"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." - Jeremiah 29:7 (NRSV)
I come from a scholarly-evangelical background where people asked each other, "Which is your favorite OT prophet?" [1] That's a thought-provoking question because so many OT prophecies are still resonant today.
Due to the power of gifted teaching, my favorite prophets are all the ones I studied under Frances I Andersen. [2] And among those, Jeremiah is my guy. His society was in turmoil, some of his country was in ruins, and in the midst of these travails, God had guidance for God's people. The weeping? In my reading, some of the tears in the poetry are God's own, weeping for us. And like me, Jeremiah was verbose. So many reasons!
This weekend I was reading Jeremiah again. After I reviewed the warnings about false prophets, I turned to read: Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile ... for in its welfare you will find your welfare.
In my translation: "Seek the welfare of this planet and every bit of matter on it," because everything is connected. Now to ponder the implications of this command, and pick a project. Everyone doing something. [3]
[1] They also said things like, "That was a great youth sermon; too bad you can't be a minister because you're female." Christians for Biblical Equality helped me a great deal. But back to my favorite prophet!
[2] Even though I didn't finish my MTS, studying at New College Berkeley changed my life. The biggest adventure related to Jacques Ellul (with many thanks to David Gill) and laying out its course catalogue on my Fat Mac was fun too. And Professor Andersen helped me understand my evangelical heritage and claim its power.
[3] https://theworld.com/~jchat/1dec00.html : an eco-rant from 20 years ago.
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