Spatial Concept “Waiting”
Fontana, Lucio, 1899-1968. Spatial Concept 'Waiting', from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=58426 [retrieved October 7, 2022]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Spatial_Concept_%27Waiting%27,_cut_canvas_by_Lucio_Fontana,_Tate_Modern_cropped.jpg.
Exploring the Text: Growing where you are planted
As we saw last week, the people that were carried away into Babylon hated what had happened to them. In this passage, Jeremiah sends a letter from Jerusalem to Babylon with instructions for the people there. He tells them to settle in, to build houses, and to plant gardens. He tells them to get married, have children, and give their children in marriage. Most significantly, he tells them to seek the welfare of the city and to pray for it. This is a significant change from their desire for revenge and retribution (see Psalm 137).
Jeremiah is telling them that hoping and praying for revenge isn’t the right way. Instead, he is telling them to make Babylon their home and to pray for it just like they would pray for Jerusalem. This would be a challenging message for them to hear. It isn’t what they want to do. They want to go back. They want to pray for Babylon to fall and for them to be able to go home. But God wanted to bless them even in their land of exile. He wanted to be their God not just in Jerusalem, where it everything seemed right, but also in Babylon, where everything seemed wrong.
In the same way, God often wants us to settle into where he has us, even if it is not where we wish we were. He wants to be our God in the bad times and the bad circumstances just as much as he is in the good times and in the good circumstances. Sometimes God wants us to grow and bloom where we are planted and to be a blessing there instead of delivering us to somewhere else.
As we saw last week, the people that were carried away into Babylon hated what had happened to them. In this passage, Jeremiah sends a letter from Jerusalem to Babylon with instructions for the people there. He tells them to settle in, to build houses, and to plant gardens. He tells them to get married, have children, and give their children in marriage. Most significantly, he tells them to seek the welfare of the city and to pray for it. This is a significant change from their desire for revenge and retribution (see Psalm 137).
Jeremiah is telling them that hoping and praying for revenge isn’t the right way. Instead, he is telling them to make Babylon their home and to pray for it just like they would pray for Jerusalem. This would be a challenging message for them to hear. It isn’t what they want to do. They want to go back. They want to pray for Babylon to fall and for them to be able to go home. But God wanted to bless them even in their land of exile. He wanted to be their God not just in Jerusalem, where it everything seemed right, but also in Babylon, where everything seemed wrong.
In the same way, God often wants us to settle into where he has us, even if it is not where we wish we were. He wants to be our God in the bad times and the bad circumstances just as much as he is in the good times and in the good circumstances. Sometimes God wants us to grow and bloom where we are planted and to be a blessing there instead of delivering us to somewhere else.