Thought For The Week 19 October 2025

Welcome to our service today. We are drawn together and held by God’s love as we come from diverse backgrounds and experiences, but what we share in common, is that we come to ‘this’ place to worship and hear from God, speaking through word, sacrament and even through each other. May we encounter God in fresh ways as we gather today.

Our reading is from Jeremiah’s letter to the exiles in Babylon (Jer 29). These folk are in deep crisis; taken as captives 100’s of miles from their homeland which lies in ruins. They are traumatised in a strange land. One of their prophets, Hananiah, was telling them this captivity would be short lived- just 2 years and the Babylonians would be overthrown. But Jeremiah had heard from God that this captivity would last 70 years! So, he counselled them to settle in, build houses, plant gardens, have children and seek the prosperity of the city.

This crisis, rather than destroying the Jewish people, led to their creative renewal. They learned new things about God, for example that God can be worshipped anywhere, even in pagan Babylon! They switched from focussing on priests and the  temple to Rabbis teaching from the writings of Moses. And they discovered some Babylonians had faith to believe in the God of Israel.

We often fear crisis. But the lesson for us is to not fear but to allow the crisis to generate new ideas and new ways of doing things. The best thing about any crisis is that it throws us onto God and drives us to seek the God who has plans to prosper and bless us.

Nga mihi nui,

Brent