Seven Lessons for Exile from "Life-As-We-Knew-It"
by Harry K. Zeiders
In our earthly residence, one way to see the season in which we find ourselves (pandemic-wise, politically, economically, etc.) is through the lens of exile — not geographic exile, but exile from life-as-we-knew-it. Here are a few brief takeaways as I’ve begun to construct a biblical theology for life in exile:
1. Adam and Eve’s exile = our exile. Adam and Eve’s getting themselves evicted from Eden was emblematic of their relational exile from the Landlord of the Universe. Ever since Genesis 3, we humans have been living in exile.
2. Exile is a state of resiliently trusting the Landlord of the Universe. The entire narrative from Genesis 12 to Joshua 5 — from Abram being called to leave his homeland in 2091 BC/BCE to the children of the Exodus entering the Promised Land in 1406 BC/BCE — is the story of Yahweh preparing stateless refugees to trust him. In first century AD/CE Judea, while religious and regal and rebel leaders grasp for the revival of Israel’s earthly kingdom, Jesus says his reign is not of this world. From Acts to Revelation, Jesus’s followers never play the victim card but are resilient aliens in a pluralist society.
3. Yahweh lifted his presence from Jerusalem not merely as an act of judgment against the Israelites but in order to travel with them into exile. Ezekiel records at 10.4 how Yahweh’s glorious presence had filled the Israelites’ worship campus in Jerusalem. But then in 11.23, Ezekiel calls attention to the fact that Yahweh has left the city. The incredible good news however is in 11.16: Yahweh will go with his sinful people into their exile! Like Father, like Son: Jesus left Paradise to become Immanuel.
4. Exile is a call to go on mission. Yahweh issued the imperative to his exiles in Babylon: “Seek the shalom of the city.” The exiles were coerced immigrants in a city not of their choosing. They were living amongst captors who did not merit being blessed. Why should Israel extend shalom to the pagan city? “For in its shalom you will find your shalom.” (Jeremiah 29:7) Jesus would teach us to love our enemies, and to be salt and light — which assumes a people who need our love, salt, and light.
5. Exile = imposed sabbath. Rather than allow his people to continue down the path of exiling themselves further and further from one another and from himself, God gives them the opportunity to hit the re-set button through a 70-year exile. Why 70? Israel had not observed a sabbath year for 490 years, and so as 2 Chronicles 36:21 records, the people and the land had to catch up on 70 sabbath years. As the sabbath day is a mini-exile from the busyness of life every seven days, the sabbath year is the gift of time for people to recalibrate their lives every seven years. By the way, the next sabbath year starts September 7, 2021.
6. Sabbath = time to be reformed into God’s likeness. In exile, if Israel can recognize that it is a skeleton of dried bones without hope, then Yahweh can fill his people with his Spirit. (Ezekiel 37:11–14) If Israel can see that it is a house divided, Yahweh can unify his people, cleanse them of all their sin, and send them the Davidic Prince who will unanimously be their Messianic King. (Ezekiel 37:22–24) Likewise, when the prodigal son, self-exiled from home, realizes that he is lost, then the father can say, “My son is alive again!”
7. Restoration from exile ≠ going back to yesterday. With more pathos than the Beatles, Lamentations 4 longs for yesterday. In chapter 5, the lamenter believes in Yahweh as the one who can restore Israel to life-as-they-knew-it. But time and again, God shows that his way of restoration is not to take people back to their state of nakedness in Eden, but to outwit us by his remarkable recreation (see, for example, 2 Peter 3:12–13).
The Rev. Harry K. Zeiders is the Rector at Resurrection Church in Emporia, VA.