A sermon preached by The Reverend Canon Dr. David Anderson at St. Jude’s Anglican Church, Oakville, at Evensong, Sunday, October 20, 2024, and the occasion of his Induction as Rector.
I speak to you in the name of God: revealed to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
You are witnessing an aberration. One does not normally preach as one’s own induction. The fact is, however, that the Induction that was part of tonight’s service was hastily planned. One might wonder how something we’ve been waiting for more than two years could be described as hastily planned, but that is another story. I realised that it was more than a little too late to invite someone to preach. So, I apologize at the beginning of this homily, which is never really a good way to start. At least, for the St. Jude’s people, I was not also the preacher this morning. In fact, this morning I was able to sit in the pew as Canon Patrick Patterson was the preacher and the Reverend Sarah Grondin was the presiding celebrant. Funny story: as I left the church this morning Patrick welcomed me at the door as though I was a first-time visitor. I was very glad to be able to tell him, “I think I’ll be back.” With my apologies out of the way, I would like to say a few words about our First Reading.
Jeremiah was an unpopular prophet in his day. That said, I recently saw a coffee mug for sale in a dollar store with one of the verses from this afternoon’s reading emblazoned on it: “For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope” (Jeremiah 29:11). Jeremiah would never have imagined.
The people to whom these words were first addressed were certainly not sitting around in Babylon’s coffee shops, drinking their lattes from such mugs. They had suffered a great loss and a national disgrace. Back at home, they had strayed from their worship of God. They had begun worshipping the popular gods of their neighbours, and through the same prophet they had been warned of judgement. Now, when we think of God’s judgement, we often think about an angry God, but the fact is that God loved these people. God could also see, however, how their false worship was destroying them. Out of love, God warned them through the prophet that God would not allow them to continue their destructive path. False prophets, however, told the people that they had nothing to worry about. Even though the threat of the Babylonian Empire was well known, the prophets said, “Don’t worry about it. God will provide deliverance for us.”
But the armies came. Jerusalem was conquered. Their houses were destroyed. The invading army plundered their belongings and livestock. The Temple was destroyed. The people were exiled to Babylon. They were under imperial rule and living a long way from home. They are living under the enemy's control. Many emotional and physical stressors affected God's people. They were traumatized and had lost everything, including their way of life, their beloved Jerusalem, their language, and their culture. Then suddenly, Jeremiah writes to exiles who had already been deported to Babylon, and in the middle of all this, we find this remarkable verse of comfort and hope. “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”
That all sounds wonderful. But when these exiles received Jeremiah’s message, they still didn’t run out and print it on their coffee mugs. The false prophets were still offering a more comfortable message than Jeremiah. They told the people that the exile would be over in just two years. Jeremiah told them they would wait seventy years, and that it would be a difficult time. The false prophets advised the people to revolt and resist their captors by all means necessary. Jeremiah counselled the people instead to make themselves at home.
Build houses and live in them [he wrote]; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. 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 (vv. 5-7).
Instead of pulling back from the society where they found themselves as captives, God inspires Jeremiah to instruct the people to integrate into society and avoid the temptation to isolate themselves outside the culture. That sounds fine on the surface until you remember that Jeremiah says this to them amid a culture very different from their own. But, God is pushing back on the notion that they are to merely tolerate the surrounding culture. God is pushing back on the notion that they are to simply exist within the surrounding culture. God is pushing back on the notion that they are to be indifferent to what is happening in the surrounding culture. Instead, what God shares with them, as people who are aliens and exiles, is to seek the welfare of the city and to participate in their mission right there. God calls them to pray on behalf of the city and its people.
The insurrection recommended by the false prophets would have been a much more tempting option. In some ways, rebellion and resistance might have made more sense. The judgement that resulted in the people’s exile had come to pass because the people had already become too cozy with the surrounding culture. They were in danger of losing their identity that was rooted in their covenant with God. Now God is encouraging them, not only to make themselves at home, but to pray for the city of their captivity. How strange?
Today, we find ourselves living in a culture where the status quo seems to support great injustice. The evidence is all around. Climate collapse, increasing economic disparity, human trafficking, the disproportional incarceration in Indigenous people, systemic racism and ableism and discrimination of all kinds, environmental injustices. We could make a long list. Many of these realities make us angry, and they should. And we should do all that we can as Christians and as citizens to resist such injustice and to overcome it. Jeremiah called the people to pray for the city. Here at St. Jude’s and in all our churches we do that.
But we also do more than pray. Jeremiah called the people to seek the welfare of the city. And we do that too. Here at St. Jude’s we feed people. Many hundreds of meals, each and every month, delivered to people’s homes, and made available through partners in Halton’s homeless shelters, food banks, and St. Matthew’s House in Hamilton. We are partners in the Debwewin project, supporting reconciliation work here in Oakville with this land’s First Peoples, the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. In many other ways, we are seeking the welfare of the city and communities in which we live. And we are learners, seeking new ways to live out our Baptismal Covenant as our response to God, and partnership in God’s mission in our world.
In God’s love, grace, and mercy, God have his ancient people seventy years of exile in Babylon, giving them the opportunity to join in God’s mission there. He called them in that time to learn how they could join God in creating the kind of flourishing God desires for all people. But at the same time God called them to still remain a distinct people, committed to the practices that were essential to their identity as God’s people.
In God’s love, grace, and mercy, God has given us this time to deepen our commitment to our practices, continuing in the apostle teaching, in the fellowship and breaking of the bread, in resisting evil and repenting when necessary, of sharing the good news of Jesus Christ, in seeking and serving Christ in all persons, in striving for justice and dignity for every human being, in striving to safeguard the integrity of God’s creation. We have this time and this mission. Indeed, God has plans for us. “For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.” If you ever want to talk more about that, I would love to buy you a coffee. Maybe we could have that latte.
May God bless us all in this shared mission. Amen.
