Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“But 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.”
NL Daily Devotion for Sunday, July 6, 2025
by Rev. Dr. Miles Hopgood, Clergy Stuff
Main Idea: Simple, daily living is a revolutionary act of resistance and a testament to faith in God. So long as we are honest about what is broken, our hope becomes our witness.
After the many challenging passages of the past three weeks, you may have looked forward to this, his “Letter to the Exiles,” as a more direct source of consolation. Consider, however, the ways in which this text might at first be inadequate to our present moment. For many in our country today, the “exile” we are experiencing is not a mere captivity but a form of extermination.
As I write this commentary, our government is ramping up its efforts to deport people who they suspect of being illegal immigrants.[1] The overturn of Roe v. Wade has opened the floodgates for a torrent of legislation at both the state and federal levels which attack the already besieged healthcare access for women. The threat of overturning Obergefell v. Hodges looms, jeopardizing the ability for many to marry those whom they love. Wildfires, floods, and other natural disasters caused by the human-driven climate crisis have devastated one of our largest urban areas at a time when insurers are jacking-up premiums and outright refusing to cover entire states. In the face of all this, how are we to find hope in Jeremiah’s admonition to marry one another, welcome children, and build houses, and plant gardens?
Perhaps we will find our encouragement in the addendum to seek the welfare of the city. What were once words of consolation could just as easily be taken as a charge to return this nation and earth to what God created it to be—a harmonious and abundant home for all creatures and people. Jeremiah’s advice on how to live in exile seems so impossible it is reasonable to conclude that we are now in the latter half of this story, the time when the people are being called home. Exile can be borne so long as the image Jeremiah paints can be lived by all. Once even one of our neighbors finds themselves excluded from this vision, it is a time to lift our heads and hear that great promise from God—to bring us back to the place from which we were sent—and set to the work of making where we live a home for all.
As you muse over all the above and weigh the cost of preaching this message to your people, remember that there is one thing that is timeless about Jeremiah’s letter: the hope that is found in daily life. We need not be extraordinary heroes or knights of virtue to attain the hope our God has to offer us and share it with others. Wherever we build relationships of kinship with other, embrace the children and other forgotten people of the world, and form a common lot with those who feel all hope is lost, there in our midst will he hear God repeat the promise of “plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.” With God, our future is always hopeful, and in the midst of God’s people, that hope need never feel far off.
[1]https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2025/01/26/ice-arrests-raids-trump-quota/
