Many preachers have heard the warning: No one comes to church on Sunday wondering what happened to the Jebusites.
That's a reminder that when we preach, our job isn't just to give a history lesson. Our people don't need lectures, but wisdom and inspiration that help them make sense of their lives right now. God's word doesn't live in the past. It also speaks to our present.
I think about that opening quote sometimes when we talk about exile. Most of the people I have pastored don't know what it's like to be carried off to another land; I don't. Exile sounds like an abstract idea. At least, we think it does.
Psalm 137 shows us we might understand exile more than we realize. Unless you've been torn from your homeland, stripped of everything familiar in life, even separated from your family, you haven't experienced the kind of exile the psalmist writes about. But when he says, "By the rivers of Babylon—there we sat down, and there we wept when we remembered Zion," you can hear their sorrow. The people are in a faraway place, and all they can do is remember and weep.
The Israelites didn't just lose a city. They lost their identity and their belonging. They lost their sense of who they were and, perhaps, where God was. 
Maybe we haven't been taken from our homes, but we do know what it's like to feel far from God, far from peace and even far from ourselves. That can be what exile looks like today.
Maybe it's time to ask ourselves, "Where have I been living in exile? What peace have I lost? What part of my life feels far from God?"
The good news is that God brings us back home. Brings us back to faith, back to peace and back to purpose. So, today, look for one way you can move closer to "home."
Stay blessed...john | 
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