Readings for the Day:
Sermon:
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Last week I spoke of my year of service as an Americorps member with City Year in Washington, D.C. When I finished up my year in D.C., I moved out to Montana to work as an intern at the Episcopal cathedral there. It was a bit of a culture shock. At that point, I had only lived on the East Coast, and my only connection with Montana was that my grandfather had a ranch out there, but that was years before my mother was even born.
As a Christian, and a devout one, the hardest thing for me in Montana was the notion of the state as a "post-Christian" area. I also hated hearing that word, as if it is possible to be "post-Christian". What I learned about the term was that it was a way to describe the basic attitude in the state. It was this idea, as far as I understand it, that as people, Montanans have gotten along fine on their own, so some felt there was less of a feeling that they even needed God.
This is the context that I lived and worked in. I was, at times, an oddity to the world outside the church. But I loved being in Montana, and I love Montana still. Even though I was different, I got involved in the community around me. I made meaningful relationships and gained close friends. I even convinced my so-called "secular humanist" friends to come to church, even though they only agreed to hear me preach and support me.
I never lost my Christian identity, but I also was a part of the community around me. Maintaining that balance is important. It's that balance that we hear about in Jeremiah today.
Jeremiah is written in the context of the exile of the Southern Kingdom of Israel, known as Judah, from their homeland by the Babylonian Empire. They were no longer living in a land they knew but in a new and different land, one where they would have had their own experience of culture shock. They were different and unique as a people, for one because they had a very different traditional faith for their people.
It's in this context that God tells them to live. God tells them to live and be part of the society they found themselves in now. Not only were they to be a part of the society of Babylon, but they were to seek the welfare of it. They were called to love Babylon and to be a part of it.
After the passage we read today, God gives the Hebrew people a further hope. God gives them the hope that they will return to the Promised Land and that they will once again follow the Lord.
The Hebrews are both of Babylon and yet different. They are still marked apart and set aside, yet they are called to live their lives and to love and care for the place where they live.
What God calls the Israelites in exile to do, God calls us to do as well. We are called to live our lives and care for the place in which we live. We are called to pray for the welfare of our city, state, and country, as the guidelines for the Prayers of the People specifically state in the Prayer Book. We are called to love the places we live in, no matter where we might find ourselves.
But more importantly, we are called to be different. We are not like the rest of the world. We are followers of Christ Jesus, and that part of us will always make us unique in the world. We're not called to look at things the same way as the world around us. We give our time and service to everyone, not just those we like or those we think will reward us. We don't give because we think our time and money will buy us anything, but we give that time and money out of love for God, our neighbor, the church, and specifically this church community. We don't fill ourselves up, but we empty ourselves as Jesus did on the cross, and we call upon the world to follow our example and realize that true power, the power of Jesus Christ, is made perfect in weakness.
Our hope is that in being different and approaching things differently, we can be an example to the world. Our hope is that we can bring those who do not want to listen to Christ Jesus in so they can at least hear His word. Our hope is that our love, our self-emptying, will be infectious and will spread and permeate in the hearts of all around, transforming our society into one that knows God and is in relationship with our Lord.
We bring about love and positive change not by being like everyone else, but being different. We bring about love and positive change not by removing ourselves from society, but by being a part of the communities around us. Our hope is that when people see us and see what is different about us, they will want what we have in Jesus Christ too.
Don't be like the world around us. Don't focus on what can be gained and how to fill ourselves, but be servants of all. Don't hate the world, but love it and show it that love too. Examine yourselves constantly, for that is the only way we can be truly sure we are following the path of God. Make sure you are not of the world, but that you are of Christ and that in being Christ's, you love the world all the same in hope that such love will transform the world so that it can know Christ Jesus too.