Sermon 8th February 2015

Today, one of our Lay Readers, Adjoa Andoh-Cunnell, preaches. The reading is from Jeremiah 29: 4-7

One of the jobs I do is as a member of the audition panel at RADA

" ruining the hopes and dreams of the young people"

I like to call it..and an often performed Shakespeare speech comes from Romeo And Juliet. The friar has just told Romeo that he is being sent into exile or banished and Romeo is furious, heartbroken and hopeless

because he can no longer stay in Verona and Juliet.

He says

"There is no world without Veronas walls, But purgatory, torture, hell itself. Hence-banished is banish'd from the world, And world's exile is death: then banished, Is death mis-term'd:

Exile equals death

be near his beloved"

Nothing like the over reaction of a teenager in love we might think and yet people of all ages feel the deep distress that exile brings.

I don't know if that was how it felt to my 26 year old dad, but he fled into exile from Ghana in 1958.

A journalist on the Daily Graphic national newspaper, dad was critical of the restrictions on freedom of speech placed upon the people of his newly independent homeland, by the government.

He came home from work one evening and his father told him he had to leave that night and not tell them where he was going for the safety of the family. So he booked a third class passage on a boat that took 10 days to arrive in England, the once mother country... and said farewell to his home to his family and friends and to his career as a journalist.

My brother and I were the children of exile. We grew up knowing that England was only a temporary situation and as soon as it was safe we would be going home... And the years past and our roots here grew deeper and this became home and Ghana the distant dream.

It wasn't until 46 years later in 2004 that Dad finally built the home he had spoken of all through our childhood.

And a life made in exile may not be a distant story for some of you sitting here today, it may not just be something that happened to the Israelites in days gone by, captured and sent into exile in Babylon in Jeremiah's day. Through the ages since those early Biblical times it has remained a terrible, heartbreaking thing to be sent into exile.

And Home Where is home

As an exile we might feel - I don't want to be here, these are not the circumstances I want to live in

In his own country Martin Luther King may have felt that

In his own country Nelson Mandela may have felt that

And in this country So may the 19th century working poor so may the suffragettes.

They all used that strength of feeling to change the circumstances they found themselves in.

Exiled from the life they would have chosen, they chose to make a life where they were,

Committing to the lives of those around them and committing to those circumstances they found themselves in, with extraordinary, world changing effects.

So did the captive people of Israel.

We may not feel that as Christians we are a minority here in Herne Hill, and we may not feel that we are in exile. After all in the 2011 Census, Christianity was the largest religion, with 33.2 million people (59.3 per cent of the population).

Yet - Between 2001 and 2011 there was a decrease in people who identify as Christian (from 71.7 per cent to 59.3 per cent) and an

increase in those reporting no religion (from 14.8 per cent to 25.1 per cent).

So if we dig a little deeper and seek out active Christians committing to live with Christ at the heart of their lives, perhaps we are a minority here in a Herne Hill and perhaps like the exiled Israelites yearning for Jerusalem, we yearn for God's Kingdom Come.

In this mornings passage the prophet Jeremiah writes to the Jews exiled to Babylon.

Now in order to placate The victorious King Nebuchadnezzar, the 18 year old Judean King, Jeconiah had surrendered himself, his mother, the queen mother, his royal household and many princes of Judah and Jerusalem to become prisoners, hoping that this would satisfy Nebuchadnezzar and he would leave the rest of the Jews in peace.

But, Nebuchadnezzar was not satisfied, in fact he demanded that all the carpenters and blacksmiths should surrender too, so that there were no skilled workers to re fortify the city, or make weapons.

So they did , hoping this would pacify Nebuchadnezzar.

But this simply made him more demanding - he came back to the conquered country with his army and also took away elders, priests, prophets and anyone his soldiers could easily lay their hands upon, as he decreed.

These captives, taken into exile, looked back at those of their countrymen and women who had been allowed to remain behind, and then looked at themselves and wondered just what they had done that was so wrong that they were being especially punished by God like this. .

They received words of reassurance from other prophets, taken into captivity with them, and back in Jerusalem, telling them that God would soon free them, that their captors would be defeated and they would all go home, within two years some said.

And yet here came Jeremiah writing to them from back in Jerusalem himself, telling them something quite different.

Where was the comfort in Jeremiah's prophesy, the story of revenge over the heathens and the imminent triumphant return home?

And yet inspired by God, Jeremiah writes a letter to them, that really is to comfort them, but in an unexpected way , assuring them that they had no reason either to despair of hope for themselves or to envy their fellow Jews left behind

Jeremiah begins this letter in verse 4 in the King James version

‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon ...’ (v. 4)

What's interesting is the phrase Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel. In Hebrew this reads as

Yahweh Sabaoth

Yahweh, God of Israel, the name used in the covenant between the Jews fleeing Egypt, Gods chosen people, and The Lord who fed and guided them those forty years across the desert

and the term Sabaoth, ‘hosts', coming from the word for warfare, reinforcing the image of God not here as a liberating God, but a God of irresistible strength and will.

The Chosen people are in exile because God has willed it.

How often do we find ourselves in hard places , in difficult situations and wonder how God could have let this happen to us.

Aren't we faithful people, committed to following Him?

How can this be?

Has God abandoned us?

It feels like a mystery, and we are mystified and uncertain.

These were some of the feelings of the exiled Jews Yet here comes the letter from Jeremiah

Don't despair of your situation, commit to it.

Don't reject the circumstances you find yourself in, engage with them, actively, get stuck in

What fruit trees can you grow from this situation, what relationships and homes can you make in these circumstances,

What seeds can you plant, what roots can you establish in this community?

African Americans, the ancestors of captured people brought from Africa, often identified with the oppressed and exiled Israelites.

Indeed the spiritual songs they have sung over centuries often reflected that identification.

In Dr Martin Luther King Junior's I have a dream speech he ends with a hope of liberation, not from the circumstances of his people's exile, but a hope for a liberation for all those in the land of his exile and beyond.

He does as Jeremiah tells the exiles God requires of them

V7

GN

Work for the good of the cities where I have made you go as prisoners. Pray to me on their behalf, because if they are prosperous, you will be prosperous too.

NIV

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.”

Dr King says

"When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.”

As Christians we pray for the freedom that living in God's Kingdom of justice and love brings

We pray the prayer that Jesus taught us

Thy Kingdom come

Thy Will Be done on Earth as it is in Heaven

We pray for that heavenly kingdom on earth

For God's rule

For justice and love to be the fundamentals of our world our country our city our parish our street our home our friends our family our hearts Yahweh Sabaoth

The Lord of Hosts, God of Israel, a The faithful God of the Covenant, God of irresistible strength and will.

Who comes to us as a tiny, vulnerable poor baby, put to death on a cross on a day we remember as Good because it set us free at last.

In difficult, circumstances, we are to pray for the prosperity of our community

And to prayer we are to add action.

Perhaps we are the minority in Herne Hill in terms of our living faith, but here, we are to set down our roots roll up our sleeves and prosper our Parish.

When we feel like a play group or a lunch club or a drama workshop or the many other small fruit trees we will plant along the way are not enough, we can think on Jeremiah, we are where the God of irresistible strength and will has put us, to be servants to his people.

We are to trust God as verse 11 a little later in the passage tells us

GN

11 I alone know the plans I have for you, plans to bring you prosperity and not disaster, plans to bring about the future you hope for.

NIV

11 For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

That hope meant for the Israelites, calling upon God, praying to God, searching for God, seeking God with all their heart.

In the context of exile in the early 6th century BC, when Jeremiah prophesied, the instructions in these few verses and the understanding of God they implied , represented a sea change in the attitude of the Israelites towards their way of being in the world. They were to live their faith where they were, making God's love visible as they sought to prosper their new community.

through the acceptance of Jeremiah’s instructions, that Jewish exiled community became a fulfilment of the vision that through Abraham, God would bless all people (Gen 12:1-3).

12 The Lord had said to Abram, ‘Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.

The Lord said

2 ‘I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you;

The Lord said

3b 'and all peoples on earth

will be blessed through you.’[b]

From exile to a universal blessing WE CANT SECOND GUESS GOD!!

What mystifies us may be so clear to Him

God is in the mystery, God is mystery, a mystery we know and don't know.

we don't have all the answers!

We just know Jesus who helps us ask the questions, for We have seen that future hope in Jesus, in his love and his service, his justice and his sacrifice.

So those instructions from Jeremiah are entirely relevant to faith communities like ours in the Parish of Herne Hill, for our lives as minorities in this city today.

We are to be a blessing in Herne Hill,to make Christ's mission, our mission.

Australian Theologian Bill Loader, talks of mission as being Christ Centred, being centred on Jesus and his way.

He writes

It's like when I join hands with him he doesn't drag me away from people to God; he leads me with God to people; he leads me to love the way he did, to walk with him.

Jeremiah says

GN

7 Work for the good of the cities where I have made you go as prisoners.

NIV

7 Also , seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile.

Work for the good of

Seek the peace and prosperity of

In this way circumstances seen with human understanding as dreadful, difficult, unwanted,

under God's hand, with his vision become transformed.

Out of the exile of the Jews in a foreign land came new Jewish communities spreading the faith and love of God to new places in a way that may not have happened had they remained in Israel.

Hand in Hand with Jesus, God is still requiring us down the ages to Work for the good of, to

Seek the peace and prosperity of, the communities in which we find ourselves,

in fact to tie our prosperity and happiness to theirs, so that there is no 'them', only us.

And many in this parish are already doing so with great love, generosity and joy.

The Discovery journey and now the work of the CASG is another way to act as God requires, to continue that work of mission as a church family who have put down roots in this Herne Hill community,

We have the opportunity to join the work of the long ago exiles, to join hands with Jesus who is and was and ever shall be,

to bring in Gods Kingdom of Justice and Love, right here.

When we serve Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit, we are bringing

God’s Kingdom of heaven to earth.

As John Ortberg writes in his book - God is closer than you think:

‘Every time you are in conflict with someone, want to hurt them, gossip about them or avoid them, but instead, go to them and seek reconciliation and forgiveness –

‘The Kingdom of God is breaking into this world.

‘Every time you have a chunk of money and decide to give sacrificially to somebody who is hungry or homeless or poor –

‘The Kingdom of God is breaking into the world.

‘Every time you love, every time you include someone who’s lonely, encourage someone who’s defeated, every time you challenge somebody who’s wandering off the path, every time you serve the under-resourced –

‘It is a sign that the kingdom is once more breaking into the world.’

So my prayer for us here this morning is that we live in Jesus centred mission, so that we are no longer in exile from Gods Kingdom, no longer far from where we want to be,

so that there is no them, only us.

So that We are day by day in faith and love, bringing others with us, coming home to God.

Free at last.

Amen