When promising restoration to his people, the prophet Isaiah declared, with hope, that they would build houses and live in them, plant vineyards and eat of the fruit. (Isaiah 65: 11) The prophet goes on to say that there will no longer be an infant who lives but a day.

It is striking to me that the new world God will create is a place where things work as they should, a place where people live to old age, a place where the house you build is not stolen from you, where you eat from the land that you plant.  

For people who have been in exile, torn from their homes, this is powerful. For people who watched farms torched by invading armies, this is wonderous. For me, it is a reminder that what we hope for is good ordinary days, times that work as they should, life that flows.

There is also an emotional change promised. There is a line spoken as from God, "I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask for me; I was ready to be found by those who did not seek me." The prophet knows that the people have in many ways given up hoping to go home. Despair defines them. They stopped hoping for a good, ordinary, stable life. "It will come," they are promised. "You will go home and rebuild your community."

I have talked about this vision before, but last week I became aware that in these words the writer echoes something written right at the beginning of the exile. The picture of building a house and living in it, planting a garden and eating from it is the same, but there is a very different tone.

After the king of Judah has been taken into exile, after the religious and political leaders, the craftspeople, many ordinary folk have been taken into captivity, but before the city of Jerusalem has been destroyed, another prophet, Jeremiah, sent a letter to them. In that letter, he instructs them to build houses in that new land, and to live in them. He orders them to plant gardens and eat of the produce, to find spouses for their children and raise up grandchildren.

This is not a promise but a command. It is not what the people want to hear. As soon as the army of Babylon threatened Judah, Jeremiah warned his people that Babylon was going to defeat their army. He was unpopular. Now that the leaders have been taken captive, what they want to hear is that God will rescue them. Jeremiah says that yes, they will return eventually, but they will be in that foreign land for two generations. "So, live there," he commands.

Part of this command is pragmatic: if their children don't have children, the people will die out; if they don't eat, they will die. But this instruction also changes the tone of the exile. It isn't prison. It is a place to live. It may not be the place where they want to live, but it can become home. They can build and plant in that place. When they harvest their garden, they can give thanks for what they pick, what they will eat.

For the exiles, many would keep dreaming of going home. But when the time came, some stayed in that foreign land because they had made that place home. They became the first Hebrew diaspora.

As I ponder these two writers who use the same image with such a different tone, I come to understand the modern state of Israel a bit better. While there is a willingness to live well wherever the people end up, there is still the dream of going home to the promised land.

But there is also a message for middle class North America with our consumer craze, our desire for more. There is a message that challenges the idea of thanksgiving which tells us to "count our blessings." If our blessings don't add up to what we hoped for, do we still give thanks? Can we give thanks for what is, even if it is not what we wanted?

The description of life flowing smoothly is both a promise and a challenge. It helps form what we work toward and how we live with what is.

Cathy Hird lives on the shore of Georgian Bay.