[Editor's note: Another week with an abundance of Connect Devotionals! Please enjoy both Brian's and Bella's pieces today.]

New Creation, Wrong Place?

Brian and Kathy Emmet

Jeremiah 29:4-7

This is a special week, as we look forward to our church’s fifteenth anniversary celebration!  Rather than being part of our usual sermon series, this week’s Connect Devotional will focus on the “theme verses” for this year’s celebration, Jeremiah 29:4-7.

We’re reading an ancient letter, from the prophet Jeremiah in Israel to the community of Jews currently living in exile in the imperial capital of Babylon. Through prophets like Jeremiah, God had been warning Israel for centuries that her covenant-breaking idolatry would eventually lead to the ultimate covenant curse: exile.

Jeremiah writes to the exiles not long after the Babylonians had defeated Israel’s army, conquered their territory, deposed their king and razed God’s Temple in Jerusalem.  They had also taken many of Israel’s “elite” into captivity in Babylon.  By eliminating local leadership in this way, the empire sought to quash rebellions in conquered lands.

So these exiles find themselves a miniscule, marginalized minority in a very alien environment.  Not only have they been ripped away from all that they have known and loved, they now find themselves immersed in a language they don’t understand, a culture that is in many ways hostile to the Lord, and a social environment that doesn’t even view them as a threat worthy of persecuting or enslaving.  

These were folks who had been “top dogs” back home.  They had been leaders, people of status, decision-makers, influencers, and movers and shakers.  Now they’re absolute nobodies.

People in such conditions face limited options.  They could give into deep depression and despair and decide to die off.  They could try to “ghetto-ize” themselves by keeping their heads down, have as little engagement with Babylon as possible, and try to survive by clinging to one another in a desperate attempt to maintain their unique identity and culture.  They could form some kind of guerilla resistance movement and maybe at least “go out in a blaze of glory.”

Another option: listen to God.  

What God says is: Genesis 1.  Settle in and settle down; be fruitful, multiply, plant gardens, have children.  New creation!

But new creation … in the wrong place?  Seek the peace and prosperity of Babylon, pray for the well-being of Babylon?  Babylon, who conquered us!  Babylon, who destroyed our country and God’s Temple!  Babylon, which cares not a thing for God, or for God’s Word or God’s ways!  Babylon, where all kinds of pagan gods are worshipped!

Why?  “Because if Babylon prospers, you (exiles) also will prosper” (verse 7).  Can God’s new creation embrace people we might tend to exclude?

Chatham County is hardly ancient Babylon … or might it be more similar than we think?  In any event, God’s ancient word to them is a contemporary word for us: do you desire flourishing, health, wholeness and peace for your children, your family, for our church?  Then pray for the flourishing, health, wholeness and peace of Chatham County – and seek it.  Seek is active, involves rolling up our sleeves, getting involved, learning more about our community and its needs, becoming small parts of God’s Big Answers for a twenty-first world that is every bit as spiritually sick as ancient Babylon.

What areas or aspects of Chatham County are not currently prospering?  What is one new way you could start to seek the prospering of that part of our home?  What is one new way we as a church could start to?

Chatham Community Church… Our Beehive

Bella Segnere

Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper. (Jeremiah 29:7 NIV)

The beehive and its surrounding environment is a very busy place for bees. The hive is their home, it is where they multiply, it is where they eat most of their food, and it is where they “work.” Through all of this, the beehive also is a great display of well-being. The bees are buzzing with happiness and fulfillment because they create their own food, home, and safe community, as well as benefiting the surrounding environment. 

Could this be us? I mean, no, we cannot literally become bees, but I think that there’s a lot we could learn from them if we also take into consideration this week’s passage. The Jewish exiles were “transplanted” into Babylon, and had to, like bees, learn a new way of living in their new environment. 

As important as the beehive is to bees, the surrounding environment plays a very significant role in a bee colony. If it is not healthy, the bees are also not healthy, and they will not be able to benefit the environment. Jeremiah is saying similar things in this verse. If we can’t first help in finding the shalom of our communities, we personally cannot have shalom. 

Peace and prosperity. The words “peace” and “prosperity” are definitions of the Hebrew word “shalom,” and so are the words “well-being,” “happiness,” and “completeness.” Jeremiah is encouraging the Jews to seek well-being, happiness, and completeness, not only in themselves, but first and foremost in their new community. 

The Lord tells us through Jeremiah’s words that we need to pray for this “shalom” in our community. When we ask the Lord for help in finding shalom in our communities, we have a greater discernment from Him to know how to love our community better. We can also seek and plant shalom (and be the bees of the CCC beehive) by serving Chatham County through service projects, supporting a small business, or even just telling someone about CCC. 

As we approach CCC’s Anniversary Celebration, reflect on how you are contributing to Chatham County on behalf of CCC. Are you praying for its well-being, seeking the best for Chatham County through volunteer work, or planting the seed of visiting the church in someone’s heart (just to list a few)? However you choose to contribute, remember this: Chatham Community Church is our beehive.