Introspection: Not in Kansas Anymore

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

Not in Kansas Anymore

But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.

Jeremiah 29:7,11 (NRSV)

My life has led me down the road that's so uncertain

Now I am left alone and I am broken

Trying to find my way

Trying to find the faith that's gone

From "Revelation" by Third Day

The year was 597 BC, ten years before the Babylonians razed the city of Jerusalem and burned down the Temple of the Lord.  It was a time of political turmoil for the Kingdom of Judah: King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon attacked Jerusalem, plundered the temple, and took a significant part of the population of Judah into captivity, including King Jeconiah.  Nebuchadnezzar then installed the king's uncle Zedekiah as a puppet ruler.¹  A few years later, a self-proclaimed prophet named Hananiah began claiming that the Jewish exiles in Babylon would be returned to Judah within two years.²  Hananiah was not a prophet but a liar: like far too many people in the world, he used his status as a supposed man of God to gain popularity for himself.

If the Jewish exiles in Babylon were under the impression that they would be returning to their homeland within a couple of years, then they would probably be tempted to put their lives on hold, circle the wagons, and bide their time until they got the chance to go home.

It's not such a bad plan for a people in exile - as long as they could be absolutely certain that their situation would soon return to normal.

But what if their situation didn't return to normal?

Still in Jerusalem, Jeremiah wrote a letter to the people in exile to let them know that things would not return to normal anytime soon and that they would be in Babylon a lot longer they thought, decades even.  He encouraged them not to put their lives on hold but instead to adapt to their current circumstances.  He told them to build lives for themselves in Babylon by building houses and planting gardens.  He told them to get married, to have children, and to help their children get married, in other words, to "be fruitful and multiply."  He told them to engage with the city where they found themselves and to seek the common good there, for their own welfare depended on it.³

If the Jewish exiles in Babylon did not follow Jeremiah's instructions, then they would have inevitably died out, and there would have been nobody to return home to Judah when Babylon did eventually fall.

According to Shane Hipps, exile is not merely a matter of location but rather a state of the heart.  Exile can be described as an experience of dislocation and disorientation.  Exile is a time when the things one thought to be true and certain no longer seem to hold up.  It is a time when what is normal in life is redefined.  Anyone who has ever lost a job, gone through a divorce, been forced to relocate, lost a loved one, gone through a major life change, or had any kind of traumatic experience knows what it is like to enter into exile.⁴

Exile is finding yourself a "stranger in a strange land," literally or figuratively speaking.

Exile is the realization that you are "not in Kansas anymore."

When you go through an experience of exile, you have two options, the same two options the Jewish exiles in Babylon had.  You can put your life on pause and wait for things to go back to normal, or you can adjust to your new surroundings.  You can wait for your circumstances to change, or you can change yourself.  If you opt for the former choice and sit back and wait for your life to go back to normal, then you run the risk that your life will pass you by as you wait for a day that will never come.

I have experienced exile a number of times in my life.  I experienced exile when, after nearly two decades of education, I was thrust into the 9-5 working world, working at a job I came to hate.  I experienced exile two years later when I lost that first job and began seeking another one, unsure that I even wanted to stay in my current field.  I experienced exile again when I realized I had outgrown my college faith community and needed to move on.  I experienced exile last year when I began to question things I once believed about myself.

If the desert of exile has taught me anything, it is that, as the old adage goes, "That which does not kill us, makes us stronger."⁵

The experience of exile can come in any number of shapes and sizes.  In fact, entire church congregations can go through times of exile.

My home congregation, Bethel United Methodist Church, was planted in 1895 by members of a large downtown church to minister to the people of a textile mill village in West Greenville, South Carolina.⁶  The church peaked in membership at over 400 members somewhere between the late 1950s and the early 1960s.  In 1967, the mill village was demolished, and, around this time, Bethel's membership and attendance began to decline.⁷  As the years passed, the community surrounding the church became very different from the community the church was founded to serve.

It could be said that Bethel UMC is church in exile.  Though the church has not changed its location, the church's location has changed around it.  Like many church congregations in exile, mine has been slow to realize the need to adjust to a changing culture.  I am hoping that the people of Bethel are starting to heed the prophetic word Jeremiah relayed to his own people in exile: the future of Bethel UMC is tied to the community around it, so we must be fruitful within the community.  The mill village is never coming back, but, if we are fruitful as a church in exile, we just might find ourselves at home in the community, and the people of the community just might find a home in Bethel.

Jeremiah offers a message of hope to anyone going through exile: "I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope."  I believe that God has a purpose and a plan for all of us, wherever we find ourselves, as long as we are open to it.


Notes:

1. Wikipedia: Siege of Jerusalem (597 BC)
2. Jeremiah 28:1-4
3. Jeremiah 29:1-14
4. Shane Hipps.  "Clay Hearts."  Mars Hill Bible Church Podcast, 09/05/10.
5. Attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche
6. The church, at the time of its founding, was named Bethel Methodist Church.  The United Methodist Church was not established as a denomination until 1968.
7. http://scmillhills.com/mills/american-spinning/churches/

The photograph of Death Valley is public domain.