With such a future, and such a hope, in their hearts and minds, the people, then, are instructed by Jeremiah to live in a kind of extended “in-between” time, not just sitting around and waiting for something to happen, not rising up and trying to escape or overthrow their captors, and not letting themselves be dragged down into depression and complaining. No, Jeremiah instead speaks poetically about houses, and gardens, and families that go on and on, even in a strange and inhospitable land, surrounded by pagans but flourishing nevertheless. Audrey West says that “the people of God can bloom where they are planted,” and she echoes something we’re hearing a lot these days, after almost ten years of living under the threat of terrorism, and several years of economic “adjustments”: Jeremiah, she says, instructs the people, and us, to “create a new ‘normal’ as they learn to live into this reality, making it their home.” Things may not be great right now, but, she writes, “the news doesn’t have to be good in order for us to live out the good news and…to be blessed ourselves and be a blessing to those around us” (New Proclamation 2010). These words fit the situation of a people living under the thumb of an ancient empire just as they fit our situation today, mired in different kinds of empires, including fear, and materialism, and militarism, and consumerism, to mention only a few.
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