Living in Exile: a sermon for the Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 17.11-19

11 On the way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. 12 As he entered a village, ten men with skin diseases approached him. Keeping their distance from him, 13 they raised their voices and said, “Jesus, Master, show us mercy!”

14 When Jesus saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” As they left, they were cleansed. 15 One of them, when he saw that he had been healed, returned and praised God with a loud voice. 16 He fell on his face at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. He was a Samaritan. 17 Jesus replied, “Weren’t ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? 18  No one returned to praise God except this foreigner?” 19 Then Jesus said to him, “Get up and go. Your faith has healed you.”

Let the words of my mouth
    and the meditations of my heart
    be pleasing to you,
    Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

Because it felt awkward, at best, to share on World Communion Sunday, I skipped over a very important reading last week, but I think it begins to move us in the right direction today.

And I’ll be sharing this reading from the New Revised Standard Version this week for the same reason most of y’all read the King James: I like the way it sounds.

This is Psalm 137, a Psalm of lament. Hear the poet’s tears this morning:

1 By the rivers of Babylon—
   there we sat down and there we wept
   when we remembered Zion.
2 On the willows there
   we hung up our harps.
3 For there our captors
   asked us for songs,
and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying,
   ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’ 

4 How could we sing the Lord’s song
   in a foreign land?
5 If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
   let my right hand wither!
6 Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth,
   if I do not remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem
   above my highest joy. 

7 Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites
   the day of Jerusalem’s fall,
how they said, ‘Tear it down! Tear it down!
   Down to its foundations!’
8 O daughter Babylon, you devastator!
   Happy shall they be who pay you back
   what you have done to us!
9 Happy shall they be who take your little ones
   and dash them against the rock!

We have a tendency, in the Church, to face tragedy and loss by claiming that “We’ll get through this” or that “God won’t give us more than we can handle”, but folks, that’s just not always true. Sometimes, we don’t get through it. Sometimes, grief breaks us down completely. Sometimes, we don’t come out stronger on the other side. Sometimes, we don’t get to the other side at all.

That doesn’t mean we’re not good enough. It means that what has happened to us was simply more than we could bear.

And philosophies like those also move us away from the healthy, God-given practice of lament.

It’s really simple:

When grief is overwhelming, recognize it.

When things look hopeless, name them so.

When the only response is tears, let them come.

When it seems like things couldn’t possibly get worse, but you’re afraid they will, say so.

Lament is not laying blame on God. Lament is not self-pity. Lament is not anything to be ashamed of.

Lament is recognizing when things are bad - really bad - and claiming the emotional response that naturally follows.

Sometimes, the grief does us in. Sometimes, it really is too much to handle. But grief is like any wound: if we can survive it, it will heal. The bleeding will stop; the pain will subside; we will find a new normal; we will begin to notice joy instead of fear.

The lament of the Psalmist reflects the experience of the powerful people of Judah, conquered and taken into exile by Nebuchadnezzar. What they see is hopelessness, nothing but grief in the midst of the loss of everything they knew as home.

But from the home that remains, a voice calls out to them: the prophet Jeremiah still remaining among the powerless and the lost of Judah, offering a word of hope from broken Jerusalem:

4 The Lord of heavenly forces, the God of Israel, proclaims to all the exiles I have carried off from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 Build houses and settle down; cultivate gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Get married and have children; then help your sons find wives and your daughters find husbands in order that they too may have children. Increase in number there so that you don’t dwindle away. 7 Promote the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because your future depends on its welfare.

Now, the cynic in me reads these words and thinks, Well, of course Jeremiah doesn’t want to build any hope of return in the exiles. He and the people who remain in the land are now free to usurp the exiles’ place, to take power for themselves. Why should any of them want the exiles to remain?

But I don’t suppose the argument matters either to Jeremiah or to the exiles. They are a conquered people, fully aware that a more powerful force than Judah has them under its thumb. The possibility of return is so far removed from their reality that it is not even a dream, not even a glimmer of hope; it is an impossibility.

This is where you are, then, God tells the exiles.

You’re not going anywhere, and you need to get that through your heads.

So, in the midst of your grief, you’re going to have to go on living.

Not only that, but you’re going to have to support the place where you are. You’re going to have to not only support it, but you’re going to have to learn to love it.

Because this funny thing happens when we pray earnestly, honestly, sincerely for someone. It’s a thing that doesn’t happen if we pray against something. Do you see the difference? Have you experienced the difference?

Have you ever told someone, I’m going to pray for you, and then you’ve gone and prayed that God turns them to your way of thinking, your way of living, your ideas, your theology, your benefit instead of theirs? It’s an antagonistic prayer. It’s a prayer that assumes I’m right and you’re wrong. It’s a prayer that is, ultimately, against someone else.

That’s not praying for someone. If you’re going to pray against someone, you oughta at least be honest about it.

Wow, I really hate what you’re doing/saying/acting out right now; I’m going to pray against you.

That’s not what God instructs the exiles to do.

Pray for them.

Pray for the welfare of that city. Pray for its well-being. Pray for its prosperity. Pray for its people to fall in love, to enjoy life, to find their calling, to live fulfilled lives.

Pray for the things that are important to them.

Pray for their joy.

Because you’re there, God says, and they’re in charge. If they’re miserable, they’re going to make your lives miserable, too.

Remember: If mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.

Same rule applies to empires like Babylon.

An empire won’t put up with a troubled state or an insurrectionist for long. Consider what Rome did to Jesus.

Friends I find this relevant because we are exiles.

This place, as the song goes, is not our home.

But we’re called to make the best of it. Because our home is coming. In fact, every time we bless the place in which we live, every time we bless the people who order our lives, we bring our home closer. We bring God’s Kingdom closer.

We are exiles.

We seek a better home. We are brought into God’s household not as citizens or even as sojourners with permanent resident status, but as children of God, joint heirs with Christ, the Son. Our Kingdom isn’t just a political system, the only beneficent empire in history, but our Kingdom is family.

And here, we’re just exiles.

And every time we proclaim love in the face of hatred;

every time we proclaim forgiveness in the face of injury;

every time we proclaim faith in the face of doubt;

every time we proclaim hope in the face of despair;

every time we shine light into the darkness;

every time we share joy in the face of sadness;

we not only proclaim, but we bring God’s Kingdom, our family, into clear focus.

Even living in exile like they did, we proclaim to the lepers, Welcome! God desires your healing! It doesn’t matter if you’re Samaritan, Galilean, Zionist, Roman, slave, free, woman, man, child, elder; God is with you and God loves you and God will heal you.

There is a time for grieving, and there is a time for proclaiming joy.

And even in exile, there is space for joy. When we survive this exile, when we fully realize God’s eternal Kingdom, there will be space for joy.

So let that joy spill over today. Share it in this broken world. Stop sharing fear, because fear isn’t part of God’s Kingdom. Stop sharing anger, because anger isn’t part of God’s Kingdom.

Start sharing thankfulness. Start sharing mercy. Start sharing love. Start sharing forgiveness.

And through you, God will break through the darkness and fear of this world and bring in the eternal Kingdom of the family of God.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.