Exile Stories
June 28, 2015 | Patrick Preheim and Dave Weiler Thiesen
Patrick
Of all the prophetic books in our canon none so fully attends to the Jewish exiles in Babylon as Ezekiel. Lest we have forgotten our Jewish history let me give a quick summery. Between 597 and 581 around 4600 persons were deported from Jerusalem to Babylon with the Temple being razed and the city fortifications demolished (Katheryn Pfisterere Darr, “The Book of Ezekiel” in New Interpreters Bible Commentary (vl 6), p. 1079). These exiles to Babylon were the original audience for Ezekiel’s prophecies, but the succeeding generations of Babylonian Jews also heard regular readings from Ezekiel. So this morning we will reflect on stories of exile.
Some present this morning, like me, are recently arrived in Canada or Saskatoon and have very clear memories of the old country or city or farm. Some are second or third generation exiles. Others of us have read or heard stories of the places from where we have come. Most of us, though, have some image of the old country. So we will begin with a little exercise.
Please raise your hand if you have some memory or heard stories about the place from which you or your people immigrated. [assess numbers] You can lower your hands. Now let us imagine that the opportunity has arisen for your potential return to that ancestral place. The opportunity for repatriation to the home quarter near Rabbit Lake, that home town in Manitoba or Ontario, that acreage in Ukraine, that quaint hovel in the Scottish Highlands—raise your hand if you would take that offer. [assess numbers]. A goodly number of us don’t really want a return to the old world, do we? Maybe neither did the 2nd and 3rd generation of Jewish exiles in Babylon. And I can understand why:
I can imagine that much of the exilic community had grown to like the amenities of life in an international capital: Babylonian lattes, fine schools for their work on a Talmud, greater variety at the market, the hanging gardens for an outing with the kids, etc..,.. Who leaves Ottawa for Laird, Saskatchewan? Who leaves Babylon for the back water Province of Judea with its broken infrastructure and defenceless cities? I have meaningful work in Saskatoon. I have friends here. My home and garden give me joy. I am married to a Canadian, and we know what Ezra and Nehemiah say about those foreign women (Ez 10.10). Would I really sacrifice all this to rebuild the farm and community where I was raised? Possibly, but I certainly would need to feel a sense of mission to do so. Here, then, is the power of Ezekiel’s vision of the restored temple.
The renewing waters flowing out of the newly built temple will be for the salvation of the world. The Dead Sea will become a prime fishing hole. The Great Sea will be made into a potable water supply. A land of perpetual drought will have ample fresh water. Fruit will be in abundance. Trees will provide healing. All that needs to happen is for the exiles to return home and build that temple. It was a grand vision. Powerful. Compelling. A new temple was built on Mt. Zion in Jerusalem and healing has flowed from it; just not in the way Ezekiel or the others expected. And it is like that, isn’t it?
Sometimes the grand-visions we have, God given visions in some cases, do not unfold smoothly. Sometimes we leave or return home with expectations that are left unfulfilled. Yes, God comes to be found in these new circumstances. Often, though, in ways we could not have imagined. Sometimes we look hard for the presence of God and find ourselves unable to tap into those healing waters and trees. It is time for an exile stories.
Dave Weiler-Thiessen (Saskatoon—St. Louis—Saskatoon)
Patrick has asked me to speak today on being an exile and then returning home. Specially Patrick asked that I speak about my most recent move home, from St. Louis, Missouri, in 2002.
Prior to St. Louis, Lori and I were living in Toronto. We had been living there for less than a year, when I went on a job search. I ended up taking a position in St Louis. As we had been married for less than 2 years, and had already moved twice within that time period, Lori stipulated that we must remain a minimum of 2 years, and could stay for a maximum of 5 years before we returned to Canada. We stayed in St. Louis for nearly 7 years, before returning to Saskatoon.
While I have moved away from home and then back again on many occasions, I have never considered the experiences to be those of one considered an exile. Rather I have seen then as segments along my life’s journey. My journey includes moving around; while other people, like my father, live in the same house for 95% of their lives.
At the time that Lori and I left for St. Louis, we were committed to coming home;but where would home be? As we had left from Toronto, and I had spent time during my university years living in Toronto prior to marriage, it would have been a top contender for places to choose when coming back to Canada. In the end we choose to come back to Saskatoon. My parents were starting to show their age more, and we felt it would be best if we could be nearer to them.
In coming back to Saskatoon, I knew that the city would be physically familiar, as I had spent my growing up years on a farm in the Dundurn area. However, I also knew that from a social network perspective, we would be starting over again. Many of the people that we had been close to before moving to Toronto had also moved on from Saskatoon to life out their lives in other provinces. When we left Saskatoon, I was a member of the now defunct Peace Mennonite Church. In returning to Saskatoon, we knew that we would need to find a new church community. Even if Peace were to be still in operation upon our return, we may not have returned there, as our family had grown in our absence, and we would have wanted to find a community that met the needs of our family.
From our time in St. Louis, the biggest blessing has been the arrival of our children, Matthias and Natalia. Lori and I experienced some challenges with regards to natural pregnancy, and it was during our time in St. Louis that we had access to good health insurance and practitioners of advanced human reproductive technology. If it were not for our time in St. Louis, the makeup of our family would be very different than you see it today.
In starting a family while in St. Louis, we knew there would be decisions to make when the children became school age. Where we lived in St. Louis was a residential area near the downtown core. At the end of our block was a housing project, and I walked along two sides of that project each day, going to/from work. St. Louis, as probably happened in other US cities, experienced a major urban flight in the 50’s and 60’s. The impact of that movement of wealth and people from the core to the suburbs is still very evident today. If we were to have sent our children to the local public school, they would have been in classrooms filled with children from the many projects in our area. Families with means sent their children to charter, magnet or parochial schools, or relocate to an area of the city with a reputable school district.
Thus the education of our children became another key factor in our decision to move back to Canada, and do it when we did. Having our children educated within the Canadian system, and living in Canada where they can experience the Canadian world view is very important to us. We left St. Louis when Matthias was four, and Natalia one.
As I said earlier, I do not see myself as having been an exile. When I think of exile, I think more of people, like my grandparents who felt they needed to leave Russia due to the political and social upheaval that was present in the 1920’s. For them, they left, and never went back, even to visit. What happened to them in that time and place remained with them, as they provided little insight to their children and grandchildren about what life was like in Russia. Contrasting their journey with mine, I have never thought that I could not return home.
I do not have any misgivings about where my journey has taken me. At each step along the way, there have been good times, and some challenges. We have found good church families to be apart of along the way. While I do at times think about the goods times and places of the past, I do not dwell on them or pine for their return. Rather I try to stay focused on living in the present, and looking forward to where my journey will take me in the future.
Patrick
The Risen Christ, in the New Testament, comes to be identified with a New Temple (Matt 26.61 and synoptic parallels; John 2.19). John, in his Revelation, says that in the New Jerusalem “I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb” (Rev 21.22). John then goes on to describe waters of life flowing from God and Lamb as we have in Ezekiel 47. And we hear of fruit being produced in every month—presumably for food—similar to Ezekiel 47. And we hear that the leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations just as we have in Ezekiel 47. A primary difference between the Ezekiel and New Testament temple visions is that the Jesus temple is not bound to a geographic location. Renewing waters, healing leaves, fruit for food are found in Jesus wherever Jesus is found. And, guess what, Jesus is everywhere! The temple, in fact, has been built. It is among us, now. It was in that last place we lived. It goes before us. Jesus, the temple, descends on us like the New Jerusalem descending out of the sky in the Revelation to John. It offers sustenance and healing and reconciliation—to us and the world. This temple is right in front of our faces. The Temple is within us. Why would we hesitate crossing that threshold weekly, daily, hourly? Why not drink deeply from that restorative water? The biggest impediment for us, I think, is recognizing God’s Temple in our lives. So I offer the abridged story of Catherine of Siena. Catherine came to mind for me because she authored a mighty spiritual treatise entitled The Interior Castle. A castle is not the same as a Temple, but in Catherine’s world it functioned in a similar way.
St. Catherine of Siena was one of the greatest saints of a tumultuous era. The Black Death wreaked its devastation, mercenary armies roamed the countryside, and the Pope had moved from Rome to Avignon. Related to today’s topic of exiles in Babylon, this papal absence from Rome is sometimes referred to as the "Babylonian Captivity of the Papacy". As a young girl she wanted to serve God in a religious order. Her family wanted her to make an advantageous marriage. Catherine cut off her beautiful golden hair to make her intentions clear. Her family retaliated by treating her like a servant since seemed so keen to serve. “But with Christ’s help she constructed within herself “a secret cell” to which she happily retreated from her daily drudgery. This secret cell allowed a type of divine communion which gave her strength to meet the demands of the day without bitterness (Robert Ellsberg, All Saints: Daily Refelctions on Saints, Prophets, and Wtinesses For Our Time, pp. 188-189). The secret cell of her youth and young adult years became the Interior Castle as she matured. She explores the seven rooms of the temple with different principles of prayer. Some of these include the following:
God and Christ "shall be revealed in us." And the distinction here is quite important. Christ is revealed “in us” not “to us”. The castle / temple is discovered as we look within.
Secondly, she was greatly surprised at the force of sin in our lives. Sin in our lives has the capacity to eclipse awareness of God’s presence, she noted, preventing the soul from partaking of that powerful light. We must be honest about hurt we cause ourselves, others, and God.
Thirdly, meeting the Christ within generates an amazing humility. Catherine learnt that all the beauty of the soul and all good we strive toward are enlivened and strengthened by the Power of God at our centre. As we draw nearer to God we take on that holy light and love. It radiates within us to others. We have, she said, but a small share in our good works. She understood God as the principal author of all good she did (http://sacred-texts.com/chr/tic/tic03.htm#page_9). And Catherine did a lot of good in this world.
She was a local peace-maker mediating between feuding families of Siena. She mediated the end to an armed conflict between the city of Florence and the Papacy. God, through her, helped persuade the return of the Pope to Rome from Avignon. Amazing things came from this embrace of the internal temple.
We are “aliens and exiles” 1st Peter tells us (2.11); all of us. In Jesus God comes to us in our exile as a foretaste of the life to come. He has the power to transform the drudgery of our labour into something which gives meaning. Streams of living water go before us as we relocate on account of work, studies, family, or some other lofty vision. The work we do may change. The country or community in which we live may change. There always is, though a temple near by to restore us. That temple is Jesus, and that is good news for all we exiles and aliens. Amen.
Patrick Preheim, co-pastor Nutana Park Mennonite Church
