How To Belong To A Place (Strange Wisdom, Part 1)

Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7

Luke 17:11-17

Today we begin a new series that will stretch across the three weeks of October.  The series is entitled, “Strange Wisdom: Unconventional Perspectives on Joy.”

We’ll explore some unconventional approaches to living joyfully that will likely contradict some of what we’ve learned over the years.  God promises joy and abundance and healing and flourishing to those who are willing to learn something new.  But learning something new always requires un-learning old habits and un-hooking ourselves from stale, but tightly held, assumptions.

 

Each week we will take a look at powerful myth, a tempting story that might be attractive but actually distorts our lives and robs us of joy.  Here’s the myth or false wisdom for today . . . Happiness is an individual project.  Put yourself first.  Maximize your own comfort and wealth and let others take care of themselves.  Look out for you.  Live like a free-agent, always ready to move somewhere else.

The “strange wisdom” we’re talking about today is the ability to belong to a place.    Receiving this wisdom will be difficult because we are all tempted to live our lives in a state of dissatisfaction and restlessness, in a mood of complaint and even anger at our surroundings.  It’s hard to ignore all the signals we get from our culture that we would probably be happier somewhere else.  Let’s look at a few examples of that very popular kind of article, a list of the “Best Places To Live”!

The Economist: World’s Most Liveable Cities:

The Economist magazine conducts an annual survey (and “livability index”) which considers 30 factors related to safety, health care, educational resources, infrastructure and the environment. 

1 Vienna, Austria

2 Melbourne, Australia

3 Osaka, Japan

4 Calgary, Canada

5 Sydney, Australia

6 Vancouver, Canada

7 Toronto, Canada

8 Tokyo, Japan

9 Copenhagen, Denmark

10 Adelaide, Australia

US News & World Report Best Places to Live:

“The United States is filled with world-class cities and under-the-radar attractions worth visiting year-round. But when it comes time to settle down, some spots are better than others.  U.S. News & World Report just released this year's list of the best places to live in America after evaluating the country’s 125 most populous metropolitan areas.”

1. Austin, Texas

2. Denver, Colorado

3. Colorado Springs, Colorado

4. Fayetteville, Arkansas

5. Des Moines, Iowa

6. Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota

7. San Francisco, California

8. Portland, Oregon

9. Seattle, Washington

10. Raleigh & Durham, North Carolina

11. Huntsville, Alabama

12. Madison, Wisconsin

13. Grand Rapids, Michigan

14. San Jose, California

15. Nashville, Tennessee

16. Asheville, North Carolina

17. Boise, Idaho

18. Sarasota, Florida

19. Washington, D.C.

20. Charlotte, North Carolina

thrillist.com - America's Best Small Cities to Move to Before They Get Too Popular

The best small towns to visit in America are easy to commit to for a weekend. It doesn’t take much to fall in love with Main Street; all you need is a couple of friends, a shaded porch, a six-pack of pale ale, and nothing but time to kill for you to think, “Hmm, I could get used to this.”

But if you're going to full on move to a small town, you gotta be selective. Pick wrong and you'll be bored, underpaid, and isolated. But pick right, and you can get all the best aspects of a metropolis -- energy, creativity, charm, excitement -- without the up-yours prices and the built-in migraines.

So we asked dozens of writers around the country to find the small American cities (with max populations of around 70,000) where they'd put down roots. We looked for up-and-coming hotspots (think, Asheville 10 years ago), underappreciated gems, and towns where a person with verve could scratch out a cool life. 

1.     Hood River, Oregon

2.     Bisbee, Arizona

3.     Port Chester, New York

4.     Greenville, South Carolina

5.     Estes Park, Colorado

6.     Eau Claire, Wisconsin

7.     Portland, Maine

8.     Missoula, Montana

9.     San Marcos, Texas

10. Burlington, Iowa

11. Joshua Tree, California

12. Northampton, Massachussetts

13. Bozeman, Montana

14. Wilmington, Delaware

15. Rogers, Arkansas

Jeremiah

Both of our readings today involve people who had complicated feelings about the places where they lived.  These are stories about what it feels like to be homesick, to be displaced, to live as an exile or a refugee, to have some neighbors that you don’t like and don’t trust.

In the 6^th Century BCE, the Southern tribe of Judah, with its capital city of Jerusalem, was conquered and taken into exile by the Babylonian Empire.  It is to these defeated captives, held as prisoners far from home, that Jeremiah writes his letter.  These are people whose dreams for the future were cut short.  They were living in shock, disappointment, and heartache.  Psalm 137 captures their mood:

By the rivers of Babylon –

            there we sat and there we wept

            when we remembered Zion [Jerusalem].

On the willows there

            we hung our harps.

For there our captors

            asked us for songs,

and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying,

            “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

How could we sing the Lord’s song

            in a foreign land?

Maybe some of us are feeling this way today.  According to this powerful lament, there can be no singing, no joy, if you’re not “home,” if you’re not in the right place.  To live in exile, captive to forces larger than you are, is to lose the dream of ever rejoicing again. Their longings and their prayers had become a single melody: Get us out of here God, and quick, so we can find joy again.

So imagine their surprise when they receive a letter from the prophet Jeremiah, writing from back home in Jerusalem.  Jeremiah’s guidance for them was the exact opposite of what they wanted to hear.  The prophet Hananiah had predicted that this would all be over and all the Jews would be back home within two years.  He had a big following.  People like optimistic preachers. But Hananiah wasn’t speaking for God.  Jeremiah was.

Jeremiah preaches that it will be a very long time before they will get to come back home.  He tells them to put down roots, build houses, plant gardens, and plan to raise their grandkids in Babylon. They are not to postpone their lives.  They are not to hit “pause,” as if waiting for everything in life to work out.  They are to give themselves fully to the place where they find themselves, in spite of an uncertain future.  They are not to focus solely on their own welfare.  They are to work for and pray for the peace and prosperity of the place where they find themselves. 

Luke 17:11-17

Now let’s shift to the gospel reading from Luke.  Sometimes the most interesting details in a story are the ones left out.  Notice here that Luke doesn’t care to name the village where all this took place.  Instead, he tells us that Jesus was walking along a geographical border separating Jews from Samaritans.

“Samaria” and “Samaritan” are trigger words.  Good Jews knew not to go anywhere near Samaria and not to have any relationships with Samaritans.  And yet here is a story in which Jesus extends healing and friendship to a Samaritan who is doubly cursed.  Not only is he from the wrong side of the boundary line, he suffers from a dreaded and contagious skin disease.  In the ancient world, leprosy referred to a cluster of skin diseases.  Because of laws about purity and defilement in Leviticus, those with leprosy lost everything: connections to home and work and community life as well as affection from those they love. 

Here we have ten Lepers, ten men cut off from home and from everything that makes life meaningful.  They beg for mercy and Jesus sends them to see a priest and they are healed on the way.  One of the ten returns, bows at Jesus’ feet, and expresses his gratitude.  “Your faith,” says Jesus, “has made you well.”  Jesus invites us away from our complaints about others to lives of healing and connecting.

If we can summon the courage to drop our defenses for a moment, we might be able to see that these stories about difficult places to live, about places where people bitterly despise one another – Jews and Babylonians, Jews and Samaritans – these are stories about us. 

Let’s confess our complicated roles in a wide range of hostilities and bitter divisions . . . between conservatives and progressives, between rural people and urban people, between those on the coast and those in the heartland, between Democrats and Republicans, between whites and brown immigrants, between whites and African Americans, between those with wealth and those with only their labor to offer, between one generation and another. 

How can we belong to our places in ways that honor the healing that God makes possible in a world full of resentment and finger-pointing?  How can we belong to our places in a way that fosters the flourishing and well-being of the wider community?  After all, our places matter.  Our places provide the primary arena where we work out our love for God and neighbor.

You all have gathered here for worship today.  God has called you into this place to engage in practices of singing and prayer, caring and giving, listening and responding to the good news.  You don’t need any advice from me about where to live.  You don’t need my two cents about whether it’s time to dig in and put down roots or whether time to move on to what’s next for you.  We are all at different places in our lives, with different priorities and differing callings.  Any attempt to offer a one-size-fits-all answer would be a denial of our diverse circumstances.

The good news – though it is difficult to hear – is that God is a lively and present reality no matter where we find ourselves in life.  Those employees of Mercy Hospital who had to move for work will find God’s provision in their new places.  Those GM workers who have to move when their local plant closes will find God’s goodness in that new place.  All those refugees fleeing the violence of their homeland will travel with God’s promise to go with them. 

Did you lose someone dear to you?  Have you been through a divorce?  Are you dealing with disappointment or betrayal?  Did you lose a job?  Do you feel stuck or anxious?  Would you rather live somewhere else?  We are always tempted, when life doesn’t go our way, to imagine our circumstances as the primary problem.  The truth is that we let our challenging circumstances undercut our trust in God’s promise that we can live with joy even when our plans don’t work. 

The good news of God’s love calls us beyond the narrow framework of individualism to a full appreciation of our interdependence with others.  When God promises to bless us towards lives of joy and flourishing, God isn’t making that promise to you as an isolated individual.  God is making that promise to you as a creature fully integrated with your surroundings in all kinds of networks of sharing and friendship. God gives to you so that you will be an agent of compassion and healing in your local place.  And God will provide what you need through the hands and lives of those who share your place. 

We might even imagine the places we live as part of our wider calling from God.  In our culture, where you live is seen as one more opportunity for self-expression and individual advancement.  But our commitment to the places where we live and work can be larger than that.  It can be part of the way we offer ourselves to God and to others.  Re-imagining our places as a kind of divine calling doesn’t mean that we need to stay in any one place for our entire lives.  We can be called to a place for some particular period of our lives.  Or we can be called to a life of inhabiting multiple places at once.  We belong to our places as people who belong to God, called to live with joy as we share in God’s work of healing and blessing.