SPEAKER_01: A reading from Jeremiah.
SPEAKER_01: These are the words of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the remaining elders among the exiles, and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.
SPEAKER_01: Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, and to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.
SPEAKER_01: Build houses and live in them, plant gardens and eat what they produce.
SPEAKER_01: Take wives and have sons and daughters.
SPEAKER_01: Take wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters, multiply there, and do not decrease.
SPEAKER_01: But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.
SPEAKER_01: The word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: But the word of God is not changed.
SPEAKER_02: Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, so that they may also obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.
SPEAKER_02: The saying is sure.
SPEAKER_02: If we have died with him, we will also live with him.
SPEAKER_02: If we endure, we will also reign with him.
SPEAKER_02: If we deny him, he will also deny us.
SPEAKER_02: If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.
SPEAKER_02: Remind them of this and warn them before God that they are to avoid wrangling over words, which does no good but only ruins those who are listening.
SPEAKER_02: Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved by him, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly explaining the word of truth, the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: On the way to Jerusalem, Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee.
SPEAKER_00: As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him.
SPEAKER_00: Keeping their distance they called out, saying, Jesus, Master, have mercy upon us.
SPEAKER_00: When he saw them he said to them, Go and show yourselves to the priests.
SPEAKER_00: And as they went, they were made clean.
SPEAKER_00: Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice.
SPEAKER_00: He prostrated himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him.
SPEAKER_00: And he was a Samaritan.
SPEAKER_00: Then Jesus asked, Were not ten made clean, but the other nine where are they?
SPEAKER_00: Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?
SPEAKER_00: Then he said to him, Get up and go on your way.
SPEAKER_00: Your faith has made you well.
SPEAKER_00: The Gospel of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And while his shoes, while they were just a had a few holes in them, they were still super comfy.
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't ready to give up on those shoes yet.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't need that stuff.
SPEAKER_00: He needed ice cream, and he needed it now.
SPEAKER_00: As adults, it might not be ice cream that we are anxious for, but then again it might be.
SPEAKER_00: But we all know what it's like wanting something but having to wait for it.
SPEAKER_00: And thinking that we know what is best for us when really the truth is we don't have a clue.
SPEAKER_00: In times of waiting or uncertainty, you may have found it helpful to hear the words from Jeremiah, those words that are often on posters at Hobby Lobby or crocheted into a pillow, those words that say, For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future of hope.
SPEAKER_00: Well, if I told you that those comforting words actually came right after today's reading from Jeremiah, I'm not so sure how comforting they are.
SPEAKER_00: Those words are coming from a parent telling a child that good things will indeed come, but first that doctor's visit and that chew fitting.
SPEAKER_00: First there is to be waiting and hard work.
SPEAKER_00: The good will come, but it's going to take some time.
SPEAKER_00: In this passage from Jeremiah, which comes just before the words of promise and hope, Jeremiah is writing to a portion of his community who were sent into exile by the Babylonians.
SPEAKER_00: They were no longer living in their own land, but were in a foreign territory.
SPEAKER_00: They were probably hoping that Jeremiah would send words of hope that things would end quickly, news that they would be back in their hometown and their land before the end of the year.
SPEAKER_00: If Jeremiah had written only the words, for surely I know the plans I have for you, without that preceding bit about making homes and settling in, this community probably would have been relieved.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, they are told by God's messenger to settle down, to settle in and make this new place their home.
SPEAKER_00: Exile might not mean much for us today.
SPEAKER_00: Many of us don't live in the same town, in fact, probably not the same state as the one we were born in.
SPEAKER_00: Transient nature is American nature.
SPEAKER_00: This, though, was not the case for the Hebrew people.
SPEAKER_00: They were deeply connected to the land.
SPEAKER_00: Their story was always about land, whether they were in it, getting kicked out of it, or being sent back.
SPEAKER_00: Land was a common theme to their story.
SPEAKER_00: The story begins in that mystical garden, and they're removed from it.
SPEAKER_00: And then Abram is promised land and lives into that promise.
SPEAKER_00: Then the Hebrew people grow while they are slaves in Egypt, working hard on land that is not their own.
SPEAKER_00: But God frees them, teaching them while they're in the wilderness as they journey towards land, their land.
SPEAKER_00: Then God places them in that long promised for land, land that they did not work for, but land and a place that was gifted to them by God.
SPEAKER_00: This idea of land as gift was unique to the human the Hebrew people, and was central to how the community was supposed to live both on the land and in the community.
SPEAKER_00: Land was to be fairly shared, and no one person was to acquire unjust amounts of land.
SPEAKER_00: There was enough for everyone, if everyone remembered that land was a gift to them.
SPEAKER_00: But as the prophets would argue, they lost sight that land was a gift, and therefore did not act accordingly.
SPEAKER_00: This led to their ultimate loss of land and many of their people being sent into exile.
SPEAKER_00: So when they receive word from Jerusalem through Jeremiah that they are to settle in this exile land, they are to build on enemy ground, to cultivate on enemy soil, and worse yet, to have relationships with the enemy?
SPEAKER_00: That goes against every fiber of their beings.
SPEAKER_00: This was not their place, this was not their home, this was not their promised land.
SPEAKER_00: So why are they to act like this?
SPEAKER_00: Why are they to do these things that they don't want to do?
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Hush, child, your parent knows best.
SPEAKER_00: Your parent knows and has a plan, and it'll all be okay.
SPEAKER_00: Turning this enemy plot into their own home is an act of seeking shalom, not just some nonviolent peace, but more deeply a lifestyle that promotes holistic health, prosperity, and well-being for everyone and everything around them.
SPEAKER_00: This is the same shalom they were supposed to be seeking in their own land, but had failed.
SPEAKER_00: This is the shalom that they are now to seek in exile.
SPEAKER_00: They're being given a second chance of living life as God intends, and not only that, but now they have a chance, a chance of shalom of shalom seeking with their enemy.
SPEAKER_00: Spreading shalom just like those vines in their gardens will spread across the land.
SPEAKER_00: And by making their enemy their family, their prosperous family, in fact, they will find they no longer have an enemy.
SPEAKER_00: Now this is more than just making the best of a bad situation.
SPEAKER_00: This is living into the promise that God offers them, trusting and obeying, and living a life that is fuller and deeper than they could ever imagine.
SPEAKER_00: It is making room for God in every moment and cultivating the soil so that God takes root and transforms a place, changes it from a barren land of exile to lush, bounteous fields and sweet homes.
SPEAKER_00: Let's take a moment and look a little more closely at one of the scandalous behaviors that Jeremiah is advocating for, for that of intermarriage.
SPEAKER_00: At the time, part of the scandal was that they believed that they were God's chosen people, and that meant that they were to remain separate, set apart from all other nations.
SPEAKER_00: There were holy writings that spoke against such things to make sure that the Hebrew people never forgot about the one true God, never falling into the traps of the false gods that those other nations worshipped.
SPEAKER_00: So, how is this to be understood?
SPEAKER_00: How is this change of instruction by God to be understood?
SPEAKER_00: I would like to suggest that this is the beginning of a turning point in God's unfolding story.
SPEAKER_00: These are some of the early whispers that God's people are to extend beyond just the Israelite community.
SPEAKER_00: And God is to be worshipped in places beyond just Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: God is the parent of all of humanity, and God is to be worshipped by everyone, everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: All land across the world is to be the foundation for bringing prosperity to all people.
SPEAKER_00: Shalom is to be planted and grown everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: This then ties in with the story of the Samaritan leper that we heard of in today's gospel.
SPEAKER_00: This is the second time in Luke's Gospel that the Samaritan is the one used as the subject of love, not the object.
SPEAKER_00: The Samaritan is the one teaching everyone else what love is all about.
SPEAKER_00: First, in the familiar story of the Good Samaritan, the Samaritan is the one that teaches us all how to love our neighbor.
SPEAKER_00: And now the Samaritan teaches us how to love God with a grateful heart.
SPEAKER_00: It is the Samaritan that practices the greatest commandment to love God with all our heart and to love our neighbor as ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: But the Samaritans at the time were seen as an enemy to the Jews.
SPEAKER_00: They were not true Jews.
SPEAKER_00: See, they had intermarried during the Babylonian control and did not worship at Jerusalem, but in their own land at Mount Gerizim.
SPEAKER_00: This unfolding story of God's transformation for the world continues here in this gospel reading, telling us to move towards a world of inclusion where all are to be seen as God's children and all are to participate in God's shalom.
SPEAKER_00: In both of these passages, we are challenged to see beyond the labels of enemy, to see the truer identity of the other as brother and sister, for we all share the same holy parent, the one true God.
SPEAKER_00: And as siblings, we are to seek ways to cultivate shalom with one another, and recognize that when our siblings prosper in the gardens of shalom, then so do we.
SPEAKER_00: Who are our enemies today then?
SPEAKER_00: How do we often hope to see others fail?
SPEAKER_00: How can we change our minds and our hearts so that we can be we can do the hard work of practicing shalom instead of anger and hatred, fear and retaliation, laying seeds of a different way of being in the fields of our enemies, so that love can take root and shalom can blossom.
SPEAKER_00: Who is our enemy?
SPEAKER_00: It may be a co-worker who again and again tries to undermine our work.
SPEAKER_00: Well, planting shalom might mean finding a way to help that coworker succeed in his project, even when we would rather honestly see him fall flat on his face.
SPEAKER_00: Who is our enemy?
SPEAKER_00: It may be the person that votes differently than we do.
SPEAKER_00: And while the preference might be that we argue with that person, telling them why they are so wrong, planting shalom may be taking a deep breath and simply listening to their fears and their positions on a specific topic.
SPEAKER_00: And only when they are finished, ask them gently if they would like to hear your thoughts on the matter, or if really they just needed someone to talk to.
SPEAKER_00: That shalom then comes from not trying to convince the other person that we are right and they are wrong, but simply listening.
SPEAKER_00: Who is our enemy?
SPEAKER_00: Is it the outsider who is has different values and norms, who wants or maybe needs to build houses and plant vineyards and grow families here in our land?
SPEAKER_00: Much like the exiled Israelites were forced to do.
SPEAKER_00: Planting shalom might mean offering hospitality, and maybe it means providing the bricks for the house, the seeds for the garden, so that they can start that new life that they are longing to begin, even if it risks introducing different ways to our community.
SPEAKER_00: Might we find that the prosperity of others, of those we label as our enemy, will actually, in fact, bring us prosperity?
SPEAKER_00: Some of us may feel like we are the ones in exile right now, in this in-between stage, holding on to that thin thread of hope, while the world around us is not as we thought it should be.
SPEAKER_00: How do we, even in those moments, seek shalom?
SPEAKER_00: And some of us may feel like we are settled in that promised land and things are going rather well.
SPEAKER_00: How do we then make room to invite others to share our homes and our plots of land and give them space so that they may seek shalom?
SPEAKER_00: For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.
SPEAKER_00: So settle down, my child.
SPEAKER_00: Settle in and seek shalom.
SPEAKER_00: We will get there.
SPEAKER_00: It might be slow going and done in a way rather different than we prefer, but we will get there.