We can start a conversation and get to know you that way. And then just remember, if you are part of our community and hear regularly, you're always welcome to text in questions or comments during the sermon. I try to interact with those during the week and respond as best I can.
Speaker 1:Love to talk that way as well. Now we are starting to settle into this new season together. Hopefully, you've had a chance to pick up a journal. And if you haven't, there are copies available at the connection center. They're free.
Speaker 1:Just grab one before you leave. They'll help to guide you through who we are as a community. We've also started this new season with a focus on space and place and neighborhood. And that's because this year our next step as a community is the launch of our Inglewood Parish. Now a lot of churches do multi site and a lot of them do it really well and there's a lot that we can learn from them, but that's not really all that we're interested in here at Commons.
Speaker 1:Because we think our community, our church needs to be local. And that it needs to inhabit space, and that it needs to find a way to come alive in unique ways that are tied to the unique neighborhoods and communities that we occupy. So we all go home to our neighborhoods and do our best to embody Christ there, but together, we also have this unique presence here in Kensington. That's what we imagine for Inglewood. The same values, the same vision, that same connection to the larger whole, but a unique expression of Commons local to the Inglewood space.
Speaker 1:And so this is not just another second site for Commons. This really is a parish community that we're designing to serve a new neighborhood well. And to get us aligned with that type of imagination, we've been looking at a section from the book of Jeremiah where the people are taken into exile. And what's really interesting and what we saw last week is that God speaks to his people through Jeremiah and gives them this somewhat surprising advice as they enter into this exile experience. God says build houses, plant gardens, celebrate weddings, and pray for the peace of your new city.
Speaker 1:And, this is actually language that recalls an earlier passage from the book of Deuteronomy where the country is also at war and God says, okay, guys, here's the things that exempt you from going to battle. A new house, a new garden, a new marriage. And so, when Jeremiah advises the people in Babylon to build a house, plant a garden, get married, what he's saying is the time for war is over. And for anyone who needs it, here is your permission to be at peace in your new city. In fact, not only that, God is saying, want you to be part of this new city.
Speaker 1:I want you to bless your new neighborhood. Now, part of what we have to recognize here is also that there is a second part to God's advice. Immediately after God talks about building houses and planting gardens and celebrating weddings, God says that there is also a larger plan for his people. And that after seventy years, after several generations, they would find their way home from exile. They would return to their land.
Speaker 1:But what's important about this is that God is saying, want you to be where you are, but I also don't want you to forget who you are. The spirit of God has linked you to the space that you occupy and the people who are near you. You are meant to bless them and to heal them in some way, but that only happens when you remember that the spirit of God has also embedded something sacred and holy inside of you, something that was meant for the tikkun olam or the repair of the world. And so that's why today, we wanna take some time to talk about houses and gardens and parties in prayer. I want to specifically talk about how we can translate that into what these ideas can mean for us here now in Calgary, in Kensington, in Inglewood, and in whatever neighborhood we happen to drive home to after church today.
Speaker 1:But first, let's pray together. Spirit of God, we invite you into this space today. Both the physical space of this room as we gather to speak and to listen and to learn, but also the mental and the emotional space that we call our spirits. Be with us as we speak. Be in us and through us as we listen.
Speaker 1:Teach us as we wrestle with your word and what you would say to us. Lord, help us to sift through all the various voices and perspectives that are present in your text and in our world, and sometimes even within our fractured minds. All so that we might come to a more clear imagination of exactly who you are, and how you are inviting us now in this moment to participate with you in your plan for repair. And we deeply want to help, but we recognize that this is your story. And so we open our hearts, we engage our minds, and we offer to you our hands and our feet and our lives for your purposes of repair.
Speaker 1:We ask that you would heal us so that we might begin to heal your world. Lord, for those of us who have a sense that perhaps our wounds are too deep or we are too broken or too fractured to contribute to the repair of the world. We ask that you would speak new stories into our hearts that you might begin to renarrate our lives for us. Also, that we would sense your story reshaping and reforming and renewing us from the inside out. In the strong name of the risen Christ we pray.
Speaker 1:Amen. Okay. Quick story before we jump in today. A few weeks ago, I was out walking the dog. And when I do this, I wear big headphones.
Speaker 1:I keep my head down. I know that I look very antisocial when I walk the dog. That's because I'm focused on the task and Cedar needs his exercise. And so if you do ever happen to see me walking the dog, because I walk through this neighborhood a lot, and particularly up by the stairs on the bluff at Crescent Heights there, please come and talk to me. Just know that I am wearing noise canceling headphones.
Speaker 1:And so if you want to get my attention, you're going to have to yell, and that may look make you look strange. But do it anyway, because I'd love to say hi even though I look like I'm angry. I'm not. So anyway, I'm walking the dog and I check my Twitter feed and I see a tweet from my mom. Now, this might not seem all that surprising except that one, I didn't know she had Twitter, and two, this was the only tweet she had ever tweeted.
Speaker 1:Now, here it is. I have redacted the details here, but you can clearly see that my mom's first tweet was her password. Now, I'm walking the dog, so I'm not at home, and I immediately text my mom to tell her to delete this. Of course, she has no idea what I'm talking about or how to do this, and so begins a long and tortured text message chat between myself and my mom and my wife as we try to get her onto her computer and logged into Twitter to find some way to delete this tweet. You can see here we did eventually succeed.
Speaker 1:And I do want to clarify here because my mom will be very upset if I don't make this clear. In the end, it was not actually her password. It was the verification code that Twitter had sent her so that she could open her account. However, this was still the most mom thing my mom has ever done. And I love you all the more for it, mom.
Speaker 1:But we should not pretend that just because we get the right instructions, we always do the right things with them. Right? We don't. My mom didn't. And unfortunately, here the Israelites don't either.
Speaker 1:I mean, it is nice to read about Jeremiah and his message of peaceful coexistence in Babylon and about how we can participate in the world around us without losing the unique identity we have within the story of God. But, the bible gives us no such simple story about how everything worked out perfectly in the end. It didn't. And, in fact, in Jeremiah, he has to say, do not let the prophets and diviners among you deceive you. Do not listen to the dreams you encourage them to have.
Speaker 1:They are prophesying lies to you in my name. I have not sent them, declares the lord. So what's going on here is that there are other prophets who are saying, listen, god is going to rescue everybody. And all this bad news is going to be over quickly. Babylon will fall and we will all be home in front of the fire before winter.
Speaker 1:Sometimes even good news is fake news to steal a term that I heard somewhere. But even worse than all that, we get other voices in scripture that respond to the Babylonian exile in much more dramatic ways. Psalm one thirty seven starts, by the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion. There on the poplars we hung our harps for there our captors asked us for songs. And, you can hear the pain in this poet's voice already.
Speaker 1:The woundedness of being asked to sing songs about your own conquered lands. But from there, the despair turns to anger and the poet continues, daughter Babylon doomed to destruction. Happy is the one who repays you according to what you have done to us. Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks. Now, you read these passages out of context and you think to yourself, my goodness, the bible is awful.
Speaker 1:It's full of violent imagery and hateful speech and babies being dashed on rocks. What is happening here? And how do I make sure that my children never get a hold of this book? Except that we have to understand that a poem like this was never meant to convey the heart of God. This poem was meant to capture pain and the suffering, the frustration of these people in exile.
Speaker 1:Their humiliation at being tormented by their captors and asked to sing songs of their conquered homeland. So, yes. They all got the right instructions here in Jeremiah, but no, the bible doesn't pretend they followed them perfectly. And the truth is, sometimes we all have these embarrassing moments. And sometimes it's more than just posting the wrong thing on Twitter.
Speaker 1:Sometimes it's actually where we realize that we struggle to love certain people Or that even though we don't like to think of ourselves as racist, we all make judgments about people based on their appearance all the time? Or that even though we want to be generous to each other, sometimes our each other is often a hidden expression of us and them. And so I actually love that the bible includes the correct instructions from Jeremiah here, but also doesn't try to shy away from how we sometimes miss that mark as well. And so if you recognize in yourself those times where you didn't follow through on your best intentions, or where you let yourself down, or maybe even where you catch yourself in the midst of a moment where anger or frustration or even hate is threatening to take control of your story. Understand that that moment is not the end of your story.
Speaker 1:And that if God is gracious to us, that means that God is gracious to us always. The worst moments are part of your story. They are part of our bible as well, but they do not define you. And, that's why we need to talk about houses and gardens and parties in prayer today. Because, yes, we know these were the conditions that exempted the Israelites from war.
Speaker 1:And we understand the callback that Jeremiah is making to those earlier passages from Torah. But you see this triad of building, planting, and marrying is more than just good advice. It's actually an imagination for how the Jews were meant to live in the world. And, it's actually a pretty common thread in Jewish literature. Now, we've already seen where it first appears in Deuteronomy 20 where the God exempts people from war.
Speaker 1:But it also shows up throughout the Hebrew scriptures and one of the places it shows up is Isaiah 65. There, the prophet is speaking. He's dreaming about the final victory of God and the repair of the world, that world that is to come, the Olam Habah we talked about last week. And there, the prophet Isaiah says that in those days, we will build houses and dwell in them. And, we will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
Speaker 1:No longer will we build houses for others to live in or plant gardens for others to eat. For as the days of a tree, so will be the days of my people. My chosen ones will enjoy the work of their hands. They will not labor in vain nor will they bear children doomed to misfortune. For they will be a people blessed by the Lord and their descendants with them.
Speaker 1:And so what you have here is this triad of houses, gardens and weddings tracing a thread through the old testament. And, that thread goes from avoiding war to participating in Babylon amidst war to the final healing in Shalom, the imagination for the restoration of the world. In fact, in a book called The Religion of the Landless and the Social Context of the Babylonian Exile, the scholar Daniel l Christopher Smith says that this triad represents a manifesto for quote, nonviolent social resistance. And his argument is that what starts as an exemption from war becomes a lay of living amidst a violent world and eventually a strategy to overcome and transform the world. In other words, when we build houses and when we plant gardens and when we celebrate weddings, we are actually creating the peace that we pray for.
Speaker 1:And so the question is, what exactly do houses and gardens and parties look like for us in Calgary today? Especially if this is going to be our strategy for nonviolent social resistance. Well, we'll start with houses first. Because that's the first one on the list, but also because each of these is built off this initial step. And in Hebrew, this is, which means build houses.
Speaker 1:But that is in contrast to another very common command in the scripture, which means to pitch a tent. So the point here and the advice here is to settle in. You're not on your way through. You're not here for a good time, not a long time. You're here for a long time.
Speaker 1:And yes, hopefully we can make it a good time as well. So, this is all about planning for the long term. Now, don't get me wrong here. There are times when you are in for the short term. I know a lot of us here are here for a work term or we're here for school, and we know that we are very likely moving on to somewhere new in the future, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Speaker 1:As long as we don't begin to live our lives waiting for what comes next. Planning for the future is one thing. It's good. Living in the future and missing out on the present that's right in front of you, that is another thing. And so if you are working towards a new job or position or studying for a new degree, if you have big plans about where you want to go, then great.
Speaker 1:I am behind you a 100%. Just don't lose sight of all the amazing things available and happening right now, right here in front of you in this moment. However, because in the context here of Jeremiah, there are these quote unquote prophets that are telling everyone, listen, this is just a short term bump in the road. The good news is just around the corner. What Jeremiah is saying here is, no, guys, this is your life now.
Speaker 1:So don't avoid it. You can lament it, but don't abandon it. Settle in and figure out how to make something good and beautiful right here. Now, again, you may not be here for the long term and so it may not be worth buying or building a house for you right now. That's okay because this is not actually a real estate seminar.
Speaker 1:This is a call to dive into wherever you are with considered abandon. Now, I know we've all heard the term reckless abandon before. That's not actually what I think Jeremiah is advocating here. In fact, I think he wants his people to consider their situation very deeply. I think he wants them to be aware of their circumstance very acutely.
Speaker 1:And I think he wants them to fully understand the deep significance of what it means for them to invest in a city that's not theirs. But after all that is done, I still think he wants them to figure out how to contribute meaningfully. You see, in Calgary, we have seen the effects of now several cycles of boom and bust in our housing market. And we are relatively aware of the ups and downs of that type of cycle. But in the ancient world things were not all that different.
Speaker 1:Housing meant jobs, it meant investment and it meant taxes for the empire. And so when Jeremiah speaks of building houses, he's talking about settling in, but he's also giving his people permission. In fact, he's encouraging them to participate in the local life and economy of their city. Understand this. The part that you play in the economy of Calgary, this is part of your role in the kingdom of God.
Speaker 1:And in the spirit of tikkun olam, the real question is, are you repairing or abusing the world in how you participate? So, do you employ people here in the city? Have you created something, a business that provides honest work? Do you manage real human beings? Well, great.
Speaker 1:The question is, do you pay them fairly? Do you consider their safety at work? Do you can care about them as human beings even as you pay attention to the bottom line in your business? Because if so, then the work that you do, balancing your books and managing your costs, this may be some of the most spiritual stuff you do all week. This is all part of what it means to build a house here in the city.
Speaker 1:Do you teach? And every morning, you remind yourself that when you teach that class about calculus or finger painting or social science, that somehow you are shaping and challenging minds that will be more ready for a changing world than they were before they met you. And so the pep talk that you give yourself in the mirror every morning to pump up the energy that you need to walk into that classroom, that may be one of the most spiritual things you do all week. Do you work in an office downtown for some type of oil company? And you recognize the pressures the world is facing when it comes to the wholesale exploitation of resources.
Speaker 1:And you also weigh the need for responsible management and continued development. And you know that sustainable progress can only happen when people with vision and conviction engage themselves with these issues in really intentional ways. If so, then the spreadsheet in front of you just might be one of the most spiritual things you interact with all week. Because as agents of Tikkun Olam, we are called to build houses here in Calgary and that means we do the work to figure out how we participate in the economic life of the city in ways that bring intentional repair to the world. And yet, that's just the start.
Speaker 1:Because once you're dug in and you're settled down and you're participating in the local story, that's where gardens come into play. See, once you've got a house, then you need to eat. And for most of us that means sobeys or Safeway or maybe if we're feeling like granola this afternoon, natural community foods. But in the ancient world that meant gardens. So these weren't just a new few flowers on the side of the house to brighten up the yard.
Speaker 1:These were literally sources of sustenance for the family that Jeremiah is speaking of here. And we actually touched on this last fall in a series we did in Leviticus, but most of us are actually pretty detached from our food and where it comes from. Now, I don't eat meat, but I am very much a city boy. And so I have very little knowledge of the work that it actually takes to farm and harvest and bring potatoes to my table. Actually, read an article this week in the Atlantic where a university study examined a chicken nugget under a microscope.
Speaker 1:And I know that you're cringing already, and I will spare you the goriest details, but here's a brief summary. 19% meat protein, 43% other chicken product, which I will leave to your imagination, and then the rest, this is the craziest part, 38% breading and glue to hold it all together. And that's how disconnected we are from our food. We are literally gluing it all back together just so we can chew it. Now regardless of your dietary habits, the fact is without gardens, your cows don't get fed and your chickens don't eat and even the chicken nugget lovers among us aren't left much much on their plate.
Speaker 1:So planting gardens can mean planting gardens. And I'm fascinated by this movement towards small inner city gardens. Rachel and I are exploring that for our family, what it would take for us to generate and harvest actual food from our land here in the city. But since I am an avowed city boy with no aspirations of ever leaving the city. I think what this really says to me is that there is something important about becoming aware of the sources of life in my world.
Speaker 1:It's not just a coincidence that Jesus calls himself the bread of life. It's because he wants to be associated in our minds with the most necessary and miraculous moments of life. But the problem is when we start to think that bread is just what shows up when we pull Skip The Dishes out on our phone, we forget that gardens are magical. And we miss the significance of his meaning here. As the poet Wendell Berry says, whoever really has considered the lilies of the field or the birds of the air and pondered the improbability of their existence in this warm world within the cold and empty stellar distances.
Speaker 1:We'll hardly balk at the turning of water into wine, is after all a very small miracle. Because we forget the greater and still continuing miracle by which water with soil and sunlight is turned into grapes in the first place. See, all of that. The mystery of life and death and growth and gardens. This is what Jesus has in mind when he speaks to us of bread.
Speaker 1:And so maybe you will actually plant a garden. Or maybe you will support a local farmer, or maybe you will simply become conscious of the choices that you make and the ways that they either distance you from or draw you deeper into the mystery and the beauty and the magic of life. But planting gardens is about choosing to draw ourselves back into connection with all that it takes to support and sustain our existence here even in this city. Finally, Jeremiah speaks of weddings. And I think I know something of weddings.
Speaker 1:I am married after all. But yesterday, I also officiated my eighteenth wedding of 2017 alone. I have one more to go before the end of the month. It has been a busy year and all of you need to slow down on the falling in love. It's too much right now.
Speaker 1:Too much. But that said, I have done all kinds of weddings and all kinds of settings and every time I have been asked and invited to participate, it has been an honor. But one of the things that I've come to realize about weddings is that as much as the bride and the groom often have very explicit instructions and carefully considered details they want attended to, weddings are about far more than two people. Weddings are intrinsically, even when they're difficult, about the melding of two disparate families and communities. Now, sometimes that's easy and sometimes that's hard and sometimes we don't know which it will be until years down the road.
Speaker 1:But to get married and to have sons and daughters and to find wives for your sons and to give your daughters in marriage, this is about engaging in an ongoing, expanding, deepening, and sometimes completely unpredictable commitment to community. People meet and they fall in love sometimes with someone they never expected to. And it pulls together entire families, entire communities that would have never otherwise interacted. And that is what the kingdom of God is about. You are here.
Speaker 1:There's a good chance that the person on your left is someone you know and love deeply. And, the person on your right is someone that you would never have met without this community. We have different backgrounds, different ethnicities, different socioeconomic strata, and we are all thrown into this room because somehow Jesus has invited each of us toward him. And weddings are about this strange mix of people that come together because of something like love. You see this commitment to build and plant and celebrate.
Speaker 1:This commitment to settle into where you are, and to intentionally discover the sources of life that are near you, and to celebrate community across family and tribal and social lines. This is the nonviolent social resistance that pushes back against the empire of Babylon. But it is also the strategy that pushes back against the isolation of Facebook and the commercialization of spirituality and the commodification of our sexuality and the polarization of our politics. This is what pushes back against the breakdown of our neighborhoods and the loneliness of life in the city. Because when we start to build things instead of just tear them down, and when we start to plant in just instead of buy, and when we start to celebrate together, instead of just assuming or even looking for the worst in each other all the time, this is how we pray for the peace of our city.
Speaker 1:Especially when we find ourselves in the places we never expected to be. And so as we begin this new season together, my prayer for each of us is we all head back to our neighborhoods and our homes and our gardens and our parties is that we might begin to see our local life as a small expression of God's enormous kingdom. We might see our conversations and our relationships and our transactions as our contribution to the tikkun olam of the world. And then at the same time, that as we begin our movement together towards a new parish and towards Inglewood, that together as Commons Church, we might come to see something unique and local come alive in a new way. So that our shared story might be birthed in new homes and new gardens, in new conversations with people we might never have otherwise interacted with.
Speaker 1:Because the kingdom of God is global. But, the good news begins exactly right where we are. Let's pray. God, help us as we begin this new season together To enter into the spaces that we already occupy with a renewed imagination for your purpose and your passion, your kingdom flowing through us. That we are agents of repair and reconciliation.
Speaker 1:That we are participating in the tikkun olam, in the conversations that we enter, in the transactions we buy, in the ways that we interact with the people who are near us. And so, God, would you inspire us with a new imagination to build, to invest and contribute and add to the story of Calgary? Would you help us to figure out what it means to plant, to to be connected to the sources of life and sustenance in our world? To recognize the work and the sweat and the beauty and the magic of what it takes to sustain our city. And then, God, that we would celebrate.
Speaker 1:Relationships and love and family and communities coming together from out of the blue in ways we never would have expected. Recognizing that you are in the midst of that, and that crossing those lines is part of the repair of the world. God, may all of that become our prayer for peace and might our small lives contribute to your enormous story. In the strong name of the risen Christ we pray. Amen.