Thoughts on the Babylonian Captivity of the Church

Sermon Proper 23C The Sunday closest to October 12

Jeremiah 29:1,4-7
II Timothy 2:8-15

Preached at St. John’s

The city of Jerusalem is mesmerizing. To walk in the footsteps of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is an experience which can transform one’s life. To look upon the walls of Suleiman the Magnificent and walk the path to temple mount is merely a short imagining to the citadel of David. The promises of God are everywhere. On the rock covered by the great dome of Islam Abraham lifted the knife to slay his son, his only son, and experienced the deliverance of God. Here David danced before the Lord, ensuring the disdain of those who thought too much of what others might say, but exhibiting that purity of heart which brought him the sobriquet “a man after God’s own heart.” Solomon the wise, in obedience to the call of God, erected the first temple in this place. To the call of the shophar and the solemn intonation of priestly chant, the faithful repaired to the worship of the one true God for generations. It was commonly believed that God would never let his holy city be defiled by the tramp of foreign armies, although he had never said so himself. But it was not the tramp of foreign armies which first defiled the holy city. Rather it was the disobedience of his own people which destroyed that city which had heard the songs of God’s praise and welcomed the entry of the great kings appointed by the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
I have always yearned for Jerusalem. My favorite hymns are of the city. “And there’s another country,” “Jerusalem, my happy home, when shall I come to thee..,” “And we shall build Jerusalem, in England’s green and pleasant land.” Among my favorite psalms are the songs of degrees, which for centuries have been sung by the people of God as they approached the city of David, the city of God. “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.” “Behold, how good and pleasant a thing it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.” You see, Jerusalem is for the people of God a metaphor of that heavenly city which is to come, which is to come down from God out of heaven as a bride adorned for her husband. Rebecca and I have long sought to make our own domicile a vision, a pale reflection of the city of Jerusalem, a place of harmony and beauty and godliness. We have never been completely successful, but it is our dream and our goal, that visitors to our home might gain a sense of that which is to come.
Imagine how the children of Judah must have raised their lament when their city was destroyed by the Babylonians, and they were dragged into those seventy years of captivity in a strange and foreign land. “By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept. How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land.” It must have seemed to the faithful that the world itself had come to an end. And the prophet Jeremiah wrote to them a letter which was to fill their nights with hope and their days with holy labour. “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.”
Have you ever received news which seemed to indicate the demise of that which you held most dear in all the world? From time to time, some bit of information has such an effect on me. Perhaps it is an offshoot of my personality and experience, or perhaps it has some basis in reality. When it strikes, it cuts me to the core, and instills in me a brooding sense of doom that can take some days to pass. In those times, I look to the experience of the children of Judah and Israel after the first temple was destroyed and the people carried away. For seventy years they lived in a hope not realized that God would deliver them and restore the city of Jerusalem, and when finally the Persian king allowed their return, it was as if all the world was against them. The rebuilding project languished for a full generation. Fathers and Mothers died, and their children grew up with the promises of restoration unfulfilled. But they persevered, and built homes, and planted gardens, and reared families in that place of spiritual desolation where God had placed them. And in the end, their prayers were answered. The temple was rebuilt and the wall was reconstructed. The people returned to accomplish the mission that had been assigned to them some 900 years earlier, namely to be the bearers of Christ to the nations. You see, in the end, God’s will is always accomplished; not on our time table or in the way we might imagine, but his triumph is inevitable, and we are called to soldier on with hope through the hard times, living in and praying for those societies and times and institutions where he has placed us, and not leaning to our own understanding or our own ways.
On Friday, as I was perusing the church press, I was stricken by a spirit of what could have easily become hopelessness, or even despair. And then I sat down and read the propers for this day. I saw the admonition of Jeremiah to the people of God, and I heeded the wisdom of St. Paul writing from prison, “The saying is sure: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he will also deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful- for he cannot deny himself. Remind them of this, and warn them before God that they are to avoid wrangling over words, which does no good but only ruins those who are listening. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved by him, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly explaining the word of truth.”
Many things will happen in this world, and all of us will find some of them not to be to our liking. But if we are faithful and true, and go about serving God with obedience, and with love, and with faith in the Incarnate Christ and the Holy and Blessed Trinity, refusing to be caught up in arguments and bantering over words, God himself will vindicate us, and we will be by his grace ushered into that heavenly city, the new Jerusalem. Be faithful my friends, and let no earthly events lead you to despair. Our God, the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, is faithful, and he has named us as his own. AMEN.