We love our city. When we moved to Charlottesville, Virginia, we truly desired to be here, to live here, for our story to intertwine with our city’s story. We felt a new call: For our welfare to be connected with the welfare of our neighborhood. One night, I even found myself watching the city’s public access channel, intrigued by a city council meeting debate over a sidewalk controversy. Oddly, I found that I actually cared.

During part of its difficult history, Israel found itself in a new city it had not chosen. The Babylonians had forced Israel to pack up and move into exile. Understandably, Israel’s temptation was to resist. This was not their home, not their people, not their land.

The prophet Jeremiah, however, penned a letter his distraught people, offering some unusual instructions. Jeremiah encouraged them to be fully present in this new place. “Build homes, and plan to stay. Plant gardens, and eat the food they produce. Marry and have children” (29:5-6). Rather than spending their days looking for escape, Jeremiah told the people to do the most basic human things: nurture their families, tend their land, build a life there, in Babylon. Instead of resenting their captive city, they were to seek its well-being. For as they prayed and worked for Babylon’s good, they would find their own. “[Babylon’s] welfare,” Jeremiah said, “will determine your welfare” (v.7).

The incarnation of Jesus calls us to give ourselves to particular people and places, to live as though we share the same hopes and struggles as our neighbors (because we do). One writer put it this way: “If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. . . . But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”