The story of the people of God is a long and complicated one. Within this complicated story one of the great themes that emerges over and over again is that of exile and return. This is in fact the overarching framework of the entire Bible. Thinking back to the beginning of our story we remember that creation was the perfect home for Adam and Eve. Their unwillingness to listen to God had them "exiled" from paradise, thus causing all of creation to groan and long for the perfection of the original creation. The Promise given to Abraham, that through his family the world would be blessed, is the promise that God would work to bring all of creation (humanity and the physical creation) back to the condition in which God originally created it.
This theme of exile and return once again comes into focus when the people of Israel traveled down into Egypt and became captives. Through Moses the people were freed and after a forty year journey traveled home to the land "flowing with milk and honey." They came home to the land promised to Abraham.
The next exile episode is the one we read about last week in which the Judah was destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 B.C. E. (one of the great Middle Eastern empires) and the Jewish leadership was sent into exile in Babylon, which is modern day Iraq. The people of God struggled with this exile as much or more than with any of those that had preceded it. They struggled because they had believed that because they possessed the Temple (what they thought was the very throne of God) that God would not allow them to be destroyed. Fortunately the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel let the people know 1) that the nation fell because of its self-centered vanity and not because the gods of Babylon were greater than the God of Israel and 2) the fall was not the end. God would indeed, one day bring God's people back home.
This return began in 538 B.C.E. when the Persians under Cyrus obliterated the Babylonian Empire and instituted a new way of dealing with subject peoples. The Persians allowed each nation to worship and live as they pleased as long as they paid their taxes. In fact Cyrus not only allowed the Jews to return home but sent money to help them rebuild Jerusalem and its Temple. For this reason the scriptures refer to Cyrus as "messiah", the only time that such a term is used for a non-Jew. The story of this return and rebuilding can be found in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah.
The story of exile and return is a reminder to us that the way of following God is not always a straight and easy path. The church, as with Israel, lives in a real world with real issues and real pressures to take paths that do not always conform to the way of Jesus (see our Revelation 2:12-17 as an example). The challenge before us as we seek our particular vision is to trust that even when we do get off track God in Christ is always ready to redirect us (to bring us home from exile). This means that we do not have to wait for the perfect vision for our church family. We can, as Martin Luther put it, "sin boldly", meaning we can do our best to serve God trusting that in God's grace even when we are not perfect God will still use us. The challenge is to find a vision, get going and trust the Spirit will use us to do great things. So as we progress in our vision casting process, realize this process will be ongoing as we travel together in the way of Jesus.
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