“Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce…. 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.” Jer. 29.4, 7.
So Jeremiah wrote to his people, recently exiled to Babylon in around 597 B C and encouraged them to accept their situation as unwilling foreigners in a strange land, to make the best of it and to prosper despite their difficulties. This wasn’t just acceptance of a judgment from God, rather it was an exercise in faith that if they journeyed in faith then they would eventually return to their promised land.
To be a foreigner meant to be an outsider, to be beyond the care and protection of the dominant community. Few people want to be ‘foreigners’. As a sojourner in Guernsey for ten years I still felt like a foreigner, someone ‘not from round here’; it wasn’t that the people were unfriendly, they were the kindest, most generous of people that one could wish to meet. It wasn’t their fault. One just couldn’t help but feel a stranger in a foreign land, even a land sharing the same language, education system and monarch.
That experience made me realise that no one leaves their home lightly, no one leaves the support of friends and family without good reason, and in a sense there is always a desire to return, to return to a place where one isn’t different, doesn’t stand out. I once attended a service at the Chinese church in London with my Chinese friend, I was one of only three or four non-Chinese people in a congregation of at least 500. I remarked to my friend how out of place and conspicuous I felt. He replied, ‘I know, that’s how I feel everyday.’
Sometimes it is not until you have walked a mile in another man’s shoes, as the saying goes, that you can understand them. And if we can’t do that we must use our imagination.
William