BibleProject - The Exile and the Way Home

Episode Date: March 12, 2018

This is our last episode in our Exile series. In part 1 (0-9:50), Tim and Jon summarize the conversation. Tim shares an insightful quote from C.S Lewis found in the Weight of Glory. Lewis believed that un-fillable human longings are a clue that there is another future reality that will one day be realized. In part 2 (9:50-14:50), the guys discuss the differences between “home” and “Home.” “Home” is the ultimate paradise of humanity. Man is at “Home” in all aspects. Tim says that ancient Israel called on the nostalgia of their past kings of Solomon and David to give vocabulary for what a future kingdom ruled by God will look like. In part 3 (14:50-26:10), Tim and Jon discuss how today people are considered exiles in time. Christians should consider themselves exiles of an age. Christians are loyal to the kingdom of God and King Jesus. But they currently live in an age where Christ’s kingship is not always recognized. Tim says the ultimate story of the cross is that God is willing to take the consequences of humanity’s creation of “babylon” upon himself in order to create a world where all can be at “Home.” In part 4 (26:10-end), Tim revisits how the ethic of the wisdom warrior leads a person to a constant state of “radical doubt”. Christians should be grateful for and enjoy their lives. But their ultimate hope is in God re-creating the physical world as a “Home” for all who choose to abide in him. Thank you to all our supporters! We're doing a Q+R on Exile! Do you have a question on the biblical theme of exile? Send it to us! [e-mail] Show Resources: The Weight of Glory: C.S Lewis The Religion of the Landless: Daniel Smith Christopher A Biblical Theology of Exile: Daniel Smith Christopher Show Music: Defender Instrumental: Rosasharn Music I Know The Way Home: Andrew Garlucki The First Day: Tell The Story At Humanities Core is the Need for Grace: Tell The Story Restless: Tell The Story Show Produced By: Dan Gummel, Jon Collins, Matthew Halbert Howen

Hey, this is Cooper at Bible Project. I produce the podcast in Classroom. We've been exploring a theme called the City, and it's a pretty big theme. So we decided to do two separate Q and R episodes about it. We're currently taking questions for the second Q and R and we'd love to hear from you. Just record your question by July 21st

and send it to us at infoatbiboproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds and please transcribe your question when you email it in, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds, and please transcribe your question when you email it. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode.

Hey, this is John at the Bible Project. We've spent the last five weeks on this podcast talking about the biblical theme of exile. The exile of the Judeans to Babylon in 586 BC. It's what all of us woke up thinking about this morning. So this week we're gonna bring it all together, we're gonna finish this conversation. Imagine being away from home for a long time. Maybe you're a soldier and expat

or just some sort of wanderer. And many years have gone by and you think back to the good things that made home what it was. You begin to get this nostalgia for home that grows and grows. Now imagine after all this time, decades have passed and you get to go back home. You arrive and you find, as great as home is, it's not as wonderful as you remembered. The story of exile in the Bible is of God's people coming back to the land,

promised to them, but the way that it's ruled and the way that they live on it is now. This is our home, but it's not being run like our home, it's not being run by the values of God's kingdom. The ancient Israelites were stuck in Babylon homesick for the good old days of King David and King Solomon, and when they got to go back home, they found it was nothing like they had remembered. But they held on to their nostalgia as a taste for something

good yet to come. Like them we're homesick too, we have a nostalgia for things, we haven't even fully experienced. Our desire is...well. A desire for home, because it's a desire for something that has actually never appeared in our experience. There's a memory, something only I can know It's a wildfire, burns everywhere I go But I know the way home I know the way Thanks for joining us today as we finish up our conversation on the exile.

Here we go. You want to try and summarize it all? Whew. Well, let me try it in a way we haven't summarized it. Okay. Okay. You know that feeling that while this is our home, this is our family, these are our friends,

this is my job, this is my existence. It doesn't feel right. Something's missing, something's incomplete. I'm home, but I feel like a stranger in my own existence. I think a lot of people can identify with that what we've been calling the existential angst. What is that?

Why is that? Well, here's how the Bible talks about it. The Bible talks about humanity having a home that wouldn't create that angst, where things are good, where relationships are right, where there's a connection with the divine, with God, where you're not trying to figure out what's good and bad on your own, you actually are doing this in this relationship with a power that's greater than you, and that's wiser than you, and it leads to abundance and peace. That's actually what we're craving, and that's what the Garden of Eden was, and that was

lost. And so the first story of the Bible is really about how we are strangers in our own land. We've been banished from what is truly good, and now we're just kind of aching for it. Sorry, I just, I hate to interrupt you. Yeah, summarizing, but it reminded me of the CS Lewis quote that captures like precisely what you're getting at. This, the existential angst. Okay.

It's in the weight of glory Okay, which is a whole essay that he wrote about how our existential longings are pointers to not projections that were just fantasizing about and projecting up into this guy, but that they're real And he calls it the inconsolable longing. Do you know about this passage? I might be familiar with it. Okay, it's from the way it's going. Is this the way like eating mud pies kind of thing?

No. No, okay. But that is also in the way of glory. Okay. So he calls it a desire for a far off country. That's why I'm thinking of it. A desire for home. So he says, in speaking of this desire

for our own far off country, that we find in ourselves even now I feel a certain shyness. I'm almost committing an indecency trying to name it. I'm trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of us. It's a secret that hurts so much that we take revenge on it by calling it names like nostalgia or romanticism or remembering our adolescence. It's a secret that pierces with such sweetness that when in very intimate conversation the mention of it becomes imminent and we grow awkward and we try to laugh at ourselves.

It's a secret. We cannot hide. A secret we cannot tell that we decide desire to do both. We can't tell about it because it's a desire for something that has actually never appeared in our experience. We can't hide it because our life experiences are constantly suggesting this longing and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of the name. Some call it beauty, our experience of beauty, and act as if that settled the matter. But this is a cheat. If we could go back to those moments in the past, we would find not the thing itself, but only the reminder of it. And what we remembered experiencing would

turn out itself to be only a remembering. Okay, here we go. It gets even better. It's already really good. He says, the books or the music in which we thought our experience of beauty was located, these will betray us if we trust it to them. The beauty was never in them. Rather, it came through them. And what came through them was the longing. These things like beauty, nostalgia, the memory of our past are only images of what we really desire, but if we mistake them for the thing itself, they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers. They are not the thing itself. It's the last line. They are only the scent of a flower. We have not yet found.

The echo of a tune, we have not yet heard and news from a country. We have not yet visited. He opens and closes. It's a far away. With these far off land. So beautiful. Yeah. So yeah, his point. Well, I don't even need to say it. Do I need to say it? No. Like, no, it's the longing. It's the longing.

And his point is don't make that longing in idle to where you are now just trying to seek the things that stirred up that longing. You're now trying to seek those as the end. In a way that's an interesting way to think about Babylon. It's a way of securing and trying to make material and normal the thing, what transcendence. I think Portland's actually pretty good at that. Yeah, actually. Many cities are, they become playgrounds and distractions

for like, yeah, that's true. You think gardening is blissful and in a way it is. And completes some longing in your soul. Let's double down and make everyone's front yard a garden. Yeah, and a chicken farm. And chicken farm.

And that will solve it. And I guess what's used to this thing is, well, no, that feeling you got while gardening, that was an echo of a tune we haven't yet heard. So enjoy it and let it point you towards this thing. But don't mistake it for home. But don't mistake it for home. Your truth.

While while you do it. Yeah, appreciate it. I appreciate it. It's almost like the analog of loyalty and subversion. I appreciate it. But I'm not going to worship it. But I don't mistake it for the meaning of my life. Right.

And so in the same way, we are called to love God and love neighbor. And we might come up with a really great system, or a way of organizing a neighborhood or a country that fosters that. But inevitably, it will have brokenness and selfishness built into it. And the idolatry is to name this particular solution as the divine. It's kind of why they had the Jewish festival Sukkot. It's like hey we love our home but like

let's once a week, once a year, once a year, sorry, four a week, yeah, live outside of it. Yes. Like we don't have a home. Yes. Because it's not mistake this is our real home. Yeah. It's very similar. So getting back to the garden of Eden thing, so the garden of Eden is saying, if we could put a name to the tune we have not heard, if we could put a name to the flower of that, or what does you say, the smell of a scent of a flower we have not yet found. Yeah, the scent of a flower we have not yet found. If that has a name and a picture, the

biblical picture is of Eden, which is a very simple yet, you know, not very concrete picture. I mean, it's... Yeah. It's not a lot there. Yeah. Well, that's just of this amazing garden. It's amazing garden, it's got four rivers. If you believe in a beautiful mind and heart, out of which the universe sprang, that that being wants to be in very close intimate.

It's the place where you can be in complete, which means close intimate. Yeah, to know that you belong in this world, and that you're welcome here. I see. And that you're loved and have a role and a purpose, right? I think that's what it means to believe in the Christian God, to believe all those things. Yeah. Yeah, that's Eden. So what believe in the Christian God, to believe all those things. Yeah, that's Eden.

So what we're talking about is home with capital H. That's right, yes. And what we have is echoes of that that are very tangible. It's so funny, can you be reminded of something you've never experienced? Yeah, you have. That's the whole thing, the playlist is riffing off of there. That's right. And that's the whole thing. The purpose is rifting off of there. That's right. And, and that's the reality is we're like we're constantly being reminded of this state of being that we've never experienced, but somehow we long for. And it's capital H home. Yeah, and we get

glimpses, real glimpses of through life experiences that make us want more of that. And they give us peace. So that's, yeah, that's the image of Genesis. But then you get the story of Israel. Yes. And the story of Israel is a man named Abraham, who was called by God to make a family that lives by such an ethic that they can recreate that reality.

Or at least experience more. Yeah, experience within their family. Within their family. And then take it outside of their family and that the nations can experience it. To find that sweetness. What did he say? The pierced with such sweetness. That's such a good

light. And so Abraham's called to do that. Along with that is this promise that he'll have a place to call home. Because he was a wanderer. He didn't have a homeland. Yes. And so that becomes the promised land, which now the people of Israel who eventually inhabit the descendants of Abraham inhabiting the promised land, they see that as this image of Eden, this abstraction of what Eden represents. Well, more as a reverse, concrete. Oh, sorry. It's a concrete. Yeah, a concrete example of this Eden abstraction.

And it makes sense because that's what God was calling Israel to create, but they're banished from it because they're not creating it, or they're creating Babylon within it. And so their banishment from Israel makes them exiles in a foreign country in the Babylon. And now they're looking at this biblical story of Adam and Eve being banished from the garden.

They're saying, yeah, that's our story being banished from the good. But while the Garden of Eden actually was good, like Israel never actually attained that, but they were called to it, but they never actually attained it. Yes, and they turned to stories from their past. Right, the nostalgia.

Yeah, the nostalgia of the eras of David Solomon. Yeah, because it was the closest experiences they can think echo of the tune. Yeah, yeah. Yes. Because that's all they have. Yes, which is why the hoped for age of the Kingdom of God is described as the reign of not even a new David, because Echial just calls the Messiah and the Kingdom of God.

He calls the Messiah David. Yeah. Just David. Yeah. Let's get him back in charge. Yeah, that's exactly it. And what they don't mean is, let's like, time warp. Right.

Historical David. What they mean is... Let's resurrect his body and put them in a treasure. The ultimate home that David represents in their... Yeah, imagine. In their hope. And in their scriptures, it is what they want. Yeah.

Yeah. David is the scent of the flower they have not seen. Yeah. But it's what they have yeah, that's right But then they come back to the land. So they're now in the land that's supposed to be home, capital H home, the thing itself, and it's not yet. So because of that, there's still the sense of, well, we're still exiles. Yes. We've come back from Babylon, but we're still in next time. And because the sense of we still X-iles, then along with that comes this complimentary sense of, well, this is the land, but this is also Babylon. It's like this other.

Yes. And so that's the point at which X-ile becomes a metaphor for time. Yeah. So now- And a kind of place. A kind of place. So I'm in the right place. Yeah.

I'm in the right land that God promised my forefather Abraham But it's not in the right state and it won't be in the right state until there's the right age with the King And so I'm an exile to this time period waiting for the King of God to come But there's still this hope Ultimately the reason why God promised that to Abraham was to bless the nations. And he was giving Abraham that land for that purpose. And so now jumping forward into the new covenant with Jesus who says, I am what Israel was meant to be, and the kingdom of God has come and is coming with me,

and go to all the world. Go to all the nations and have people be part of this. And so when Paul thinks about Abraham, he doesn't say Abraham's inheritance was the land. He says Abraham's inheritance was the whole world, because that's ultimately was the land. He says Abraham's inheritance was the whole world. Because that's ultimately with the goal. And then you get to Peter who's talking to non-Jewish people who are now being invited into the story, who have come into the story and are following Jesus and the way of this new kingdom and are identifying more with that kingdom than their own homes. And because of that, Peter says, you're an exile.

But they're not an exile place. They're now realizing they're an exile of the age. And their loyalty is ultimately to a new age. So that longing is telling you you are an exile. That's what that longing is telling you you're an exile. That's what that longing is. That longing is telling you, like you don't actually belong to this. And what do we mean by this?

Not this land, not this, not these relationships, but the state in which it's in. Yeah, yep, and this was, yeah, this was such a big theme in Lewis' writings of our life experience, if we look at the longings that it generates in us, but that are impossible to meet. Yeah. Truly impossible to meet. He believes that's an indicator of something greater for which we are made, that simply won't go be satisfied in our experience of the world as we know it. Right. Something has to fundamentally change

for our experience of desire for love and belonging and identity and purpose. Those will always be met only with frustration or only half a film in the world as you know it, which means yeah, not a longing for another place, but another kind of world, which this world is destined to become. I mean, it would be very much like if you lived in a town

that was taken over by another empire, and you're just waiting for the king to come back and say, okay, guys, I'm in charge again. We're gonna make it like it used to be. Yeah, or make it what it's supposed to be. But that's just the nostalgia of what you think you want. That's a good analogy. It's great analogy.

Yeah. You just captured the narrative arc in terms of that longing. Yeah. You could condense it, but that's a good way of actually uniting. No, I think it should be about 20 minutes long. No, I'm joking. Yeah, totally. Yeah. I think there might be about 20 minutes long. Yeah, totally. Yeah. I think there might be something there, but then after that, if there's time, you can talk about,

what does that look like practically? Yeah. And that's the wisdom warrior, that's the loyalty and subversion. But I guess we haven't really answered the question is, why is Jesus's ethic and the kingdom of God? Why is that an answer to your longing? Right? We've never really explained that. Why is that an answer? Well, the answer, what's revealed on the cross is that God is so committed in love and generosity to making our world what it's supposed to be that he takes into

himself the consequences of our creation of Babylon, I suppose. That's what within this kind of way of thinking about it. Because it meets the longing of home, which is the things I described earlier, like to know that I am welcome in the world that I belong and have a purpose and I'm loved. And the Christian story I think is of ways saying that some things might make you feel that way. But if you're honest, you only partially experience that love and welcome and security and belonging. Yeah.

Even though it's a thing we're all looking for. And then those few experiences where we do feel them tend to fade, we're be only temporary, or connected to really unpredictable people who sometimes love us and sometimes don't. Yeah. And so... Yeah, think back to the time where you felt most loved, most secure, most at home, the capital H, and if you really dissect it, you'll realize you were only getting whiffs of what that really is. It was actually compromised in some way. Yes.

That's why for people who grew up in really, really healthy families, but they eventually grow up and discover their parents are really just mortal flawed. And then, right? And actually, even children who grew up in unhealth, who do grow up in unhealthily healthy families, but still, because the way psychology works, you still, I idolize your parents. And the moment your parents are de-throwed is demigods, parents. And the moment your parents are de-throened as demigods, you know, or immortals. All of a sudden the world becomes a little less stable. And for some kids that happens like really young, and it's really challenging. But whatever, like we're resilient creatures, but it's that destabilizing of the world and recognizing like, oh, this isn't the place where my hopes and dreams

are really going to come true. And then you have a question, you can say, my hopes and dreams are just utopian fantasies. Or do they point to something that's more ultimate and more real and true? And the Christian claim is that Jesus is the embodiment of those. It's like God reaching out into Babylon to tell us that those aren't mirror fantasies and

that His ultimate purpose is to create a world where everyone is welcome and where everyone has a place and is loved. What else does the cross and the resurrection of God accept that? I guess one temptation is if I can get you the point to say, it's true there is that longing I have that longing I'm not at home I'll grant you that but why now make myself a part of this guy's Jesus' kingdom like what makes his kingdom the right way to find home versus I could probably come up with a way. Like why not just go at it on my own. Yeah. And I just feel like we're taking that piece for granted

and that's not what this video is about. That's a good question. Yeah. And I think you spoke to it a little bit. Yeah, but I think you can speak to it more. And this gets back to like real classic like gospel kind of stuff. Like the moment I can say, why don't I just adopt this philosophy of life

and accept the world as it comes to me. Instead of trying to make the world into a place that meets my needs, feel like, home, why don't I just accept it as it is? The smell of the rose I've never, we'll never see. It is all I'll get. So I need to learn to enjoy that and be okay with that and not, and let that longing, that bitter sweetness of the longing, just be the end of itself.

Yeah. So you can go that route. I think that's the route that many Eastern religious traditions go, which is to say, deep longings of the human heart for love and life, and the tragedy that death represents to us. Those are illusions. And what we need to do is learn how to make peace with reality as it actually is, which is ultimately one of disappointment, leading to death. And the more I can shed my individual persona that's looking to meet all these needs the more all and the Christian story is Build a home here. Yes, and make a garden. Yeah, and pray for it, but yeah, don't yeah, don't give up your hope for home

That's right. Those longings are real because they point to someone who wants to invite us to be at home in this world and who loves us deeply. It was interesting when you were talking about coming to peace with just that Eastern mentality of coming peace with theirs. Good and there's bad and that's just reality and joy for it is. That's kind of like saying, hey Daniel, just be a Babylonian. Yeah, that's right. These hopes for Eden

and new creation and that was all kind of silly, wasn't it? Yeah, but be a Babylonian in a very like nihilistic way. I'm just kind of like, well, I'm just enjoy this for what it is. I'm not a Babylonian, but this is what I got and I'm a joy it. I'm going to detach myself enough from this and just kind of experience it.

The biblical answer was, make a home there, but don't make it your ultimate home. Yeah, don't be satisfied. So you can make home in the sense of like there is wisdom in accepting suffering and accepting like the bad and realizing that it's a mixed bag in every sweet moment. Also has bitterness and every bit of moment has sweetness. That is life and reality. And in a way, you can plant a garden in that.

But that isn't art through home. I think that's an interesting nuance. So it makes me think of when we were talking about Daniel earlier, the ethic of the wisdom warrior is a practice of radical doubt. Radical doubt. So you can doubt the empire and its claims to define whatever ultimate significance, but you can also doubt pleasure. Yeah. You know, or our experiences of beauty, these hints of meaning and purpose that we get

in a friend or loved one or a good meal or gardening. And it's also doubting those experiences to a certain sense, to say those are good for what they are, but they are not the new creation. They're just a whiff of the flower that I haven't yet smelled. Yes, totally. Yeah, the biblical story. It is. It's a state of paradox.

It is, you know. Of both accepting and being grateful for what is beautiful and good in this world, but also not being satisfied with the world as we know it. You know, it's so cool about that plant a garden image, and then you just used another one, make a meal, is in order to garden or to make a meal, there's a lot of mess, right?

And you've got to kill some things to make a meal, especially, and you've got to really get dirty when you're gardening, and you're dealing with really messy things, and that's the same thing if we're just going to get really abstract and talk about the existential angst or suffering or depression or loneliness. Like those things are real and you can make a meal out of them, right?

You can play a garden in them. You could find good within them. Yeah, those discard pieces become the actual materials out of which. Yeah, and that's kind of the basis of like a good Eastern Theology But then you don't go as far as saying then that's all there is Because then a biblical theology would say and and then actually hope and have allegiance to Something greater while while you're making a meal out of it and making your garden there Yeah, yeah, and marrying your children within it

Yeah, uh, it's a book of Eccles. Yeah, it's a book of Ecclesiastes. It's a book of Ecclesiastes. The book of Ecclesiastes is the radical doubt applied to like this existential longings. Yeah. And then the book of Daniel is the radical doubt applied to living among the empires of this world. I've never thought of a way.

In a political movement. Right, but that's Ecclesiastes Yeah, it is hey enjoy enjoy goodness for what it is Yeah, don't don't mistake it for a life's purpose and meaning. Yeah, well, so you're gonna be really disappointed Yeah, there's a time for everything and so yeah, so mourn and celebrate Under the sun as tougher of the end son than. But then, but fear God. And hope ultimately for what He's going to do. Yeah.

Yeah, man, there's a lot of this video could be. That'll preach. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Yeah, I think this is a very powerful theme in the Bible. It's a way of thinking about the whole story, exile, and being at home, exile and homecoming, how to live in exile, not rejecting this place that you are, but also obscene it realistically for what it is. I think it was the passion of this Bible scholar,

Daniel Smith Christopher. He wrote two really significant works on it because he thought it was Scholar Daniel Smith Christopher, he wrote two really significant works on it because he thought it was a way that the modern Western Church especially really needs to listen to this theme in the Bible because it could help us recover a way of not feeling so comfortable in our culture. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Bile Project podcast. Our show today was produced by Dan Gummel with music by Cody Brotherton at Hear the Story and Andrew Garlucky. We've got a Q&R episode on exile coming up next. So if you have a question about anything that we've been discussing around this biblical theme of exile, send it on to us info at jointhebileproject.com.

You can record the audio of your question, keep it to about 20 seconds or so, and give us your name and where you live. Looking forward to responding to your questions next week. We believe the Bible is an un-unified... We believe the Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus. We are a coward-funded project. Coward-funded house. Coward-funded house. Coward-funded house. We are a crowd-funded project by people like me find free video study notes and more at thebibletproject.com. Perfect.

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