Hitchhiker’s Guide to Babylon (7)
“Build houses and live in them; and plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and become the fathers of sons and daughters, and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters; and multiply there and do not decrease. 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 have welfare.” Jeremiah 29:5-7 NASB
Pray – Last on the list. Did you see that? We might think that the first thing we should do is pray for these rebellious idolaters. But God puts it last. Why?
Prayer is a powerful weapon in the spiritual arsenal. It is crucial for those who find themselves in paradigm conflict. But God’s instructions to His captive people begin with visible actions that affect not only the captors but the attitudes of the captives. If my first tasks require submission in order to survive and I view that submission as the handiwork of God Himself, then my perspective on my captors and my captivity will change. Actions produce emotions. So God starts the process of inviting Babylonians into the faith by initiating cooperative actions; actions that will lead to relationships. Prayer, that personal and corporate connection with God, even in intercession, is a family affair, and since the captors are not yet family, observable prayer may do nothing more than convince the captors that the captives are isolationists, arrogant or dismissive. God will not allow that. Pray all you want, but if you’re there to bring the God of Israel to the land of the Babylonians, start with acts they will understand. In the end, you’ll be praying together.
God is quite specific about this prayer. It is not prayer for the conversion of the Babylonians. It is not prayer of complaint about the captives’ circumstances. It is prayer for the benefit of the Babylonians. The Hebrew is almost idiomatic. The word (ba’ad) is literally, “behind, round about, through, in behalf of.” Basically God is asking His people to surround the captors with prayer so that they will see God’s goodness. God is not attracting the Babylonians through threats, intimidation or conviction. He is attracting the Babylonians with precisely the same method that His people were supposed to exhibit after Egypt. To become a kingdom of priests is to become intercessors on behalf of those outside the kingdom. Modern religion has converted this task into a spiritual one, that is, to bring the outsider into the fold through salvation. But that is not the context of God’s instruction here or in Exodus. Israel is not a kingdom of evangelists. It is a kingdom of shalom intercessors.
Maybe that’s a lesson we should learn. First, that it is useless to try to browbeat people into the Kingdom. The “Hell fire” method is nothing more than institutionalized trauma. Second, if we really want people to meet the God of compassion, mercy and grace, then compassion, mercy and grace must be our approach. And it’s not our version of compassion, mercy and grace that matters. We have to know what our captors think (darash). Then, if our actions demonstrate God’s character, we will have earned the right of an audience. Now we can pray the intercessor’s prayers. Now we can seek their shalom. Quite frankly, it’s not our job to “save” them anyway.
Topical Index: pray, shalom, intercessor, Jeremiah 29:5-7
Humanism assumes the offices of God (like salvation, say), I have noticed (in myself, of course), while often leaving the offices of human blank. We have a peculiar burden these days when it comes to identifying with others. First, self idolatry is going to clash with the supposed rivalry of all those other ‘gods’; my welfare is going to be perceived by both of us at the expense of the other. We compete. Not a good substrate for brotherhood. The world exacerbates this with its nature of competitiveness and scarce resources myths, not to mention self glorification.
My job as human is to share my humanity with the humanity of others – to identify and relate as if others were me. To experience what Paul calls “bowels of compassion” you have to react at gut level. That is the level that we vicariously react as if it were ourselves. All that is missed if we are competing gods in a universe with room for exactly one god, of course. (Hmm)
To act like a proper human, taking responsibility for relating to all others, means I have to quit acting like a god (or a beast) first. I have to get down off the pedestal of pride as well as out of the gutter of secret shame. I have to become vulnerable and attractive, too. So much self work getting to where I am relating properly to myself. Then turn around and do the same with all around me. None of this is possible unless and until I have taken all this to God and reset my proper parameters with Him, thus freeing up the flow of goodness with which to do the same on earth as it is in heaven. When I start looking like a little piece of heaven to those around me, I will know I am starting to get first things first. Until then, more of me needs to get down off the throne of my heart and the correct One installed on it. So far yet to go to become a human!
I was walking to my car in the K-Mart parking lot and a young man approached me. He was asking me if I was saved. Such bold, unmitigated lack of caring, while mouthing that he cared. After he had talked me into boredom, I asked I might make a suggestion. Looking surprised, he said yes. I proceeded to suggest to him that if he really cared about or for me, that he should first get to know me, Then I might be more willing to listen to him. Sounds somewhat similar to what God was telling his people to do for the Babylonians.
Wow Skip! Such heretical thoughts in the modern institutionalized church way of doing things!! Institutionalized trauma-perish the thought!! LOL
I can so appreciate the fact that the first thing people really see about each other is the way we live and the presence/absence of compassion, mercy and grace. When those attributes become part of ones very fiber, others take notice.
Interestingly enough, I find it seems to be those who claim to be the most pious/religious that lack even a smidgen of compassion, mercy/grace! Why is that?
Compassion I think being chief of these that is missing from a lot of folks these days. Lots of tough, hard, me first folks out there. Many who must have a earthly leader of some sort and cannot think on their own.
Crazy times:-)
Wow, that is so true and powerful, Skip. Really helpful. Thank you.