We Are Here for Midtown
October 1st, 2023 — Benjamin Bechtel
Jeremiah 29:1-14
Good morning everyone. My name is Ben and I am one of the pastors here. I know you have heard this already, but let me be another person to welcome you for the first time to Midtown Community Church! It’s hard to believe we are standing here today. This church launching is a sign of the faithfulness of God to us. It’s wild to think how many times he has shown up to get this church off the ground. This church launching today is also a sign of the faithfulness of our core team. Publicly, with others present I just want to say thank you to everyone who put in hours and hours of your time and prayer the last year to see this church launched. I thank God for you.
As we gather each week at MCC we are going to open the Bible together because we believe that in it the real and living God speaks to us. As we begin today the public worship of a new church, the question that may be in some of your minds today is why do we need another church? Some of you may say, hasn’t the church been the cause of crazy amounts of violence and oppression over the centuries? Why another church? And why this church in particular? If you are here asking those questions, know that we here at this church take that question seriously. We believe we owe it to our neighbors to give a clear and compelling reason why this church ought to exist. During the first 9 weeks of this church, that is what we will seek to do together by talking about the vision, mission, and values of this church. First this morning we come to the vision: Midtown Community Church exists to see the weak, wounded, and wayward of Midtown Harrisburg encounter the living Jesus.
This morning we are going to focus in on why Midtown is in the name of our church and that statement. (BI) We are for Midtown because God commands his people in their time on earth to seek the peace and flourishing of their cities. We’ll see this clearly from Jeremiah 29:1-14, a text that has been foundational to the founding of this church:
1 This is the text of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the remaining exiled elders, the priests, the prophets, and all the people Nebuchadnezzar had deported from Jerusalem to Babylon. 2 This was after King Jeconiah, the queen mother, the court officials, the officials of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen, and the metalsmiths had left Jerusalem. 3 He sent the letter with Elasah son of Shaphan and Gemariah son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent to Babylon to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. The letter stated:
4 This is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says to all the exiles I deported from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 “Build houses and live in them. Plant gardens and eat their produce. 6 Find wives for yourselves, and have sons and daughters. Find wives for your sons and give your daughters to men in marriage so that they may bear sons and daughters. Multiply there; do not decrease. 7 Pursue the well-being of the city I have deported you to. Pray to the Lord on its behalf, for when it thrives, you will thrive.”
8 For this is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says: “Don’t let your prophets who are among you and your diviners deceive you, and don’t listen to the dreams you elicit from them, 9 for they are prophesying falsely to you in my name. I have not sent them.” This is the Lord’s declaration.
10 For this is what the Lord says: “When seventy years for Babylon are complete, I will attend to you and will confirm my promise concerning you to restore you to this place. 11 For I know the plans I have for you”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“plans for your well-being, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. 12 You will call to me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and places where I banished you”—this is the Lord’s declaration. “I will restore you to the place from which I deported you.”
PRAY
As we look at this text, we will break it down into three sections, all centered around this theme of what it means that God’s people are to live as exiles in our present age (GIVE OUTLINE).
1. The Context of Exile (vv. 1-4, 8-9)
We see here in these first few verses that the prophet Jeremiah is writing a letter to the people of Israel who have been taken into exile. Brief ancient history lesson so bear with me. The nation of Israel, which was called to be God’s holy nation, did not live up to the calling that God gave them. They began to live in the brutality, violence, and paganism of the rest of the nations of the world. And this nation split into two parts, Israel in the north and Judah in the south. Eventually God sent both Israel and Judah into exile. This letter was written by Jeremiah from Jerusalem in Judah to the first group of exiles to be deported to the empire of Babylon, sometime after 597 BCE.
Notice what Jeremiah wants the people of God who have been taken into exile to understand: their exile will last and is no accident. In verses 8-9 we see that there were false prophets who told the people that this exile thing was just a temporary blip on the radar, that they would be brought back soon. But Jeremiah clearly says that they are false prophets, and that this exile would last for 70 years. Not only that, but notuce the agency in verse 4: God says these words to “all the exiles I deported.” God sent his people into exile. This would have been super hard for Israel to hear. A nation whose whole life centered around life in a promised land now sent away from that land for a long time intentionally by their God because of their dehumanizing sin.
What is interesting about this for us today, is that the New Testament speaks about God’s people today in terms of exile. The letter of 1 Peter explicitly draws on this theme where it calls the people stranger and exiles in the text we read earlier in our service (2:11). We all are exiled not from the land of Judah but from the Garden of Eden because of what the Bible calls sin, the dehumanizing actions and inclinations of our hearts. We are all exiles from our true home.
Acknowledging even this truth without the teaching of the rest of the passage changes our posture toward our earthly cities, our earthly homes. After college I lived in a house with some friends for a few months while I was figuring out work and long term plans. For those few months in some ways I acted like that was my home. I unpacked my suitcase and drank out of my favorite coffee mug. But in other ways I knew it wasn’t my permanent home. So, I didn’t start changing out the tile in the bathroom and putting on an addition.
Let me encourage you all with this: don’t make the mistake of thinking earth as it is now, is your permanent home. It can become easy to place our hope in making our earthly city a Christian city and to become frustrated and disgruntled when it isn’t. But that’s not the posture of an exile. An exile recognizes that this city isn’t our ultimate home. The posture of exile sets our expectations in proper proportion to reality. And yet, while that is true, look at what this text calls exiles to be and do.
2. The Call to Exiles (vv. 5-7)
Let’s read verses 5-7 again:
5 “Build houses and live in them. Plant gardens and eat their produce. 6 Find wives for yourselves, and have sons and daughters. Find wives for your sons and give your daughters to men in marriage so that they may bear sons and daughters. Multiply there; do not decrease. 7 Pursue the well-being of the city I have deported you to. Pray to the Lord on its behalf, for when it thrives, you will thrive.”
Let’s look at what God desires for us in exile. First of all, he wants his people to root down and invest in the earthly city. Just because we are exiles does not mean we don’t take up permanent residence and plant our roots here. Christians don’t stand aloof from the earthly city but are invested in it. Second, God desires his people to multiply and maintain their distinct identity. God wanted his people to continue to have children, to continue to increase followers of God even in the pagan land where they found themselves. So too for us church. God wants us to continue to not just have children, but to maintain our uniquely Christian identity even in the face of cultural pressures that would lead us from that.
Lastly, God desires his people to seek the well-being of the city. That word “well-being” in verse 7 is actually the technical Hebrew term shalom. Now shalom can just mean “peace” or “greetings” but it comes from the biblical usage. In the Bible the word shalom refers to an environment of flourishing that God intended for his creation. In the book of Genesis God creates all things to exist in harmony with one another and with him. Shalom refers to a society of perfect justice, loving and selfless relationships, thriving families, a holistic integration of the humans with the earth. (FCF) However, as we spoke about earlier, humanity’s sin fractured shalom. It fractured our relationship with God, with one another, with ourselves, and with God’s creation. So now, in exile in this pagan empire of Babylon, God calls his people to pray for them and seek the shalom of the city and its people. Church, we see here that God loves cities because God loves people. And he wants his people to seek the shalom, the well-being of their earthly cities. He doesn’t just want his people to buy houses and maintain their distinct identity. He wants his people to invest in the earthly city, to work for justice, to share his message of good news, to seek the common good even of their neighbors who don’t believe the same thing as they do. In short, God calls his people to be distinct from the city yet invested in the city.
Christians seeking to maintain this biblical call to exiles in the midst of the city are uniquely tempted in three directions. First of all, Christians can be tempted to hide. If this earthly city isn’t our ultimate home, and we find in the earthly city many pressures that could undermine our faith (paganism and brutal violence in Babylon), we can be tempted to withdraw and just focus on building up our own communities. This temptation is to jettison our investment in the city for the sake of our distinctness. We can call this temptation the church apart from the city. And yet, God calls us church to be distinct in the midst of Babylon. Part of what makes us distinct as Christians is that we pursue our distinctness for the sake of the people around us, that our city would see a better way to live.
Second, Christians can be tempted to assimilate into the earthly city and lose their distinct identity. Christians trying to live faithfully in the midst of the city may begin to think of their own beliefs as antequated and backwards. There is immense cultural pressure on Christians to adopt this posture. We can call this temptation the church one with the city. However, to assimilate is to jettison distinctness for the sake of investment in the city. To assimilate is lose our distinct posture as exiles and make our home here on this earth. In order for the church to be of any good to the earthly city we must be different.
Third, Christians can be tempted to attack the earthly city. Think about those Jewish people exiled in Babylon. They likely saw the people of Babylon do brutal and heinous things to those they loved. Yet God calls them to seek the good of their city. Many of them I’m sure wanted to take up arms, to oppose this oppressive empire. Yet, God calls his people to pray for the empire and seek its good. Church, in our cultural moment there is a huge pressure on churches to play the part of the aggrieved victim and lash back at the secular state with vitriol and at worst violence. This temptation we can call the church against the city. This posture toward the city jettisons both our distinctness as a people of non-retaliatory love for enemies and our investment in the good of the city. Theologian and sociologist Miroslav Volf in his wonderful article “Soft Difference” talks about how violence from Christians towards the world only results in more of the same. However, “when blessing replaces rage and revenge, the one who suffers violence refuses to retaliate in kind and chooses instead to encounter violence with an embrace.”[1] No matter how much you may feel attacked and aggrieved by the earthly city, God calls his people to respond with intercession and blessing.
So, at Midtown Community Church we consciously seek to adopt the biblical posture of exiles. We are not a church apart from the city, one with the city, or against the city. We exist as the church in the midst of the city. We maintain our unique Christian identity for the sake of our neighbors here in Midtown. And we invest our lives for the good, the shalom of this place.
This means several things for those of us who call this church home. First, your vocation really matters. What you do for your day job as a Christian has direct ramifications on the shalom of the city. Whether you’re making bread at a local bakery or auditing a corporate client, whether you’re selling a home or helping to resettle refugees from other countries, do it consciously as a Christian for the shalom of the city. Your work matters to God and it matters for this city. Second, as a baseline, this passage encourages Christians to pray for and be kind to our neighbors, regardless of their beliefs. That seems so basic, but we live in an increasingly uncivil and brutal society, which has sadly impacted the church at times. Pray for all people, even the government leaders from the political party you don’t support.
Third, here at Midtown Community Church we encourage anyone who calls this church home to either live, work, or serve in the city of Harrisburg. We take the calling of this text seriously. We don’t just want to be a church building located in Midtown with people who only drive in for an hour and a half each week. We want to be sacrificially and meaningfully investing in the shalom of this city because God loves this place. And so do we. And as we do, we will find our own well-being. To summarize, borrowing a phrase from the late pastor Tim Keller, we are neither tourists nor natives. We are exiles.
3. The Hope for Exiles (vv. 10-14)
If this the case, then how do we continue to seek the good of our city? How do God’s people maintain holiness and love in the midst of the earthly city without hiding, assimilating, or attacking? How do we get the stamina to continue to pursue the shalom of this place? We need the hope of returning home. Let’s read vv. 10-14:
10 For this is what the Lord says: “When seventy years for Babylon are complete, I will attend to you and will confirm my promise concerning you to restore you to this place. 11 For I know the plans I have for you”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“plans for your well-being, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. 12 You will call to me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and places where I banished you”—this is the Lord’s declaration. “I will restore you to the place from which I deported you.”
Simply put, we can continue on because these verses assure God’s people that exile won’t last forever.
We see that hope particularly stated in verse 11. Now this verse has been made famous by being plastered all over bumper stickers, coffee mugs, and every other piece of home décor at Hobby Lobby. However, this isn’t a cliché verse, but a verse of gritty hope. God’s plans for his people involve a long exile, staying faithful to him in the midst of a hostile environment. But, God says even through that and out on the other side you have a future hope. And what is that hope? Well do you notice the word used in verse 11 again: well-being, shalom, the same word used in verse 7. The ultimate hope for the Christian is not in our own ability to bring in perfect shalom in this age, but in the God who promises to make all things new.
Our hope lies not in our own faithfulness to live as exiles but in Jesus Christ who was the truly faithful exile. Jesus Christ, though he has always been at home in heaven as God, entered into the exile of human existence. During his earthly life Jesus brought about shalom whererever he went. He forgave people’s sins and restored their relationship to God, he exhorted people to seek justice and forgive their neighbor, he healed the sick, and he welcomed in the outcast. And he eventually went to the cross, where though he was the perfectly righteous man who loved the city, died at the hands of the earthly city. On the cross Jesus experienced the fracture of shalom so that by his resurrection and eventual second coming he could begin to make all things new. Jesus’s resurrection is the assurance that our world will be restored. Our hope is in Jesus Christ and the assurance we have of perfect peace, wholeness, and shalom. And this hope drives us to seek the shalom of our city now, to evidence God’s new creation now, in hope of what he will do in the future.
Now, some of you may say, “I was tracking with you until that point. Come on, really? A future heaven is our hope? How does that focus our energy in the present? How is that any good for our present reality?” Well, CS Lewis in his classic work Mere Christianity anticipates and answers this objection. What he says is instructive to us. He says,
A continual looking forward to the eternal world is not (as some modern people think) a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do. It does not mean that we are to leave the present world as it is. If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next…the English Evangelicals who abolished the Slave Trade…left their mark on Earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in’: aim at earth and you will get neither.[2]
Lewis is saying that consistent Christianity is simultaneously heavenly minded and good for the present earth. Where Christians have ceased to be good news for the present world, they have ceased to view themselves as exiles whose ultimate hope is a God who became a man in order to restore shalom to all things. This hope can empower us, Midtown Community Church, to be the faithful presence of Jesus in this neighborhood. We are exiles yes, but we our future home is assured. So, let’s roll up our sleeves and love this city, no matter what may come, because our hope is in the living Jesus who is making all things new.
