Tyler Johnson, MDiv
Tyler is a pastor, a teacher, and a former NASA engineer. He loves to explore truth through God’s word and God’s works. He lives in Kansas with his wife and four children and spends what little free-time he has pondering the mysteries of light.
We’ve written before about belonging to the growing group of people who are “done” with church. Not done with Christianity, not done with Jesus, not done with God, not even necessarily done with religion. But done with the church (at least for a time).
I grew up in the church. I’ve been active in a church most all of my life. It is uncomfortable for me to be a “done.” I would much rather be a part of a community of faith. But I’m not ready, yet.
So I have been wrestling with the idea of living faithfully as a “done”. And I’ve been looking for some biblical wisdom to draw upon. And time and again I’ve been drawn to Jeremiah 29.
Jeremiah 29:11 is one of the most famous verses in the Old Testament. It is a verse I’ve memorized, a verse I’ve sung, a verse I’ve heard from others as they try to encourage me. But I have found that it is also a verse that gets distorted when we excise it from the rest of Jeremiah’s 29th chapter.
In chapter 29, Jeremiah writes a letter to the Israelites who were exiled to Babylon. These are people of God who have been removed from Jerusalem, the center of their religious activity and authority. In verse 11 God comforts them with a promise of hope and a future, and that is the part we love. But as a “done” I’ve been paying more attention to the surrounding details of Jeremiah’s letter.
The very first thing that God, through Jeremiah, tells the people in exile is to settle in. “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters,” he tells them. And he goes on, “seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile.” The people are encouraged to join the Babylonians, to share life with them. And unless I’m mistaken, even to intermarry with them.
When the people of God found themselves estranged from their place of worship, God encouraged them to get to know the people around them, to become a part of their culture and their community. Certainly God was not encouraging the exiles to forget their status as the people of God. But we need to recognize that when in exile, being the people of God and being a part of the culture were not mutually exclusive alternatives. I can’t help but think that this call from God to join the Babylonians was an extension of the call he put on Abraham to become a blessing to the nations.
Here is one area where much of modern Christianity seems to be out of sync with the biblical perspective. As Christians we seem to be perpetually afraid of being tainted by the world, or of our kids being tainted by the world. We tend to create safe bubbles for us and our kids to live in. This seems to be the function of a great many churches. We have created a “Christian bubble” complete with churchy versions of most anything the world offers. We have our church groups, our Christian businesses, our positive and encouraging radio stations. All designed to buffer us from the world around us. I get it; I have four kids. Yet the promises of God and the ministry of Jesus suggests that we’ve got things backwards. God seems pretty convinced that the presence of His people is a blessing to the world. Jesus seems to agree both in his actual deeds (consider the woman at the well in John 4), and in his teaching (remember that stuff about being the salt of the earth and the light of the world?). Salt doesn’t flavor food while it’s sitting in a box on a shelf. Light doesn’t stay in one place; it reaches out and pervades everything around it. The people of God don’t bless the earth from within their safe and tidy bubbles. They have to go out, form connections and actually interact with those they find in the world. Remarkably, it would seem that Jesus believes that his good is greater than evil. C.S. Lewis called this a good infection.
There is much more in this chapter to consider. I would draw your attention to those prophesying lies in the name of God, and the seventy year wait before the promises of God come to fruition. Both have relevance to our current situation.
But first things first. Let’s set aside the culture wars and learn to be a part of our communities again. Let’s leave the safety and security of the Christian bubble and learn to see truth, beauty, and goodness in the culture we live in. Let’s stop being afraid of the world and start living like we really truly believe that the goodness of Jesus is greater than anything we might find out there. The promised hope and future that we long for may only be found on the other side of that good work.