Good is good

This week we will be looking at the words of God through the prophet Jeremiah.  In short, the people of God, now exiled in the foreign land of Babylon, are asked to "settle in" to the place they now find themselves.  Their situations are not to be resolved anytime soon, most likely not even within their own lifetimes.  They are strangers living in a strange land.  In this passage, they are asked to do something that might seem strange to some.  They are asked to pray for the well being of the cities they now find themselves in. They are not asked to war against it, to resist it, even to look to impose their own beliefs.  They are asked to pray with the wise counsel that good for the city will spill over into good for them.  Good equals good...what a concept.  What if the motivation that carried the love of Christ forward was the knowledge that "good news" in our community may just very well lead to good news for us and more importantly the Good News of Jesus.  Sometimes we miss that for want of deliverance from a land foreign to our faith practices.  It's possible that we will never move forward with the love of Christ until we settle in to the reality of the city that we live in.