This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”  JEREMIAH 29:4-7 [NIV]

Remember when you were younger and you were made to sit in a bus, a minivan, or in a school assembly next to the one person with whom you swore you’d never associate. That person was mean. That person said and did things, at times, that may have crossed the line from teasing into outright bullying. So, whether it was a field trip, a long car ride, or the 3rd grade production of The Little Engine that Could, you were going to have to figure out how to live with that person made to sit next to you.

The two worlds you intended to keep separate now overlapped, spilling onto each other. Your noble rightness and that other person’s vile unkindness breathed the same air. With a quick cost benefit analysis you weigh the merits of taking the opportunity for a quick and unexpected attack on the evil-other before they get to you (It’s only a matter of time, after all, before they get you), versus your usual pattern of kindly goodness. Such is the dilemma: Attack and become the person I hate, or, sit and wait to be attacked.

During the time of the Babylonian exile, a time when God’s people were taken captive into a far away place by an “evil other,” God gives his people the most surprising instruction. He doesn’t say: “Attack them.” He doesn’t say: “Roll over and silently suffer.” Instead, he tells his people to build a life and “seek the prosperity of the city… because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”

In other words, it is better that everyone would prosper – wherever that might be – than the suffering of all those who have done wrong. What the Bible records, in Jeremiah, is not that everything the captors did was good, rather that the response to to being held captive  isn’t retribution, nor is it hidden isolation.

“Seek the prosperity of the city.” In short,
LOVE WHERE YOU LIVE.

We live in a world that is, clearly, far from kind. We have been mistreated, at times. We’ve been the mistreat-er at others. What might God be saying to his Church (the people who belong to Him) about how to live in a complicated world? Over the next few weeks we’ll take a look at the idea that God has given to us a unique responsibility to seek the prosperity in whatever place we find ourselves in a new series we’re calling: LOVE WHERE YOU LIVE. It will be a great opportunity to bring friends as we talk about how the church ought to be (despite its somewhat checkered reputation) in the communities we live.

See you Sunday,
Jeff

P.S.: Reminder: for those of you in life groups, those actively serving, or those who have recently joined a volunteer team, THIS SUNDAY NIGHT, OCTOBER 12 AT 5-7PM IS VISION NIGHT AT MARINERS MISSION VIEJO. Spots are filling up quickly, so RSVP here. It will be a great night of dinner, vision-casting, and worship. Vision Night will be a critical point in the life of our church. If Mariners MV is your church, you won’t want to miss it.