Jews in ExileI am beginning to read through the three books of Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah. My primary goal is one of inspiration as I seek to gain a better understanding of what God calls his people to. Some central themes are the right worship of God, faithfulness to God and his wishes, and rebuilding a communal identity. I believe that as we better understand the story of the nations of Israel and Judah, and their fall into exile, we can better begin to understand the reality of our present situation as Christ’s followers in the western world today.
The exile can be used as a metaphor from which we can draw understanding of our post-Christendom context, a context that presents unique challenges to a Constantinian influenced faith. Whereas Christian’s once held the power of the culture, this has waned as secularism has taken root in the west. If we are to move beyond and not just subsist but thrive as a faith we must, like David, forgo the armor offered us in worldly power, and trust in God’s protection, provision, and promise to be with his faithful to the end.
So what might that this exilic faith look like? Arthur Glasser pointed to two tasks handed to the exiled Hebrews; first they were to survive through the building of houses and to have families, and second they were to seek the peace shalom, and prosperity of the cities they inhabited while in exile, and to pray to God for the city. (Glasser, 129-30) Their tasks were to become productive and integral participants in their pagan surroundings; not as partakers in pagan ritual, but as the ‘salt and light’ of their communities. Distinctly God’s people, but partnered in and partaking in the society as a whole.
As Christendom has wained the impulse of those in power in Christian circles when it comes to civic culture has been one of retreat. We have taken our ball and gone home, relegating ourselves to playing on our courts as we await others to breach our ghetto. An exilic faith though ask that we relinquish our Constantinian hold onto power in exchange for a lasting influence, influence that begins in building relationships in our communities, praying for our communities, seeking the prosperity of our community as a whole. As we continue to ride on the shifting sands of our post-modern context it will be increasingly important for us to begin to de-institutionalize the church within our societies as bastions of power.
As Children we would often turn over a large stone to expose the earth underneath and peer at the breaking through of the life that lives just under the surface. As we move into our communities we are to be holy stone turners, exposing the breaking through of God’s Kingdom with our own abiding presence as signposts for the Kingdom; but this only takes place if we put our backs into it, get a bit of dirt under our fingernails as we expose ourselves the realities of the pain and brokenness around us. A pain and brokenness that can’t be healed through acts of congress, or getting them to attend your Christian event—rather it can only be healed through the pouring out of Christ into their lives through his Spirit, his Body, and his Blood of which we are a sign.
Embrace your exile my brothers and sisters.
Glasser, Arthur. 2003. Announcing the Kingdom: The Story of God’s Mission in the Bible. Grand Rapids, MI. Baker Academic
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Within literature and theater there exists the archetype of the tragic hero, or the tragic character. Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Melville’s Captain Ahab. There begins at some point a hope that they will be redeemed, that some good will come and they can hold their head up high; however this hope is maligned by the character’s own actions. Within Scripture we have no better (or worse?) example of a tragic character than in Saul, the first King of Israel.