How should we live in a world of fear, violence, and oppression? That's the question God's people ask as they're taken into Babylonian exile in our Lectionary reading for Sunday, Jeremiah 29.

St. John uses "Babylon" as a picture of the present world set against God, and St. James and St. Peter both refer to Christians as those in "exile." As God's deliverance of His people from slavery in Egypt is picked up in the New Testament as a prototype of salvation from sin (Rom 10), so too is Jeremiah 29 used as a picture of Christian obedience in the world.

Therefore, the question of how to live in a world of fear, violence, and oppression is every bit as relevant in 2025 AD as it was in 598 BC. And what is God's response? I like how The Message Version of the Bible puts it:

"Build houses and make yourselves at home. Put in gardens and eat what grows in that country. Marry and have children. Encourage your children to marry and have children so that you'll thrive in that country and not waste away. Make yourselves at home there and work for the country's welfare. Pray for Babylon's well-being. If things go well for Babylon, things will go well for you."

Radical obedience in the world looks shockingly...ordinary. Live a peaceful life. Contribute to the economic life of the city. Don't hate your neighbors, even those who persecute you, but pray for their flourishing. St. Paul sums it up well, "As far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone." The Christian life is as simple to understand as it is difficult to put into practice.

In his now classic book, Subversive Christianity, Brian Walsh evokes Jeremiah 29 to encourage the sort of normal Christian obedience that we'll discuss on Sunday:

“Build houses in a culture of homelessness. Plant gardens in polluted and contested soil. Get married in a culture of sexual consumerism. Make commitments in a world where we want to always keep our options open. Multiply in a world of debt. Have children at the end of history. Seek shalom in a violent world of geo-political conflict and economic disparity. This is Jeremiah’s word to the exiles. This is Jeremiah’s subversive word to us. And in this vision we just might see, with Jeremiah, a future with hope.”

I pray you're able to join us Sunday as we huddle as exiles in a broken world to hear a fresh word from God. Together we plant. Together we raise children. Together we pray. Together we hope!