Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7
Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. 7 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.
In Nevada, 90 miles north of Reno, there is a stretch of land called the Black Rock Desert. It is located in what used to be a large prehistoric lake. In the past this stretch of land has been mined for gold, used by jet powered cars to break land speed records, and in 2004 it was where the launch site for the first amateur built rocket sent into space. But none of those things are what the Black Rock Desert is most known for. Its claim to fame is that every year, during the last week of August, tens of thousands of people descend on it from all over the world to form Black Rock City- a temporary community that for one week becomes Nevada’s tenth largest city and home to the annual event known as Burning Man.
This is how the people behind Burning Man describe the event.
Our intention is to generate society that connects each individual to his or her creative powers, to participation in community, to the larger realm of civic life, and to the even greater world of nature that exists beyond society. We believe that the experience of Burning Man can produce positive spiritual change in the world.
It’s hard to describe Burning Man. Imagine Woodstock, an art festival, a campground, and a small rural town all rolled into one. It is dedicated to and organized around core principles, such as: radical inclusion, gifting, communal effort, and participation, and I could preach several sermons on what the church could learn from Burning Man. But this morning I want to highlight a similar theme that is shared by Burning Man and from our passage in Jeremiah: the need to adapt to your environemnt.
As I mentioned before, Burning Man takes place in a desert. As you can imagine, the desert isn’t the best place one would think of hosting 50,000 people for a week. So somehow each year, the organizers have to figure out how to create a small oasis of a city with minimal environmental impact, because another one of their core principles is to leave no trace behind of their presence, and to reduce their global impact on the environment. They do this in a number of ways, but it all starts from seeing the desert around them as something to adapt to rather than something to overcome. Instead of air-conditioned R.V.’s and portable generators, people are encouraged to use common sense, shade and a lot of water. Adapting to the desert is a community effort. There are a host of people who come to spend a week working to make this adaption possible. There is a Public Works crew that oversees water management, sanitation and hygeine facilities. There are the Lamp Lighters, a volunteer guild that walks Black Rock City every evening at dusk lighting the kerosene lamps that line the streets. A special group of people called Earth Guardians roam the city helping people to adapt and protect the land they occupy. At Burning Man, they don’t come to change and conquer their environment, rather they seek to change themselves and adapt themselves to the harsh desert environment.
In Jeremiah, the Jewish people also found themselves in a harsh environment. Israel had been conquered by the Babylonians, and many Israelites had been forced into exile to the city of Babylon. Jeremiah’s words from God are addressed to those exiled Jews who found themselves far from home, far from their promised land, and in a strange country with different customs and foreign gods. And God’s message to them is similar to the message of Burning Man – this is not a time to conquer, this is a time to adapt. God says,
5 Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. 7 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.
This is not what the Jewish people wanted to hear. They were hoping for the good old days. The time when they kept separate from foreigners. When they had their own land, their own nation, and God led them into battle to conquer anyone who opposed them. But those days are gone, and now God tells them that it’s not time to conquer, but time to adapt. God tells them to look around and to notice that they aren’t in Israel any more. They aren’t in a Jewish nation, and they aren’t going to conquer Babylon and turn it into a Jewish nation. Those days are gone. Now they need to settle down, build houses, plant crops, get married and have children. God even goes further and tells them not just to adapt, but to pray for the city of Babylon, because their wellbeing is intertwined with the wellbeing of the city.
I’m sure it was a tough message to hear. The people of Israel were used to living in a Jewish nation. They resided in Israel, the promised land, with Jerusalem, the holy city, as its capital. Everyone’s daily life revolved around their Jewish identity. Their faith was supported by the people and institutions around them, because they were all a part of the nation’s Jewish identity. But now, in Babylon, they are a minority. They are a remnant of Jewish believers in a non-Jewish world. And they have to learn to adapt to that reality.
Guess what? That’s our reality, too. As Christians, we are living in a post-Christian world. There was a time when you could reference a story from the Bible and everyone would know what you were talking about. This isn’t the case any more. Not so long ago the question was “What church do you go to?” Now the question, if it’s asked at all, is “Do you go to church?” More often than not the answer is “no.” It’s nice to think that we live in a Christian nation. We’d like to believe that our nation still shares (if it ever did) a basic Christian ethic. But that’s not how it is.
Think of the thousands of people that drive by St. Philip each day. Statistically speaking a majority of them don’t go to church and many of their parents didn’t go to church either. It is no longer the case that anybody coming off the street to our church service would feel immediately at home here on Sunday morning. For many people, especially of younger generations, going to church is like going to a foreign land. But here’s the catch. They aren’t the foreigners. We are. Our society is not a Christian society. And like the Jewish exiles, we’d like to think we are still in Israel. But in this post-Christian age we are the minority, surrounded by people who don’t share our experiences and our God. We are the exiles living in Babylon. Christianity is in exile.
The sooner we realize this, the easier it will be for us to adjust to this new reality. It used to be the case that the church had authority in people’s lives, just because of the place it held in society. It was a given that people went to church and listened to what was proclaimed there. Churches didn’t have to adapt as much to changes in society and culture, because they were often the ones leading and changing society. But in our post-Christian society, people no longer automatically listen, or even notice, when the church speaks. We are exiles in Babylon, a minority in a strange land.
Given this new reality, we have several choices available to us. One of those choices is simply to enter into siege mentality. We can admit that the forces around us are overwhelming and we can cling to what we have here, exactly as it has been for years. The world may change, but we won’t! We are still alive and we’ll hold on as long as we can, regardless what happens in larger society. We can do that, but I pray to God that we won’t.
I’m hoping that the church will listen to God’s word in Jeremiah. God showed the Jewish exiles a new direction. God called the exiles to adapt and change. They weren’t told to transform Babylon into another Jerusalem. Instead God said to them, “Build houses, plant gardens, and have children! You are going to be there a long time. This is your home now, so you better get used to it, and you better figure out how to stay faithful to me in a strange land.” The message to the exiles was to change their attitude and learn how to live in the world around them. They were still called to be God’s people, they were still called to hold on to their Jewish identity, but not as a separate community withdrawing from society. They were called to hold fast to God, but also to adapt and interact with the people and the world around them.
And that is our call today – to learn how to adapt and interact with the people in the world around us. We still need to hold fast to our identity and beliefs as Christians, but we need to learn how to express, live and communicate those beliefs in a post-Christian world. As the church declines in numbers, how do we keep from declining in relevance? How do we speak to tens of millions of people, spanning several generations, that haven’t ever set foot in a church except maybe once for a wedding or funeral?
I’d like to give you the answer to these questions. I’d like to, but I can’t. These are huge questions with even bigger answers and it’s going to take all of us to begin to figure it out. But I think we have a starting place in our passage from today. God told the exiled Israelites to build houses, plant crops and to get married and have children. The Jewish people were called to build houses that would be suited for Babylon, not Israel. They were told to plant crops that would grow in Babylon, not Israel. And more shockingly, they were told to continue their families by marrying the Babylonians. God told the Israelites that in order to adapt they would need to use the practices and materials of Babylon, and they had to enter into relationship and share their lives with the the people outside their community. In short, they had to change how they did things, in small ways and big ways.
So if we are going to be relevant to a post-Christian world then it is going to require new relationships, new practices and new materials. God is calling us to change, in small ways and in big ways. It’s going to be a tricky balancing act. How do we keep our identity as a Christian community while adapting to a post-Christian world? How do we stay true to God’s word and will, while using the practices and materials of the world around us? I don’t know exactly, but somehow we have to. God has called us, the exiles in a post-Christian world, to seek the wellbeing of that world, because in its wellbeing we will find our own as well.
In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. One God, Mother of us all. Amen.
