When some therapists are assessing stress levels, they use a simple instrument to add up stress points. Some are obvious, divorce, for instance gets 100 points. Some are not. Apparently moving is one of the most stressful events in life. Imagine being transported to a far off land, without any idea of whether if, or ever, you would return; to nod to Tom Petty, you have to live like a refugee. How long would they be there? Already they were hearing that they would be home before they knew it. Jeremiah is warning them that they should prepare for the long, long haul.They are not insular; they are to be part of a larger political unit, even if they do not wish it, they fortunes are tied to that of this new place. We may well often imagine some shangri-la, some new Eden where everything would be better compared to where we are. Everything would be better if only things were the way they used to be. 

 

Jeremiah says that God has  plans for us, our future, a hope, and our welfare.  Philip Cary in the new Christian Century has a good piece where he demonstrates that God does not have a special secret agenda that will guarantee us happiness, if only we find the key to unlock it. It is similar to the fiction that we have one and only one soul mate who is a fit twin to ourselves, as if we are two pieces of a puzzle made whole only when we fit together.Isn't it anxiety producing to claim too much specificity.God does not play hide and seek. God is as present to them far away as if they were in the temple. Still, it won't be forever. If not next year in Jerusalem, some day in Jerusalem.the Creator God is endlessly creative and is not bound by the past. that is a foundation for hope.

 

Paul writes as a prisoner. Even though he is chained, he knows that the Word of God not chained. Chrysostom said that we could not chain a sunbeam.He too his doing church work by giving advice to Timothy. Even though he is a prisoner, he can make it a workplace. He works for God, no matter the circumstances. God is faithful even when we are faithless That may be from old Christian liturgy. I find real comfort in its words. God is faithful even when we are not. We see lots of syn/together words to emphasize with Christ and with each other. We think of the hymn "great is thy faithfulness."

Bloom where you're planted would sound almost traitorous for people who saw the temple destroyed and are now strangers in a strange land. They are given some basic advice: to make a new life for themselves as aliens in this new, dangerous place. After Jeremiah's letter was written, we have some evidence from archaeology that his advice was heeded. A Jewish group, Marashu and sons had made a business enterprise and we have some documentation of it. Be Here Now. Make the best of a circumstance. Live into a future instead of longing for the past or a misty future. Palestinians have lived in squalid refugee camps for more than a half a century in a fruitless hope to be able to turn back the clock and claim a right of return to the family property. Even while we wait for better days, for the coming of God's way in the world, we build a future as best we can with the resources at our disposal. That then is holy work, to build a life. Building a life is putting prayer into action.