I don't want to make anyone jealous, but the moment I read the text from Jeremiah, a fully developed sermon flashed onto the screen of my mind. I didn't even have to go to the hard drive and find the file. It was already open.

The sermon would go like this. Hard times. The Babylonians moved into Judah, cutting down the opposition like the dry grass under the lawn mowers on the seminary grounds this fall. The Babylonians seized Jerusalem and marched many of its leaders across 500 desert miles into exile in Babylonia. Separated from their land. Nobody speaks their language or eats their food. Refugees. The Babylonians probably settled them in a region of the country, near the River Chebar, that had been devastated by war between Babylonia and Assyria. Their job was to redevelop that wasted land. Their primary symbol, the Temple, was in ruins. All around them were Babylonian idols. Strangers in a strange land.

Some false prophets spoke the easy, optimistic word to the community. "Don't unpack your Samsonite. This exile will end soon."

Jeremiah knows better. Back in Jerusalem, he writes a letter to the exiles. "You have a future, and it is under God's providential aegis, but it will be in Babylon." "Build houses ... plant gardens ... take wives, and have sons and daughters ... multiply there ... But seek the welfare of the city (Babylon) where I have you, and pray for the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare."

Build. Plant. Marry. Multiply. Seek the welfare of the city. Pray for Babylon. These are the activities of establishing a community for the long haul. I'll admit the last one caught me off guard: pray for the welfare of your captors. And, to the eternal dismay of liberation theologians, Jeremiah counsels the community not to engage in revolt against Babylon. The commands to build, plant, and marry echo passages in Deuteronomy and Isaiah in which building, planting, and marrying are grounds for exemption from Holy War. The people are not to mount an armed insurrection against Babylon. You and I may wish that Jeremiah had called the community to guerilla subversion. But you have to acknowledge the practicality of Jeremiah's strategy: "in the welfare of the city, you will find your welfare."

The exile is home. The exile is the place where these daughters and sons of Abraham and Sarah will become a nation through whom all the other families of the earth will be blessed (Gen. 12:3). The exile is where they will be a light to the nations, the Gentiles (Isa. 42:6).

I saw an analogy clearly. There are times when many of us feel like we are in exile from ourselves, or at least in exile from the persons we expected to be, or would like to be.

Maybe you're a parent. You have a picture in your mind of what a parent is supposed to be. Wise. Patient. Authoritative. Respected. And you get into an encounter with one of your children, and you feel anything but wise, patient, authoritative, and respected. You feel like you're in exile from the person you want to be.