Pray to the Lord on its Behalf

At this moment (along with many other moments) one of my neighbor kiddos is swinging in her backyard. She spends hours swinging – up and down, again and again. And again.

It has to be peaceful for her, which is ironic because it is the squeakiest, most annoying-sounding swing in the entire universe! It’s enough to drive a neighbor into insanity. Don’t believe me? Play this soundtrack in your head: squeak, squeak, squeak, eighty-five thousand more times! Perhaps tonight I can sneak over with some WD-40, like a thief in the night to steal the squeak.

And yet, the squeaking swing and the person on it are part of my neighborhood and part of my community. They both belong, despite the irritating squeak. My neighbor loves to swing and I love my neighbor (so do you if you do what Jesus says) and so all manner of things shall be well.

Neighborhoods and communities include squeaky sounds and squeaky voices. Bring people together, whether there are two or two hundred or two million and it quickly becomes a challenge to be next-door neighbors who belong to the same community.

We might forget that we belong to the same community. We might stick with our own tribe of people, live life through a Facebook group, or imagine that the community and the world were better years ago.

Associating only with people who are like us, communicating heavily through a screen, or betting on nostalgia are guaranteed ways to hinder community-building.

The people of God who had been exiled to Babylon were not interested in their new community. (Jeremiah 29) When they preferred to stick with their own people and recall their days back at home in Jerusalem, God gave this instruction:

"But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare." (Jeremiah 29:7)

God breaks the news that this is their community, even with its squeaky swings and voices.

When we pray to the Lord on the community’s behalf and work toward the well-being of the community, we work toward our own well-being.

This can only mean that whenever we neglect to work toward the well-being of the community, we neglect our own well-being. When your neighborhood suffers, so do you. When the community is not well, nor are you, so connected are neighbors in a neighborhood even if we do not know/speak/or appear to care for one another.

Daily, the Spirit issues invitations for you to be a conductor of well-being in your neighborhood.

• Meet a next-door neighbor you haven’t yet met. Chocolate chip cookies are an excellent ice breaker.
• Go somewhere in your community you’ve avoided because it might feel uncomfortable. Talk to someone who isn’t like you to see your community from a different angle.
• And that Facebook group – Lord help us all. What might you do to work toward community well-being in the toxic Facebook groups? I tend to avoid it, but fortunately not all of you do. Some of you with great courage speak truth into lies.

Pray to the Lord on its behalf, God instructed God’s people. May our prayers lead us to actions that bring healing, presence that brings peace, and squeaky, persisting sounds of mercy. Again. And again.

Photo by Kaleb Kendall on Unsplash