Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7
Proper 23 (28) - Year C
Displaced. Exiled. Refugee. These words and more like them are artifacts of cruelty trampling community. They essentially say, “You must be done away with that I might flourish.” These are zero-sum game categories.
Jeremiah recognizes the reality of what we do to our selves and one another. There is no getting around the political, economic, and military realities of power and its lack.
Jeremiah also recognizes the reality of looking beyond a current balance of power. Since power is always being subverted from within, Jeremiah looks forward by essentially saying, “Flourishing where you are is the best investment you can make in a better future.”
This passage will need much further parsing as it could be used to justify cultural slavery and personal abuse. Part of the trouble we get in with scripture is how it can be manipulated to justify situations other than the one from which it arose. For the moment, if you always have your weather-eye open, close it for space for a long view; if you use a dream-eye to avoid another loss of worth, open it to see whether escape or subversion is available.
Can you both flourish and subvert (take a step to be elsewhere or toward a changed circumstance)? Yes. So, may you flourish no matter what degree of subversion of power is available to you. If you want to read more about a contemporary version of flourishing and subversion when exiled from your religious home, try LovePrevailsUMC.com.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2013/10/jeremiah-291-4-7.html
Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7 or 2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15c
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. When G*D gives you exile, make a home there.
When you take charge of someone else's life, listen to their experience. When G*D takes charge of your life, listen to the new options.
Thanksgiving is not based on getting what you want (that's the Santa Claus fantasy).
Thanksgiving is based on thanksgiving.
It's about thanksgiving, stupid.
Thanksgiving, anyway!
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/october2004.html
Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7 or 2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15c
Jeremiah counsels exiles to live where they are, rather than where they would rather be. It is in seeking the welfare of the enemy land, where you are, that you will find your own welfare. Isn't that the same as collaborating with the enemy? Those at home could call such cooperation, treason.
It is amazing how much good there is everywhere and that it may be easier for the conquered to experience it than the conqueror.
For instance, Naaman (in MoveOn lingo: Nay-Man - the great Sayer-of-No), who can find nothing worthwhile in his conquered land, particularly something so simple on the surface as a bath in the local trickling stream.
It is just as amazing how skeptical we are of everything that is not us (unless the hormones or adrenaline kicks in to make another attractive or one reactive to a situation).
So are you finding your behavior these days growing more out of the advice of Jeremiah or the reaction of Naaman?
- - -
love your enemies
for your own sake
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html
We dismiss folks by calling them dreamers, out of touch with reality. Jeremiah's letter recommending people flourish where they are, opens him to the accusation of being a dreamer.
Does Jeremiah not know our human response to having a perk taken away from us? We are supposed to get angry and work assiduously to regain the privilege and garner more! Or so says our Snake Self when not in healing mode.
In exile many perks are taken away. And it is not just the quantity of loss but the quality. Our native tongue and all the memories it carries is lost. Our favorite seasonings, not to mention our favorite foods, are lost. Relationships, standing, and class are all lost. Some losses bind us to the past.
As we attempt to get our minds and hearts around questions of subversion of our vanquishers, our enemies, along comes this dreamer, Jeremiah, with his letter asking us to simply flourish where we are - fearful and lost. At bottom Jeremiah dreams for us a different present and future than we have for ourself. Our vision is to continue the past, to return to where we were and the power we had. Jeremiah's dream is about cutting the immigrant's nightmare down to size by noting all the reality of loss and moving on. Some losses open us to the future.
Whatever has been lost, has been lost. Spending energy on it in regret and grief, in fantasies of revenge and return, turn out to be counter-productive. The loss cannot be put back together again, no matter how many king's horses and king's men are put to the task. All that is left for us is to put our best toward a better tomorrow for our captors as well as ourselves. If we are in it for only ourselves, we will simply repeat the cycle of violent competition and a zero-sum power game.
For what are you being called, counter-intuitively, to help flourish by remaining true to what is better for all and not just yourself?
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2010/10/jeremiah-291-7.html