Exile...a path to prosperity?

4 This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. 7 Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper” (From Jeremiah 29). 

I listened to a sermon on this text last Sunday and have not been able to stop thinking about it since then. You see, less than a week ago I arrived in a city I have only visited three times before. The people, the culture, the weather (and wildfires!) are all foreign to me. But this city is now my home. In the last couple days, I have pondered what the Israelites must have been thinking when they heard these words. I feel like, in some very small way, I can relate to what they might have felt living in a new place with new people and a totally foreign culture. My (self-chosen) "exile" to a "foreign land" has given me a new appreciation for what God called the Israelites to.

When I am the outsider, the "foreigner," the newbie, my tendency is to automatically turn inward. I start to wonder what people are thinking of me and focus on all the ways I am unlike those around me. My compassion loses ground to anxiety and self-consciousness. I think about the Israelites, who were forced to leave their homes, their culture, their people. They had to enter life alongside people who looked, behaved, and desired differently than they. I gladly chose my path; they were forced into a foreign life they never asked for.

Isn't it fascinating, then, what direction they are given? It is not to huddle up and cling to their own culture, ideals, or laws. It is not to choose thankfulness and abstain from whining about every little aspect of life that differs from what they are used to. It is not even an admonishment to be kind or convert those of a different faith and culture to their own with appealing rhetoric. No, instead it is a clear calling to intimately knit their lives into this place that was to be their new home. They were to plant roots, build ties with foreign people, and intentionally pursue the welfare of those who lived in this place that felt so far from home. They were to choose compassion, friendship, and purposefulness over anxiety, separation, or dismissal.

I have been reflecting on this calling placed on the Israelite nation in exile as I walk down foreign sidewalks, greet people who likely think differently than I do, and find myself longing for "easy" or "normal." Where it would be simpler to hide, I want to pursue. When it would feel better to feed my anxiety, I want to choose compassion for others. Where it feels more natural to uphold my way of thinking as the best way, I want to listen and learn. When I find myself feeling like an outsider, I want to remember that Jesus was a pursuer of the fringe-dwellers and start looking around for who else might feel weird or uncomfortable. 

I want to remember that exile may be a place but it doesn't have to be a way of life. So this week, I am asking what it looks like to "seek the peace and prosperity" of this city that is now my home. Even in moments where I crave the familiarity of all I left behind, I want to choose instead to pray blessings and shalom over these people and this place. After all, "if it prospers, you too will prosper" (Jeremiah 29:7).