Hi friends,
Happy New Year! I know it’s been over two months since I last posted a blog, but with a new year comes new commitment. This is the second post in a four-part series entitled “Exiles in Babylon.” If you need a refresher, or haven’t read it yet, read the first post here.
I’d like to continue by tracing two patterns of response common among the Israelites exiled in Babylon, both of which can be easily recognized in the church today. The first and most common way the Israelites responded to their captivity was to isolate themselves from the Babylonians. Israel believed itself to be a distinct nation, above all the other nations of the earth, and they sought to preserve this by refusing to interact with Babylonian culture. This trend was directly addressed by God in the first couple verses of our passage, and his response is staggering: the Israelites were to build houses, plant gardens, and pray for the peace and prosperity of Babylon (vv. 5, 7). God is telling the Israelites to get comfortable in their exile, they were going to be there for at least a generation (v. 10). While they were there, God didn’t want them to act like nomads and aliens. They were to settle down in a permanent way while praying for the betterment of the nation that took them into captivity.
In the very same way, we the church are in exile from our home land, the kingdom. While here, we can be tempted to isolate ourselves from the world. Those who seek the isolation of the church are more often than not focused on the rules because they think the rules are what separate us from the world. While it is true that we are not at home here, we would do well to remember that “I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.’” We are here in exile as a part of God’s plan. Therefore, we should put down roots and get comfortable. God’s plan is for us to be in exile, and if we isolate ourselves, we cannot fulfill our role as salt and light to the world (Matthew 5:13-16). We should pray for the peace and prosperity of the world, increasing and not decreasing in number (vv. 6-7).
At this point, the Israelites might have been tempted to go the to the other end of the spectrum, a place we’ll call “assimilation.” If they were not supposed to isolate themselves from Babylon, then perhaps they were to let the Babylonian culture in. This also would be the wrong response to exile. To allow Babylon into Israel would indeed make for an easier existence, but this was equally lacking in God’s plan for Israel during their exile.
This is the direction the church is moving today. We have isolated ourselves, which continues to happen for sure, but in an attempt to regain some sort of pull in the community, we have made all sorts of compromises in the name of “relevance.” In some circles, morality is little more than a word, and an unpopular one at that. The irony is that in the assimilation camp the church ceases to exist as a people distinct from this world, which drives the isolationists to further distance themselves.
And the world wants nothing to do with either.
So what, then, are we to do? That is the topic I will leave for the next post. Until then, grace and peace to you all, and a very happy New Year.
