A few years ago, the Christian recording artist Sandi Patti released a song that was called “Another Time, Another Place.” As I read through the passage from the prophet Jeremiah this morning, those were the first words that came to my mind: this seems to belong to another time and another place. Christians have that reaction to a lot of Old Testament passages and to a lot of the prophetic passages. They seem written to another world that doesn't seem easy to translate into our own world. Some prophetic texts touch us and deeply: “the wolf shall lie down with the lamb” and “they shall beat their plowshares into swords.” But then there's Jeremiah: “My people are fools, they do not know Me. They are senseless children; they have no understanding. They are skilled in doing evil; they know not how to do good.” The prophet speaks, and we feel accused and guilt ridden and maybe even insulted. I should point out that the purpose of the prophets of the Old Testament was to speak to society in general rather than to individuals. In a way it's a bit like saying “Canadians love hockey.” We know what that means, and we agree. Canadians do love hockey. We know that not every Canadian loves hockey, but – in general – Canadians do love hockey. “My people are fools,” God said. Not every single one of them, surely. But as a people and as a society and as a community there must have been some truth in the statement. But passages like these are hard and the image of God found in the Old Testament is an unsettling one to many Christians. Sometimes God seems consumed by hatred and a desire for vengeance. We wonder where in the Old Testament we find the God of love revealed by Jesus and the New Testament – the God whose greatest desire is to reconcile His people to Himself. The good news, of course, is that that God must be there – even in passages such as this one – because that God was the God of Jesus, and these Scriptures were the Scriptures of Jesus. Even in the days of Jeremiah, God was a God of renewal, a God of reconciliation and a God of second chances and more. Still, Jeremiah prophesied in difficult times for God's people, and he prophesied terrible things at the hand of God - a God apparently about to give full vent to a divine righteous anger felt against the actions of His people.

 

     Jeremiah was prophesying to a people who were about to experience the terror of invasion and exile at the hands of foreign conquerors – the Babylonians who would soon sweep with destructive power through their land. There's a reference in v.11 to a “a scorching wind from the barren heights in the desert [that] blows toward My people.” The reference is to a great and destructive power that will transform everything in its path. Literally, Jeremiah was referring to a hot, dry wind that's common in the area and that fills the air with dust and sand and makes life miserable for both people and animals. We may not understand. We don't live surrounded by desert. Or maybe we can understand. Think of it in a different way. Think of it as something we can relate to. Our summer is coming to an end; winter's approaching. Soon, it will be January, and what will happen? “A bitterly cold wind sweeps across the frozen surface of Lake Erie toward My people.” We live in Port Colborne. We may not know a lot about scorching winds coming out of the desert, but we know a lot about bitterly cold winds sweeping across Lake Erie, don't we? Yes - we know about those winter winds. Perhaps, were Jeremiah among us today, he might say “I looked, and the people were invisible, huddled inside their homes, and even the birds were hidden from sight, having sought whatever shelter they could find. I looked, and the well-kept lawns were covered in branches and blown down trees and shingles ripped from the roofs and the streets filled with garbage and debris. The city seemed ruined because of this 'act of God.' ” Jeremiah really wasn't discussing the weather, of course. He used a familiar force of nature as an image whose power the people could understand. The “scorching wind from the barren heights in the desert [that] blows toward My people” is a reference to the coming invasion by the Babylonians. When that happened, God's people lost everything that had been of importance to them. Their land, their temple, their wealth, their power, their pride – it was all gone. Just as that scorching desert wind could make their lives miserable, and just as the bitterly cold winter wind off Lake Erie can do the same to us, so would the Babylonian invasion make life miserable. 

 

     Still, though, it seems to be an image from “another time and another place.” There are no Babylonian armies at our gates. The U.S. Army isn't massed at Buffalo, ready to march across the Peace Bridge and invade the Niagara Peninsula – not as far as I know, anyway! But again, I think we can understand. God's people were helpless against the Babylonians; I doubt we'd stand much chance in Niagara against an American invasion – although we did whup their behinds back in 1812! But that's not happening so why does it matter? What can this bit of prophecy possibly have to say to us? Well, our circumstances may be different in some ways, but similar in others. In Jeremiah's day, God's people had turned away from God. Their faith had become something to be taken for granted rather than something to be lived and celebrated, and eventually the exile to Babylon turned the attention of God's people back to their God, because with everything else taken away from them, they had nowhere else to turn. The inevitable consequence of turning away from (or at least becoming cold toward) a life-giving God was disaster. I don't really believe that God deals in disasters, but I do believe that our actions have consequences – a truth we all too often forget or ignore in our daily lives. 

 

     Our circumstances are very different from those of God's people centuries ago, but the image and experience of the exile can still have deep spiritual meaning for 21st century Western Christians. During the exile, the land of the people of God may have been empty, but the faith of the people of God was once again becoming vibrant. In the midst of their troubles the people of God  returned to God, and God became an active and present reality in the lives of His people again. Maybe it's at this point that we hear the prophet speaking to us – prophesying not against a nation that first took God for granted and then lost sight of God completely, but perhaps against a church that often takes God for granted and becomes lost in ritual and tradition at the expense of living in a life changing relationship with God. We haven't been conquered by a foreign power and exiled from our country, but  have we been conquered by the forces of secularism? I daresay that our society is largely indifferent to God, and I wonder if that's not reflected at times in the church. In desperate attempts to be popular, has the gospel of niceness replaced the gospel of Christ? Has “thou shalt cause no offence” replaced “thou shalt have no other gods”? Does our worship focus on us and what we want to get at the expense of a focus on God and what God wants us to receive? Has God been reduced from the One Who offers us salvation and new life into little more than a divine therapist with Whom we happen to have a weekly (at best) appointment? And if God wants to get our attention and get us back, does that cold wind off Lake Erie not have to blow upon us? Does that awe-inspiring power that tears branches off trees and shingles off roofs not have to blow apart the church? I wonder, perhaps, whether God might not be using our challenges to push us to re-examine the very foundations of our faith? God's people of centuries ago lost everything, and it's not uncommon for me to hear our laments today. Laments over attendance that goes down and deficits that go up. Laments over the loss of respect and influence the church has suffered in recent decades. I still hear older colleagues speak wistfully and longingly about the days when the Moderator of the United Church could get the Prime Minister on the phone in a couple of minutes. Today, I have my share of doubts that Stephen Harper knows who the Moderator of the United Church is! But strangely, the exile wasn't bad for God's people. The feeling of displacement served a purpose. The loss of the familiar and routine sparked a search for something new and meaningful. In Babylon God's people entered into perhaps the most creative years in their history. Their faith became vibrant and alive again. They learned how to honour their past – their traditions and history and rituals and teachings – while at the same time finding new ways to live out their faith in an unfriendly environment. The ending of that which was – of the old and familiar – really represents an opportunity to rebuild. That which was becomes that which will be.

 

     Perhaps the struggle of the church today is really a call to action. Perhaps this is God speaking; trying to get our attention. Are we listening? Are we looking for God in sometimes unexpected places? If we look for the unexpected, we find it – even in Jeremiah's words we discover good news and a sense of hope. “The whole land will be ruined, though I will not destroy it completely.” “The church might lose everything; the buildings might close; but something will remain” might well be God's word to us. “... the earth will mourn and the heavens above grow dark, because I have spoken and will not relent, I have decided and will not turn back.” The words of God through the prophet sound ominous, but I wonder if they're saying nothing more than “You may be grief-stricken and things might seem dark because some things you can't change, but I have a plan and it will be fulfilled.” As devastating as the exile to Babylon would be for them, something would be left for God's people to build upon; as marginalized and as powerless as we may become in this modern, secular-minded world, something is there for us to rebuild upon. God is with us; Christ does not abandon us, and – as we heard a couple of weeks ago - “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” The Jesus Who's been with us for 2000 years now will stay with us. He won't change – but we will; we have to. You see, there's always hope, even when things seem to be at their bleakest, because God is with His people. Sandi Patti sang of “another time and another place” - and indeed that new time and place await us. There are opportunities (and perhaps heaven-sent ones) that arise from this “spiritual” exile, as we learn how to live on the margins rather than at the centre.  Perhaps the church's tough times are really opportunities  for us to come closer to God, to find a new way of being God's people and to experience God's presence and power and love in ways we've never felt before and to share it with those we've perhaps failed to see before. Surely, where such opportunities are present the possibilities are enormous! That which was is fading away, but only to be replaced by that which will be. “[God has] decided and will not turn back”; God has a plan and it will be fulfilled.