IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT - An entire story looms behind this letter’s opening words: Jeremiah sent a letter from Jerusalem. Behind those words are events so gruesome and horrible and shameful, that centuries will pass before the pain finally dissipates. Jeremiah writes from Jerusalem-what’s left of it. The city has been ransacked and most of its people have been led eastward to Babylon. The dust has settled and what’s left are some of the poorest of the population, those aged, handicapped, and ill. The recipients are mentioned in a certain order: priests-prophets-all the people. One more recipient may have been on Jeremiah’s mind: Nebuchadnezzar. If Jeremiah is aware that the invading and conquering king is going to read this letter, how might that affect its content? Isn’t part of the strategy to speak a message to Nebuchadnezzar as much as it is to inspire and encourage Jeremiah’s fellow Israelites?

THE MAIN BODY OF JEREMIAH’S LETTER-

a. Build houses and live in them. Meaning: better make yourselves at home - you’re going to be here for quite some time. This is your new home.

b. Plant gardens and eat their produce. Meaning: start living again; get into the routine of making a livelihood; plant your vines and crops. This is home from now on.

c. Marry . . . and beget sons and daughters . . . prosper. Meaning: raise your families here; get them in school, go to their graduations, attend their weddings, celebrate anniversaries and rites of passage. This is your new home.

d. Seek the welfare of the city . . . Meaning: Build up your neighborhood; invest your energy and money in this new place where you’ve been planted.

e. Pray for it . . . Meaning: pray for your new leaders, government, and communities; as they prosper, so will you.

connections

Recall a first time away from home and family-college, a marriage that moves you to a new location, joined the military, spent a summer camp away from home, etc. Describe your feelings of being away and then of your return.

When have you been away from God and then returned? Describe that experience.

gambits

• What might be useful in listening to this passage is to also review Simon Wiesenthal’s book, The Sunflower. [2] While imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp, Wiesenthal is taken from work detail to the bedside of Karl, a ranking officer in the Nazi military. Karl is dying, but worse, he is haunted by the horrendous, searing crimes in which he had participated. About to die, he wants to confess to a Jew and receive his prayers and forgiveness. Here is part of that conversation . . .

[Karl] Believe me, I would be ready to suffer worse and longer pains if by that means I could bring back the dead . . . but I am left here with my guilt.

I want to die in peace, and so I need . . . your answer.

[W] Now, there was an uncanny silence in the room. I looked through the window . . . Two men who had never known each other had been brought together for a few hours by Fate. One asks the other for help . . . I stood up and looked in his direction, at his folded hands. At last I made up my mind and without a word I left the room . . .

• Simon Wiesenthal leaves the room unable or unwilling to pray for his enemy. Yet that still bothers him years after the war. So he sits down and writes to some of the greatest minds and leaders in the world-Robert Coles, The Dalai Lama, Matthew Fox, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Harold Kushner, Martin Marty, Albert Speer, Desmond Tutu, and Harry Wu. [2] "What would you have done?" he asks each of them. Their responses form the contents of The Sunflower.

• Is this letter in essence encouraging Israel to pick up the pieces and move on with life? Sounds like Jeremiah is speaking hope to a confused, angry, subjugated population; to put the past behind and to look ahead for new adventure with God. We cannot be prisoners of the past; we cannot go back and live in the past tense; we will not benefit by whining about the good ole days. Not only does Jeremiah insist that these depopulated people get rooted into the rhythm and routine of life in a new place, but he also insists that they begin to pray for these conquerors! Pray for those who have done such terrible things to us?

We must not overlook the Old Testament antecedent to the prayer for the enemies of which Jesus speaks more directly. One of the tasks of settling into exile is to seek the good of the enemy-more specifically, to pray for the welfare of those who have deported you, to ask God’s blessing on those who have destroyed your homeland . . . is a call to find one’s well-being in seeking the well-being of the enemy oppressor. Jeremiah’s words were probably more pragmatic than we might expect. How does one live in captivity? Apparently, part of that is in tying oneself to the well-being of the captors. There is some good sense in that, but it is not just good sense. It is a different mode of existence from the permanent hatred of the enemy that is our instinct and even sometimes the word we hear from the Bible (e.g. Ex. 17:16). Jesus suggested that praying for those who persecute us is a part of the way the kingdom of God is established on earth. For Israel, such praying began in Babylon. [3]

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[1] The New Interpreter’s Bible VI  (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2001), page 796.
[2] Some of these names and their responses actually appear in a later, revised edition of the book.
[3] The New Interpreter’s Bible VI  (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2001), page 796.