Ordinary Time 15: Into Exile

In his sermon, Tim said “the royal consciousness is always blind to those for whom the system does not work.” Working under the assumption that the royal consciousness is alive and well in our society today, who is it that you think is most often not seen? To whom is our culture so often blind?

Now consider this on a more personal level. Are there ways in which you or those you love personally have been unseen by the system? What have been the outcomes of that blindness?

Which people for whom our systems do not work are you most often blind to who is it that you do not see?

Tim talked about the story arc from Egypt to exile. His slide said “the story began centuries earlier with the people of God, walking out of Egypt [ended with] the final remnant of her people walking back in… for the Jewish people, this is a wound that has never closed.” Then, he said that as we read this we are “just like a guest in someone else’s grief.”

Many of us have been taught over the years to always see ourselves in the underdogs, the victims, and the oppressed in the Bible’s stories. Tim’s framing here challenges that orientation.

How does it feel to think of yourself this way? Are you more naturally inclined to identify with the bereft people in this story or others like it? How easily can you see the story from the perspective of someone helping Israel to walk back into its ideological capture? Why do you think you’re inclined to approach it that way?

Does reflecting on your orientation toward this type of story and the ongoing grief in the heart of the Jewish people present any opportunities for you to reconsider or challenge some of the ways you might tend to engage with the stories in the Bible? How so or why not?

As he closed his sermon, Tim brought us back to the wisdom Jeremiah shares about this time in Israel’s history. His counsel included encouragement to just keep going in the daily things of life and to be serious about good neighboring. What do you think about this wisdom and advice in the world as you see it today? What does it look like to take neighboring seriously? How do you cultivate it? How do you practice it?