Seeking Welfare in Exile

Jeremiah 29:7 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.

Peaceable Kingdom - Edward Hicks (1780-1849)

This line from the lectionary reading for next Sunday (October 13, 2019) from the Hebrew Scripture is eloquently instructive as I aspire to faithfully follow Jesus when so much around me is going the opposite direction. For my adult life I have recognized that my citizenship in the country where I happen to reside is at most secondary to my total, unreserved allegiance to the Reign of God. Hebrews 11:9-10 has been my guiding metaphor for over half a century. “By faith [Abraham] stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” I have lived in tents, recognizing that I am a sojourner and stranger in a foreign land. That has enabled me to be portable, moving from California to Minnesota, to Illinois, to New Jersey (with a stop in Ontario), to Wisconsin, to Texas (with a stop in Oklahoma), and now back to Wisconsin for what I expect will be our last encampment until departing for the city with foundations.

Through those years that has enabled me to explore the creative tension between withdrawing from this foreign land, knowing it is not my home, and the pressures to pledge my allegiance to the country in which I reside. I have been reminded again by Jeremiah 29:7 that on my sojourn here I am to seek the welfare of the city/country of my exile. For me that means advocating , supporting, and participating in peace and justice, righteousness and compassionate mercy as signs of the Reign of God. They may be hidden, fleeting, and incomplete, but wherever the light of the Reign of God shines (or even glows dimly) contributes to the welfare of the city/country of my exile.

As I have begun my lectio divina for this week on the lectionary passages to be read on Sunday, my eye dropped down the page from the assigned reading about Jesus cleansing the ten lepers to Luke 17:20-21 which I think also speak to my reflections on seeking the welfare of the city/country of my exile where Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.” I know that in the following paragraph, Jesus spoke about what to, nor not to, watch for in the unfolding of the climax of human history. I believe that Jesus emphasized the unexpected as a cautionary tale about not trying to plot out how certain signs of a schedule may or may not be in current events. To the consternation of my dispensationalist friends, I also suspect that with the comparison to Noah, the “one will be taken, the other left,” is not a reference to an anticipated “rapture” of the redeemed but to the judgment of those who went through life without observing the kingdom of God among them.

I only slightly apologize for this discursive wandering from my main point. Recognizing the kingdom of God that is among us is essential to seeking the welfare of the city/country of my exile. I am not looking for the Reign of God in any temporal human institution: not this country, not “Christendom,” not even the Church. (Though I do believe the Church has a responsibility and opportunity to be a sort of frontier outpost of the Reign of God inviting people into a community of those who seek to live as its citizens even as they are exiles wherever they reside.) So part of the marvelous mystery of the kingdom of God among us is that wherever its priorities of peace and justice, righteousness and compassionate mercy are present, the Reign of God is alive and at work, even if brought about by those who do not acknowledge Christ or even God.

When I pray, as Jesus taught, “your kingdom come … on earth as it is in heaven,” I am seeking the welfare of the city/country were I reside, even as I acknowledge I am a stranger and sojourner here.