Exiles, outcasts, and home
Commentary
Object:
When he summarized the formation of Latino identity, Gregory Rodriguez titled his social history Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans, and Vagabonds. Hispanic culture, he explained, is the result of marginalizing groups and redrawing homeland borders for their exclusion. Many died, unfortunately, in the onslaught of European diseases attacking defenseless native "New Worlders," and among the genocidic battles waged for ethnic domination. But the survivors forged a new group of cultural identities. Their displacement became their strength.
This might also describe the communities identified in today's lectionary readings. Jeremiah writes from the insecurity of broken Jerusalem to those already in Babylonian exile, and urges them to find a way beyond survival to thriving while retaining their unique religious identity. Paul gives his final testimony from Nero's prison, telling Timothy that marginalization for the sake of Jesus has not meant minimization of the power of the gospel. And Jesus finds all of the outcasts of his society crying for healing, while very few of them live as if they know what healthy living means.
Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7
Jeremiah's prophecies are not collected in a chronological order. When tracked against the reigns and events of various kings, the following challenges, indictments, and promises related to today's Old Testament reading can be placed:
* During the glorious days of social renewal and religious revival under King Josiah (640-609 BC), Jeremiah delivered both the terrifying indictments of chapters 3-6 as well as the support for reforms that were spelled out in chapters 30-31.
* The quick demise of King Johoahaz (609-608 BC) brought about the brief lament found in chapter 20:10-12.
* It was during the pompous decade of King Jehoiakim's reign (608-597 BC) that God gave Jeremiah some of his most visual and foreboding messages. In 607-606 BC the Babylonians made their first official incursion into Jerusalem, confirming Jehoiakim as king only if he would consider his small country a vassal territory of Babylon, and allowing the retraining of some of the maturing sons among the noble families (including Daniel and his friends) in Babylon so that they could return one day as proper Babylonian regents. Jeremiah gave his famous "Potter's House" sermon at this time (ch. 18), and later wrote about the battle of wills going on that would result in Judah's captivity by Babylon for seventy years (chs. 25-26).
* After Jehoiakim grew reckless with false bravado and thought he could declare independence from Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar sent his troops again and replaced Johoiakim with his son Jehoiakin (597 BC). The eighteen-year-old lasted less than a year before the Babylonians took him away to exile (along with Ezekiel and others), and installed his uncle as the final king of Judah. Jeremiah's messages were warnings for the people to prepare themselves for deportation, the only outcome they could expect after so many years of flaunting Yahweh's ways (chs. 24, 35-36).
* The last king of Judah, Zedekiah (597-586 BC), seems to have been spineless, placating all in sight and making secret deals, but fleeing to save his own skin when things got too hot (chs. 21-22, 27-28). During these dark times Jeremiah wrote the letter including today's lectionary reading to the people of Judah who had already been deported to Babylon (ch. 29), urging them to settle in. Its message was simple and straightforward: although Yahweh would surely restore the nation in the future, the current generation had to suffer punishment for its sinfulness. At the same time, during the final siege of Jerusalem, when the entire economy and real estate market had collapsed, Jeremiah bought a field deemed worthless as a token of good faith that Yahweh would call the people back from exile to prosperity (ch. 32). But when Zedekiah got overly confident about his valued position as Babylon's local appointee, Jeremiah warned him that the judgment of Yahweh was irreversible, and days of destruction were just around the corner (ch. 34).
There is something about Jeremiah's letter that is simultaneously terrifying and comforting. The exile is an act of God's judgment against his people, Jeremiah declares, but the outcome will not deny or undermine God's commitment to the grand future still promised for those who are part of the great missional community of divine redemption.
2 Timothy 2:8-15
Paul ends his letter to Titus with a few personal notes announcing that he will soon be in Nicopolis, on the east side of Greece, anticipating "winter" (Titus 3:12-15). Since there is no reference in these letters to grave persecutions that might be developing, nor any indication of the apostle Peter's death (which probably happened early in the attack on Christians that followed Rome's burning in July of 64), Paul probably penned 1 Timothy and Titus around the middle of 63 AD.
Paul's next years were likely quite hectic. When the fires began burning Rome in the middle of 64 AD, Emperor Nero was quick to point the finger of accusation toward the Christians. As a leading figure in the movement, Paul soon became a hunted man. It is probable that the winter of 63-64 AD, spent in Nicopolis, was the last peaceful time in his life. Nero would die in 68 AD, but not until he had killed thousands of Christians, including Peter and Paul.
In his attempts to stay ahead of warrants for his arrest, Paul probably flitted from location to location from late 64 through early 66 AD. His travel notes to Timothy, in the second letter sent to the young pastor, certainly have the air of haste and mobility about them. During that year or so he traveled, at minimum, to Corinth (2 Timothy 4:20), Miletus (2 Timothy 4:20), and Troas (2 Timothy 4:13). There, in the city where he had first come to know doctor Luke sixteen years before, Paul was arrested and hauled off to Rome without even being able to take along his few personal belongings (2 Timothy 4:13).
Evidently there were several different arraignments and trials during the legal process that would lead to Paul's death (2 Timothy 4:16). After all, Paul's Roman citizenship provided him with protections that Peter and others did not enjoy. In between some of these court matters Paul sent a final letter to his young friend Timothy. It is warm and passionate, urgent and reflective, pessimistic and optimistic, all at the same time. Paul urges Timothy to live faithfully as a pastor, carrying on the tradition of his godly forebears, grandmother Lois and mother Eunice, and learning from the example of Paul's own life as his spiritual mentor (2 Timothy 1:1--2:13). Paul also reminds Timothy of some of the key teachings that are critical for church leaders to espouse regularly (2 Timothy 2:14--3:9). Finally, Paul lapses into tender reminders of the times they spent together and offers his strong personal testimony of faith and trust in Jesus, even as he senses his execution looming (2 Timothy 3:10--4:8). Some final greetings and urgent instructions end the letter (2 Timothy 4:9-22).
What is most striking about today's passage is the sense of calm comfort in the middle of what would be the last and greatest storm of Paul's life. He has experienced shipwrecks, beatings, the discomforts of travel, hunger, sickness, and several near-death experiences, along with this and a number of other imprisonments. In short, Paul has often been marginalized and in exile. It is precisely because of this that Paul knows where his true identity and homeland is found.
This is the reason for Paul's clear and specific "faithful sayings" that dot his final letter. It is also the source of his confidence that those who share his hardships will only bring greater authenticity when they speak about faith, truth, and the journey of the kingdom that brings all God's people home.
Luke 17:11-19
A schoolteacher asked her students to make a list of the things for which they were thankful. Right at the top of Chad's list was the word "glasses." Some children resent having to wear glasses, but evidently not Chad! She asked him about it. Why was he thankful that he wore glasses?
"Well," he said, "my glasses keep the boys from hitting me and the girls from kissing me."
The philosopher Eric Hoffer says, "The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings!" That's true, isn't it?
There is an old legend about the angels of heaven coming to earth to gather prayers into large baskets. Thousands return with their baskets overflowing with every request, from a child's prayer ("Bless Mommy and Daddy and Sister and Brother and my pet hamster") to the atheist's cry ("O God! What do we do now?").
But a single lonely angel returns to heaven with a half-empty basket of thanksgiving notes. That's all there are. Like the ten lepers Jesus healed, we run off with the nine and only once in a while stop to think and thank.
Thanksgiving and faith go hand in hand. My faith in God is not just some polite thanks for the goodies and trinkets that I think God has given me. No, in fact it is exactly the other way around. My thankfulness to God is the cornerstone of my faith. I'm not thankful just because I believe God has given me things. Rather, I believe because it is right to give God thanks, even when I cannot point to anything specific, even when the chips are down and I'm surrounded by trouble.
In 1637, Eilenburg, Saxony, was surrounded by the dark night of the soul. Europe was at war. Eilenburg was tossed back and forth by the armies. Three times during that year it was attacked and severely damaged. When the armies left, refugees poured in by the thousands. Disease ran rampant. Food was scarce.
There was only one pastor in the city, a fellow named Martin Rinkart. His journal for 1637 indicates that he conducted over 4,500 funerals that year, sometimes as many as forty or fifty a day. Life was a constant death, and each morning stank of disaster. Still, somehow, even today, 1637 is important for every community of faith around the world. For Christians still sing the song Pastor Rinkart wrote that year. They sing it with gusto. They sing it with faith. They sing it not because it catalogs a list of reasons for thanksgiving, but because thankfulness is all that is left when the bottom drops out of the world. They sing:
Now thank we all our God with heart and hands and voices,
who wondrous things has done, in whom his world rejoices;
who from our mothers' arms has blessed us on our way
with countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.
They sing with the Samaritan leper who came back to Jesus to say, "Thank you!"
Application
The year was 1897. Queen Victoria had ruled the British Empire for sixty years, and England decided to throw a party in her honor. The Union Jack flew above every continent in every corner of the world, and schoolchildren learned with pride: "The sun never sets on the British Empire."
Rudyard Kipling was the storyteller and poet of the day. He was commissioned by Parliament to "write a little something" for the celebrations. But when the poem "Recessional" appeared, the nation was shocked by its dark and somber tone. It didn't fit with the mood of merriment:
God of our fathers, known of old,
Lord of our far-flung battle-line,
Beneath whose awful Hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine --
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget -- lest we forget!
The tumult and the shouting dies;
The Captains and the Kings depart:
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
A humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget -- lest we forget!
Far-called, our navies melt away;
On dune and headland sinks the fire:
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget -- lest we forget!
If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe,
Such boastings as the Gentiles use,
Or lesser breeds without the Law --
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget -- lest we forget!
For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard,
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding, calls not Thee to guard,
For frantic boast and foolish word --
Thy mercy on Thy People, Lord!
Some, like those to whom Jeremiah wrote his letter, sing songs like this in the pain of political exile. Others, like Paul, sing such laments from the prisons of powerful nations, knowing that an even greater kingdom will one day make things right. All of us, however, who know with our anticipated memories the New Jerusalem of Revelation's visions, sing such songs with the Samaritan who returned to Jesus after his years in the aching of spiritual exile. It's what the Heidelberg Catechism, in its first major section, terms Das Elend -- alienation, displacement, and exile. The moment we grow comfortable with that "misery," we'll have forgotten the true object of our faith.
An Alternative Application
2 Timothy2:8-15. It is hard to exaggerate the impact of Paul's life and theology on the Christian church. More than anyone else, he urged and practiced intentional mission outreach as an essential aspect of Christian life. Moreover, he saw his primary target audience as the large Gentile community that extended well beyond Palestine and the Jewish communities tucked into the corners of the Roman Empire. In reaching for the nations, Paul saw the fulfillment of what God had intended to do through the seed of Abraham. The church was, for Paul, God's next major strategy in reclaiming the human race for its original relationships and purposes.
Because of the vision of Christ that captured him on the road to Damascus, and the startling news of Jesus' resurrection, Paul nurtured in his converts an apocalyptic ethic and lifestyle. Jesus came a little while ago and shook things up; now Jesus is coming again soon, so live as if that matters.
Paul also was the key figure in helping the church transition from its original temporary mission outposts into an organization with adaptable but supportive structures. In this way he clarified the meaning of Christ's life, death, and resurrection and crafted a perspective that started as personal testimony and ended as comprehensive worldview theology. By the time congregations exhausted their conversations with Paul, they had a toolkit of core theological and ecclesiastical concepts that could be applied to most situations they would encounter.
Added to these things was the intensive and extensive mentoring through which Paul multiplied his gifts and passions in dozens of other key figures who would carry on long after he was gone. Not only did Paul teach and model well, but he sustained contact with congregations and individuals who were part of his journey. In so doing, he helped knit together the early communities of believers that eventually made the church of Jesus a global enterprise rather than a few isolated religious philosophy clubs scattered around the major cities of the Mediterranean world.
This might also describe the communities identified in today's lectionary readings. Jeremiah writes from the insecurity of broken Jerusalem to those already in Babylonian exile, and urges them to find a way beyond survival to thriving while retaining their unique religious identity. Paul gives his final testimony from Nero's prison, telling Timothy that marginalization for the sake of Jesus has not meant minimization of the power of the gospel. And Jesus finds all of the outcasts of his society crying for healing, while very few of them live as if they know what healthy living means.
Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7
Jeremiah's prophecies are not collected in a chronological order. When tracked against the reigns and events of various kings, the following challenges, indictments, and promises related to today's Old Testament reading can be placed:
* During the glorious days of social renewal and religious revival under King Josiah (640-609 BC), Jeremiah delivered both the terrifying indictments of chapters 3-6 as well as the support for reforms that were spelled out in chapters 30-31.
* The quick demise of King Johoahaz (609-608 BC) brought about the brief lament found in chapter 20:10-12.
* It was during the pompous decade of King Jehoiakim's reign (608-597 BC) that God gave Jeremiah some of his most visual and foreboding messages. In 607-606 BC the Babylonians made their first official incursion into Jerusalem, confirming Jehoiakim as king only if he would consider his small country a vassal territory of Babylon, and allowing the retraining of some of the maturing sons among the noble families (including Daniel and his friends) in Babylon so that they could return one day as proper Babylonian regents. Jeremiah gave his famous "Potter's House" sermon at this time (ch. 18), and later wrote about the battle of wills going on that would result in Judah's captivity by Babylon for seventy years (chs. 25-26).
* After Jehoiakim grew reckless with false bravado and thought he could declare independence from Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar sent his troops again and replaced Johoiakim with his son Jehoiakin (597 BC). The eighteen-year-old lasted less than a year before the Babylonians took him away to exile (along with Ezekiel and others), and installed his uncle as the final king of Judah. Jeremiah's messages were warnings for the people to prepare themselves for deportation, the only outcome they could expect after so many years of flaunting Yahweh's ways (chs. 24, 35-36).
* The last king of Judah, Zedekiah (597-586 BC), seems to have been spineless, placating all in sight and making secret deals, but fleeing to save his own skin when things got too hot (chs. 21-22, 27-28). During these dark times Jeremiah wrote the letter including today's lectionary reading to the people of Judah who had already been deported to Babylon (ch. 29), urging them to settle in. Its message was simple and straightforward: although Yahweh would surely restore the nation in the future, the current generation had to suffer punishment for its sinfulness. At the same time, during the final siege of Jerusalem, when the entire economy and real estate market had collapsed, Jeremiah bought a field deemed worthless as a token of good faith that Yahweh would call the people back from exile to prosperity (ch. 32). But when Zedekiah got overly confident about his valued position as Babylon's local appointee, Jeremiah warned him that the judgment of Yahweh was irreversible, and days of destruction were just around the corner (ch. 34).
There is something about Jeremiah's letter that is simultaneously terrifying and comforting. The exile is an act of God's judgment against his people, Jeremiah declares, but the outcome will not deny or undermine God's commitment to the grand future still promised for those who are part of the great missional community of divine redemption.
2 Timothy 2:8-15
Paul ends his letter to Titus with a few personal notes announcing that he will soon be in Nicopolis, on the east side of Greece, anticipating "winter" (Titus 3:12-15). Since there is no reference in these letters to grave persecutions that might be developing, nor any indication of the apostle Peter's death (which probably happened early in the attack on Christians that followed Rome's burning in July of 64), Paul probably penned 1 Timothy and Titus around the middle of 63 AD.
Paul's next years were likely quite hectic. When the fires began burning Rome in the middle of 64 AD, Emperor Nero was quick to point the finger of accusation toward the Christians. As a leading figure in the movement, Paul soon became a hunted man. It is probable that the winter of 63-64 AD, spent in Nicopolis, was the last peaceful time in his life. Nero would die in 68 AD, but not until he had killed thousands of Christians, including Peter and Paul.
In his attempts to stay ahead of warrants for his arrest, Paul probably flitted from location to location from late 64 through early 66 AD. His travel notes to Timothy, in the second letter sent to the young pastor, certainly have the air of haste and mobility about them. During that year or so he traveled, at minimum, to Corinth (2 Timothy 4:20), Miletus (2 Timothy 4:20), and Troas (2 Timothy 4:13). There, in the city where he had first come to know doctor Luke sixteen years before, Paul was arrested and hauled off to Rome without even being able to take along his few personal belongings (2 Timothy 4:13).
Evidently there were several different arraignments and trials during the legal process that would lead to Paul's death (2 Timothy 4:16). After all, Paul's Roman citizenship provided him with protections that Peter and others did not enjoy. In between some of these court matters Paul sent a final letter to his young friend Timothy. It is warm and passionate, urgent and reflective, pessimistic and optimistic, all at the same time. Paul urges Timothy to live faithfully as a pastor, carrying on the tradition of his godly forebears, grandmother Lois and mother Eunice, and learning from the example of Paul's own life as his spiritual mentor (2 Timothy 1:1--2:13). Paul also reminds Timothy of some of the key teachings that are critical for church leaders to espouse regularly (2 Timothy 2:14--3:9). Finally, Paul lapses into tender reminders of the times they spent together and offers his strong personal testimony of faith and trust in Jesus, even as he senses his execution looming (2 Timothy 3:10--4:8). Some final greetings and urgent instructions end the letter (2 Timothy 4:9-22).
What is most striking about today's passage is the sense of calm comfort in the middle of what would be the last and greatest storm of Paul's life. He has experienced shipwrecks, beatings, the discomforts of travel, hunger, sickness, and several near-death experiences, along with this and a number of other imprisonments. In short, Paul has often been marginalized and in exile. It is precisely because of this that Paul knows where his true identity and homeland is found.
This is the reason for Paul's clear and specific "faithful sayings" that dot his final letter. It is also the source of his confidence that those who share his hardships will only bring greater authenticity when they speak about faith, truth, and the journey of the kingdom that brings all God's people home.
Luke 17:11-19
A schoolteacher asked her students to make a list of the things for which they were thankful. Right at the top of Chad's list was the word "glasses." Some children resent having to wear glasses, but evidently not Chad! She asked him about it. Why was he thankful that he wore glasses?
"Well," he said, "my glasses keep the boys from hitting me and the girls from kissing me."
The philosopher Eric Hoffer says, "The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings!" That's true, isn't it?
There is an old legend about the angels of heaven coming to earth to gather prayers into large baskets. Thousands return with their baskets overflowing with every request, from a child's prayer ("Bless Mommy and Daddy and Sister and Brother and my pet hamster") to the atheist's cry ("O God! What do we do now?").
But a single lonely angel returns to heaven with a half-empty basket of thanksgiving notes. That's all there are. Like the ten lepers Jesus healed, we run off with the nine and only once in a while stop to think and thank.
Thanksgiving and faith go hand in hand. My faith in God is not just some polite thanks for the goodies and trinkets that I think God has given me. No, in fact it is exactly the other way around. My thankfulness to God is the cornerstone of my faith. I'm not thankful just because I believe God has given me things. Rather, I believe because it is right to give God thanks, even when I cannot point to anything specific, even when the chips are down and I'm surrounded by trouble.
In 1637, Eilenburg, Saxony, was surrounded by the dark night of the soul. Europe was at war. Eilenburg was tossed back and forth by the armies. Three times during that year it was attacked and severely damaged. When the armies left, refugees poured in by the thousands. Disease ran rampant. Food was scarce.
There was only one pastor in the city, a fellow named Martin Rinkart. His journal for 1637 indicates that he conducted over 4,500 funerals that year, sometimes as many as forty or fifty a day. Life was a constant death, and each morning stank of disaster. Still, somehow, even today, 1637 is important for every community of faith around the world. For Christians still sing the song Pastor Rinkart wrote that year. They sing it with gusto. They sing it with faith. They sing it not because it catalogs a list of reasons for thanksgiving, but because thankfulness is all that is left when the bottom drops out of the world. They sing:
Now thank we all our God with heart and hands and voices,
who wondrous things has done, in whom his world rejoices;
who from our mothers' arms has blessed us on our way
with countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.
They sing with the Samaritan leper who came back to Jesus to say, "Thank you!"
Application
The year was 1897. Queen Victoria had ruled the British Empire for sixty years, and England decided to throw a party in her honor. The Union Jack flew above every continent in every corner of the world, and schoolchildren learned with pride: "The sun never sets on the British Empire."
Rudyard Kipling was the storyteller and poet of the day. He was commissioned by Parliament to "write a little something" for the celebrations. But when the poem "Recessional" appeared, the nation was shocked by its dark and somber tone. It didn't fit with the mood of merriment:
God of our fathers, known of old,
Lord of our far-flung battle-line,
Beneath whose awful Hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine --
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget -- lest we forget!
The tumult and the shouting dies;
The Captains and the Kings depart:
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
A humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget -- lest we forget!
Far-called, our navies melt away;
On dune and headland sinks the fire:
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget -- lest we forget!
If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe,
Such boastings as the Gentiles use,
Or lesser breeds without the Law --
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget -- lest we forget!
For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard,
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding, calls not Thee to guard,
For frantic boast and foolish word --
Thy mercy on Thy People, Lord!
Some, like those to whom Jeremiah wrote his letter, sing songs like this in the pain of political exile. Others, like Paul, sing such laments from the prisons of powerful nations, knowing that an even greater kingdom will one day make things right. All of us, however, who know with our anticipated memories the New Jerusalem of Revelation's visions, sing such songs with the Samaritan who returned to Jesus after his years in the aching of spiritual exile. It's what the Heidelberg Catechism, in its first major section, terms Das Elend -- alienation, displacement, and exile. The moment we grow comfortable with that "misery," we'll have forgotten the true object of our faith.
An Alternative Application
2 Timothy2:8-15. It is hard to exaggerate the impact of Paul's life and theology on the Christian church. More than anyone else, he urged and practiced intentional mission outreach as an essential aspect of Christian life. Moreover, he saw his primary target audience as the large Gentile community that extended well beyond Palestine and the Jewish communities tucked into the corners of the Roman Empire. In reaching for the nations, Paul saw the fulfillment of what God had intended to do through the seed of Abraham. The church was, for Paul, God's next major strategy in reclaiming the human race for its original relationships and purposes.
Because of the vision of Christ that captured him on the road to Damascus, and the startling news of Jesus' resurrection, Paul nurtured in his converts an apocalyptic ethic and lifestyle. Jesus came a little while ago and shook things up; now Jesus is coming again soon, so live as if that matters.
Paul also was the key figure in helping the church transition from its original temporary mission outposts into an organization with adaptable but supportive structures. In this way he clarified the meaning of Christ's life, death, and resurrection and crafted a perspective that started as personal testimony and ended as comprehensive worldview theology. By the time congregations exhausted their conversations with Paul, they had a toolkit of core theological and ecclesiastical concepts that could be applied to most situations they would encounter.
Added to these things was the intensive and extensive mentoring through which Paul multiplied his gifts and passions in dozens of other key figures who would carry on long after he was gone. Not only did Paul teach and model well, but he sustained contact with congregations and individuals who were part of his journey. In so doing, he helped knit together the early communities of believers that eventually made the church of Jesus a global enterprise rather than a few isolated religious philosophy clubs scattered around the major cities of the Mediterranean world.
