We just heard Brad and Diane share incredible news: $420,328 in First Fruits giving toward Tomorrow First. Take that in for a moment. That number represents more than money—it demonstrates faith in action. You’re investing in future generations you may never meet, trusting that God transforms present resources into lasting blessings. This is what happens when a community catches God’s vision and responds with radical generosity.
Have you ever noticed how the best wisdom often seems backwards at first? The way to keep something is to give it away. That makes no sense to a child clutching Halloween candy, but it reveals a deeper truth about joy, love, and wisdom. The more you share them, the more you have. Your First Fruits giving demonstrates this backwards kingdom logic perfectly—planting seeds for harvests you may never see, building for people you’ll never meet. This is kingdom work at its finest.
Throughout our “Called to More” worship series, we’ve discovered how God’s callings consistently challenge our expectations. David was called from obscure shepherd fields to Israel’s throne. Solomon transformed his father’s impossible temple vision into magnificent reality, showing how God’s work spans generations. After his greatest triumph on Mount Carmel, Elijah discovered God not in dramatic wind and fire but in whispered silence during his darkest depression. Two weeks ago, Amos the farmer-prophet showed us that sometimes calling means speaking uncomfortable truths to comfortable people—that worship without justice is just noise. Last week, Isaiah revealed perhaps the hardest calling: maintaining hope when everyone else sees only darkness, proclaiming light that hasn’t yet broken through.
Each calling revealed the same divine pattern: God sees potential where humans see disqualification, chooses the unlikely over the obvious, transforms weakness into strength. Today we discover another radical calling. God commands oppressed exiles to seek the welfare of the very empire that destroyed their homeland. This isn’t passive acceptance of injustice but active transformation of unjust systems from within. Jeremiah’s letter to Babylon challenges everything we think we know about justice, power, and redemption.
This ancient calling sounds impossible until we see it lived out. Seeking your oppressor’s welfare while maintaining your identity? Transforming unjust systems from within rather than destroying them from without? Working for the flourishing of those who deny you flourishing? Throughout history, some have discovered that this backwards path creates the most powerful change.
History records that on August 19, 1958, Clara Luper, a history teacher from Oklahoma, led thirteen young members of the NAACP Youth Council—including her own eight-year-old daughter and son—into Katz Drug Store in downtown Oklahoma City. They sat at the segregated lunch counter and asked to be served. They were refused. They didn’t leave. They didn’t fight. Instead, as Luper recalled, her students pulled out their books and studied while they waited—she was, after all, a teacher. For two days they sat peacefully, enduring hostility and threats.
Two days later, Katz corporate management desegregated all its lunch counters across three states. This victory came after Luper had spent fifteen months sending ignored letters to the company. Her approach embodied transformative justice—not destroying the business but demonstrating how segregation hurt everyone’s prosperity. The students’ quiet presence exposed the absurdity of exclusion. They understood that justice sometimes means seeking the welfare of the very systems that oppress you, transforming them through engaged presence.
Clara Luper’s students embodied an ancient wisdom that first appeared in Jeremiah’s shocking letter to the exiles. The Babylonians had destroyed their temple, killed their families, and stolen their freedom. These weren’t voluntary immigrants but prisoners of war, victims of imperial violence. Every instinct screamed for resistance or passive withdrawal—let Babylon burn while preserving their purity in isolation. Instead, God commands something unthinkable through the prophet: “Promote the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile.”
The Hebrew word for “welfare” is shalom—not mere absence of conflict but flourishing wholeness, justice, and right relationships. God commands the oppressed to work for their oppressor’s shalom. This isn’t Stockholm syndrome or divine abuse. This is revolutionary strategy. By seeking Babylon’s true welfare, the exiles expose what genuine flourishing looks like. Their gardens demonstrate abundance. Their families model healthy relationships. Their prayers invite God’s transformation into empire’s heart. The command encompasses every dimension of exile life: building houses, cultivating gardens, raising families, establishing businesses. The exiles don’t just survive in Babylon; they participate fully in its civic life while maintaining their distinct identity as God’s people.
Verse seven contains the profound line: “Your future depends on its welfare.” God links oppressed and oppressor in shared destiny. This isn’t separate but equal. This isn’t parallel prosperity. This is interconnected flourishing that exposes the lie of domination. When exiles thrive, Babylon discovers its own poverty. When the marginalized contribute to communal welfare, the powerful realize how much they’ve lost through exclusion. Justice emerges not through separation but through transformative engagement. The exiles’ wellbeing becomes inseparable from Babylon’s wellbeing, creating mutual dependency that undermines the very foundations of oppressive power.
This passage revolutionizes our understanding of biblical justice. God doesn’t liberate the exiles immediately, though divine power certainly could. Instead, God embeds them as agents of transformation within unjust systems. This reflects what theologians call “redemptive justice”—justice that transforms rather than merely punishes, that heals rather than merely wounds. The Methodist tradition understands this through social holiness. John Wesley insisted personal salvation must produce social transformation. Individual spiritual growth divorced from concern for community welfare isn’t authentic Christian discipleship. The exiles’ calling embodies this perfectly. Their personal faithfulness creates communal change. Their spiritual practices become catalysts for systemic transformation.
This challenges retributive justice models that seek punishment for wrongdoing. God’s justice seeks restoration of right relationships rather than vengeance. By commanding exiles to seek Babylon’s welfare, God initiates Babylon’s transformation from within. The oppressed become agents of their oppressors’ redemption. This isn’t naive optimism but profound trust that God works transformation precisely through those who suffer injustice. This prefigures Christ’s own model of transformative justice: loving enemies, blessing persecutors, overcoming evil with good.
The Holy Spirit empowers marginalized people to become catalysts for systemic change, not through violent revolution but through radical presence that exposes and heals injustice simultaneously. When the oppressed refuse to adopt their oppressors’ methods, when they respond to violence with creative nonviolence, when they seek welfare even for those who deny them welfare, they reveal the bankruptcy of domination systems. This kind of justice doesn’t destroy enemies; it transforms them into neighbors. It doesn’t perpetuate cycles of revenge; it breaks them through redemptive engagement.
We live in our own Babylons of systemic injustice. Racial disparities persist in education, healthcare, and criminal justice. Economic inequality grows while working families struggle. Immigration systems separate families while labor depends on undocumented workers. Climate change devastates the global poor while the wealthy consume disproportionately. These systems seem too massive to change, too entrenched to challenge. We’re tempted toward either passive acceptance or violent revolution. Jeremiah offers a third way: transformative engagement that neither collaborates with injustice nor abandons the possibility of redemption.
Consider McPherson’s own struggles with justice. We have neighbors who can’t afford healthcare working jobs that don’t pay living wages. We have immigrant families afraid to access services they need. We have elderly residents isolated in care facilities, forgotten by community. What would seeking our city’s welfare look like? Not charity that maintains inequality but justice that transforms systems. Not programs that help people survive broken systems but advocacy that changes systems so they work for everyone.
This means supporting businesses that pay living wages, advocating for integrated affordable housing, and ensuring our schools serve all children equitably. It means recognizing that McPherson’s true prosperity requires everyone’s flourishing. When some are excluded from wellbeing, we all suffer. When the marginalized thrive, the whole community benefits.
This challenges comfortable Christianity that separates spiritual salvation from social transformation. Faith without seeking communal welfare isn’t biblical faith. Prayer divorced from justice work isn’t Christian prayer. God calls us to embed ourselves in broken systems as transformation agents, just as God embedded the exiles in Babylon.
The good news is that God’s justice doesn’t require our perfection or our power. Throughout history, God has worked through the marginalized, the oppressed, those society counts as nothing. The Babylonian empire seemed invincible, yet divine justice flowed through powerless exiles who simply planted gardens and prayed for peace. When we engage injustice with love rather than hatred, transformation becomes possible in ways violence never achieves.
Christ already reigns over every unjust system—no oppression exists outside divine sovereignty. Rather than abandoning us to injustice, God embeds us within broken systems as agents of transformation. The Holy Spirit empowers our justice-seeking even when we feel powerless. Transformation begins with faithful presence, not overwhelming force.
Your small acts of justice matter profoundly. Mentoring a struggling student chips away at educational inequity. Shopping at businesses that employ returning citizens challenges mass incarceration’s legacy. Welcoming immigrants as neighbors undermines xenophobia. These actions seem insignificant against systemic oppression, but remember: mighty Babylon fell while the exiles’ faithfulness outlasted empire. God specializes in multiplying small seeds of justice into movements that topple oppression.
As we celebrate our First Fruits commitment today, we’re declaring that McPherson’s welfare requires justice for all. Together we’re committing to seek our community’s genuine shalom—where everyone flourishes, equity replaces inequality, and God’s justice flows like water.
This week, identify one injustice in McPherson that affects our community’s welfare. Don’t just name it; engage it. Attend a city council meeting about affordable housing. Volunteer with organizations serving marginalized populations. Shop at immigrant-owned businesses. Write letters advocating for living wages. Visit isolated nursing home residents. Join efforts addressing food insecurity. Start conversations about racial equity in your workplace. Pray specifically for those whose oppression seems profitable to others. Ask yourself: “Whose exclusion from flourishing diminishes our whole community?” Then take one concrete step toward their inclusion. Remember: seeking our city’s welfare means ensuring everyone can bloom where planted.
True justice doesn’t wait for perfect conditions. It blooms in Babylon, transforms oppression through presence, and seeks welfare for all. As Christ’s people in McPherson, we choose engagement over escape, transformation over retaliation. We plant justice like gardens in empire’s heart, trusting that God’s shalom will grow through our faithful presence. Together, we declare: McPherson’s welfare depends on justice for everyone who calls this place home.
Will you pray with me?
God of justice, empower us to seek our community’s welfare, transforming systems of oppression through radical love and persistent presence. In Christ’s name, Amen.
In crafting today’s sermon, I employed AI assistants like Claude and Apple Intelligence, yet the ultimate responsibility for its content rests with me. These tools offered valuable perspectives, but the most influential sermon preparation hinges on biblical study, theological insight, personal reflection, and divine guidance. I see AI as a supportive aid to enrich the sermon process while ensuring my own voice in proclaiming the Word of God.
Rev. Andrew Conard 