Keeping The Faith in Babylon About | Our Format | What Our Readers Write About | Order About Lectionary-based Sermon and Study Resources For Clergy and Laity “In the thirteenth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I was among the exiles by the river Chebar, the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God.” - Ezekiel 1.1 Keeping the Faith in Babylon is an attempt to speak to those in need of living humanly in the midst of the powers of death. “Living humanly” was a phrased coined by William Stringfellow, the distinguished lawyer and theologian, who spent some time in Europe representing the World Council of Churches shortly after the end of the Second World War. There he became acquainted with many of those who had been deeply involved in the Resistance to the Nazi tyranny. You had a choice during the time of the Nazis in Germany. You could be silent about the evil that surrounded you. You could acquiesce to the brutality and even collaborate with ’the authorities‘ in order to secure your ’safety‘ and ’security‘. But the cost of such a choice was moral insanity and spiritual suicide; for one cannot tolerate inhumanity without becoming inhuman oneself. Those who resisted did so because it was the only way to live humanly in the midst of death. The biblical paradigm for such an experience is, of course, the exile. In the year 586 B.C. the Babylonians entered the holy city of Jerusalem and destroyed it. They then deported the Jewish population to their own capital where they remained for forty-seven years. As Walter Brueggemann reminds us, the exile was not primarily geographical, but “social, moral, and cultural.” It was the experience of attempting to keep the faith in a context where the most treasured and trusted symbols of faith had been mocked, trivialized and dismissed. Significantly, it was identical to the experience of Jesus on the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.” - Matthew 27.46 The challenge for the Jews in exile, as it was for Jesus, and for those who found themselves living in Nazi Germany was how to remain authentically oneself in a world in which it was dangerous to be so. We are living in such a time - when it is extremely difficult and sometimes dangerous for many of us to live the faith both in and out of the church. Some of us still find ourselves in pews or pulpits on Sunday morning attempting to witness to “the way of Jesus” in a society and culture that has, for the most part, shunted us to one side. We are "resident aliens", sojourners in a strange land. Some of us find ourselves experiencing exile within the church itself, often struggling to renew an institution that has lost its way and that seems bent on self-extinction. Some of us have been forced to leave ‘the church’ for voluntary exile, too heartbroken and heartsick to remain associated with the grotesque reality that too often masquerades as ‘church’. From this perspective, “exile” has several levels of meaning; and the exiles to whom this resource is addressed are those who find themselves faced with different experiences of abandonment. “Exile”, in other words, describes that common sense of abandonment and loneliness that is a result of having lost our homeland or of having realized that our true homeland lies elsewhere. What we also share in common is an abiding commitment to Jesus Christ and a wistful longing for God's Day, when no one will be on the outside ever again and when everyone will be "home". In the meantime, we are now a remnant people, scattered here and there, for the most part unable to meet together or even to speak to one another regularly and yet somehow feeling the need to support and encourage one another in our attempts to be faithful and to live humanly. We are “among the exiles” by the rivers of Babylon When “the call” first came to continue to “preach” to the exiles from former parishioners and fellow clergy, I did not know how or whether I should respond. When the call persisted, I realized that people were asking for some sort of “lifeline” or “guidepost” that would assist them in hanging on to that which they still cherished but had difficulty finding in a strange new circumstance. So, I began, haltingly, to do what I had always been called to do - to speak the truth in the sense of being as true as I could to my own experience in the light of the Gospel. I think it is the only thing any preacher and any Christian for that matter is called to do; and I was doing it at least as much for my own good as I hoped it would be for others. Although I presumed that the people I was writing to shared the faith that I had experienced, I always tried not to presume too much. As Frederick Buechner says, “Even at our most believing, I think, we have our serious reservations just as even at our most unbelieving we tend to cast a wistful glance over our shoulders.” What came of it was the continuing effort of a pastor in exile to listen to scripture and speak the truth of my own life and ministry as best I could. Since that inauspicious beginning, those to whom I began to "preach" began to tell others who have told others still. Now, this message to “the exiles” is being read from this tiny outpost in Canada to Brisbane, Australia. Our readership encompasses Christians, both lay and clergy, from every denomination and theological perspective. If such an effort succeeds in some small way to awaken the humanity of others and to strengthen the faith that is ours, I will be both exceedingly grateful and as surprised as anyone. Barry J. Robinson January, 2001, Among the exiles by the rivers of Babylon |