Sustained in Exile

Jeremiah writes to the leaders of a community in exile in Babylon. Though he is left behind, many others—religious and political leaders, artisans, and metal workers—are made to dwell in the land of their enemy. Family members are separated, some remain in Judah while others are deported to Babylon. Government, community life, and religious ritual, all of which brought meaning to life in Judah, are no more.

As contrasted with his rival, Hananiah, whose death is reported at the end of chapter 28, Jeremiah does not advise the Judeans to resist their captors nor does he prophesy of God’s imminent rescue. Dig in, he tells the exiles, because you will be there for a while. Put down deep roots. Mark engagements and marriages and new babies. Do not allow Babylon to diminish your growth. Living as God’s people in exile means thriving in captivity, Jeremiah says, bearing the new reality as a yoke that weighs heavily around your neck but does not break you. Even more surprisingly, Jeremiah asks the exiles to pray for Babylon and to work for its welfare, noting the inextricable relationship between the good of the city and the health of those living there.

Though most of us have not been driven from our homes by force, we have lived in some type of exile, estranged from our families or deported from good health into a foreign land of illness and pain. Such times bring many burdens: money worries, the loss of relationships, and the difficulty of finding meaning in the new reality. God is with us, however, right in the midst of our anxiety and loneliness. God’s Spirit transmitted through holy mystery and the ministry of our neighbors makes our Babylons places of a new kind of vitality, one in which we can flourish while still feeling our pain.