After exile, the ancient Israelites were uprooted and can no longer rely merely on their location as a marker of God’s blessing.

Their world, their normal, has been shaken.

We’ve made plans, canceled them, restarted, adjusted for a new variant, and canceled all again. We are understandably feeling a bit shaken up, uprooted. We are realizing our trust in systems and institutions was unreliable.

We will encounter years of turmoil in this world and seasons of spiritual dryness, but for the people of God, these difficult seasons do not completely uproot us.

Reflection Questions:

What causes you to feel shaken up or uprooted?

When that happens, what practices help ground you in God’s presence?

The blessing is God’s sustaining presence, not necessarily worldly success.

The blessing is peace for our anxiousness and fruitfulness in lieu of fear.

God is faithful to God’s promises, because not only does God bring the Israelites home from exile, God then enters our world and takes on flesh and makes God’s home among us.

Jesus isn’t bringing a new teaching - this is the wisdom of Jeremiah, embodied in Jesus himself. The invitation to abide in Christ is the invitation for us to live like a tree planted by the water.

Pandemic faith can also become an opportunity to grow our roots deeper and wider, to experience the love and presence of God in new ways.

“It’s good to know you’re here” - a prayer by Sarah Bessey

Almighty One,
I used to think I had to approach
You/Thou
With formal language or
Unknown tongues or
Recited acronyms, bless it.
Now it’s nice to simply be us,
Together,
Isn’t it?

God of our rapid tests and nose swabs,
God in our bewilderment and grief,
God in our wordless prayers and our persistent fears,
God in our exhaustion and anger,
It’s just so good to know you’re here.

(Your presence these days
feels like vast patience and deep power,
poetry and prairie sunsets.)

God of our laughter and science,
God in our joy and comfort,
God in our patience and our kindness,
God in our rising up and renewal,
It’s just good to know you’re here.

I’ll bring everything I am to you,
None of it is a surprise, I know.
I don’t need to pretend to be less
Angry, disappointed, scared, sad,
Joyful, hopeful, awake, alive.

Emmanuel, God with us,
It’s your very with-us-ness
That gives us permission to pray
As fully human,
Fully beloved,
Fully known.
You’re here, and always, then, now, forever,
It’s just good to remember this again.

It’s just good to know you’re here,
Still, always,
In conversations that never really begin or end,
Wending their way through every aspect of
our Lives and your Love,

God in our cluttered homes and holy hospitals,
God in the sacred places we’ve forgotten,
God in the ordinary cathedrals of the spruces,
God in the grey sky and grocery list,
It’s just good to know you’re here
With us, still, always.

Amen.