Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce…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 29:1, 4–7)
Jeremiah’s words come to a people who were angry, frightened, and divided. The Israelites had been taken from their homeland and forced to live in Babylon—a land of different values, different gods, and different politics. They longed for home. They longed for things to be the way they used to be. And into that deep ache, Jeremiah speaks neither comfort nor escape, but a call to engagement: “Build houses. Plant gardens. Marry and raise children. Seek the welfare of the city where you live.”
In other words, he tells the exiles, you are to live faithfully, not by fighting the place where you find yourselves, but by loving it. Not by cursing your captors, but by working for the good of all—even those you disagree with, even those who trouble you. It’s one of the most surprising commands in all of Scripture. Jeremiah says: Your flourishing is tied to the flourishing of others—even those you consider “the other side.” In its welfare, you will find your welfare. That’s a hard instruction for our moment in history today, too, isn’t it?
If you remember one of my sermons from earlier this year, I insisted, following theologians from across the Evangelical and Anglican spectrum, that the Book of Revelation is not a prediction of future events but a book to bring hope and courage to Christians across all times. That’s because, across all times, those who follow Jesus are always exiled, citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven who are ambassadors in this foreign land. Whatever ruling power Jesus’ followers live under is always Babylon. Always Babylon, because every earthly kingdom rules by force, wielding the power of death. The ancient Jews were exiled in the actual land of Babylon. Rome was the Babylon of Jesus’ time. The church, for example during the time of the Inquisition, has been Babylon. As is always the case for the people of God, we today live in a modern-day Babylon. Not because our faith is under siege—but because our souls are. One of the key ways our world today is wielding the power of death is by being a culture driven by and profiting from outrage, fear, and hatred. This Babylon is killing our souls.
In his farewell address, President Dwight Eisenhower warned about the “military-industrial complex.” He cautioned that a vast system of power and profit could grow around war itself—building an entire economy that depends on fear and conflict to survive. If Eisenhower were speaking to us today, he would certainly be warning about what we could call the outrage industrial complex. It’s the vast network of media, algorithms, and influencers that makes its living not from peace and community, but from polarization. The richest people in the world now make their living not by building understanding, but by building outrage.
Every click, every share, every angry comment—it all feeds their machine and their pockets. The more emotionally charged the content, the more money it makes. It’s that simple. It’s just like unhealthy snack food that is intentionally engineered to be irresistible. You remember the Lay’s potato chip ad, “Nobody can eat just one?” Well, “Nobody can click just one.” Our attention—and our fear and anger—are being intentionally engineered for profit. Outrage has become the junk food of the soul: quick, salty, addictive, and empty of nutritional value.
Psychologists have shown that outrage activates the same reward centers in the brain as pleasure. It gives us a hit of certainty, a jolt of self-righteousness. We feel morally alive—at least for a moment. We tell ourselves, “I’m not angry, I’m right.” But that’s part of the seduction. And soon, like junk food, it leaves us hungry for more and more. We scroll through posts or watch cable news, not to learn, but to feel—to feel outrage, to feel confirmed, to feel part of our “tribe.” We divide the world into good guys and bad guys, “our side” and “theirs,” the saved and the damned. “I’m just right…and they’re just wrong.” And every time we do that, the outrage machine grows stronger. The problem isn’t that there are no real injustices to be angry about—there are plenty. The problem is that we’ve lost the ability to distinguish between righteous anger that leads to compassion and destructive outrage that leads only to contempt. “I’m just right and they’re just wrong” eventually turns into “I’m good, and they’re evil.” We live in an age where outrage is the oxygen we breathe. Cable news, talk radio, partisan podcasts, algorithm-curated feeds on our phones…each insists that unless we are constantly angry at “them” we must not be paying attention.
Jeremiah’s letter to the exiles is an antidote to that kind of living. He says, Don’t feed the fire of division. Build, plant, nurture, and pray. Don’t let Babylon turn you into what you despise. He’s saying: Don’t become so obsessed with what’s wrong in the world that you forget to do what’s right where you are. This passage doesn’t tell the exiles to accept injustice or pretend everything’s fine. It tells them to live faithfully in the middle of imperfection. God does not urge a mass boycott of Babylonian markets, not a rage-filled campaign of denunciations. Instead, God commands positive, practical engagement. To practice hope not as an escape from reality but as an investment in it. That’s what it means to “seek the welfare of the city.” Not to dominate it, not to withdraw from it—but to bless it, to pray for it, to invest in its common good. Jeremiah says God commissions us not to destroy but to build up, not to curse but to pray.
If Jeremiah were writing to us today, I think his letter might begin like this: “Thus says the Lord of hosts to all who live in a time of outrage and division: Turn off your phones. Talk to your neighbor. Learn the name of the person who votes differently from you. Plant something that will outlast your next argument. Pray for the welfare of your town, your country, your world—because in its welfare you will find your own.”
One of the most corrosive things about our culture of outrage is that it breeds contempt. And contempt is far more dangerous than anger. Anger can be constructive—it can lead to justice, repentance, and renewal. But contempt is anger mixed with disgust. It says not “You are wrong,” but “You are worthless…You are nothing.” And once we start seeing other people as less than human, unimaginable cruelty becomes possible.
The early church fathers called wrath—anger, rage, hatred, contempt, the desire for vengeance—one of the seven deadly sins. Thomas Aquinas described wrath as the love of justice perverted to revenge. Writer Arthur Brooks calls contempt “the deadliest poison in American life today.” He points out that when we treat opponents with contempt, we end up becoming the very thing we hate. We dehumanize others in the name of defending our values. And, in doing so, we lose our own humanity. The Gospel warns about this, too. Jesus said, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Not because it’s sentimental, but because love is the only way to break the cycle of contempt. Jeremiah and Jesus clearly understood something our culture has forgotten: Hatred is contagious, and it creates a never-ending cycle of ever more hatred.
Jeremiah doesn’t tell the exiles to wait until they return home to start living. He says: Build houses here. Plant gardens here. Raise your children here. In other words, stop waiting for perfect conditions to start doing good. That’s our call, too. We can’t fix all the divisions in our country overnight. We can’t turn off the algorithms. But we can build small houses of peace—right here, right now.
With every act of kindness, every honest conversation, every time we refuse to share that outrage-baiting post, we are choosing to plant something different. Every time we gently, calmly, firmly say, “I don’t think that’s right,” We are saying: “I will not let Babylon define and capture my soul.”
It’s what the early Christians did in the Roman Empire. They had zero political power. They couldn’t control the culture. But they lived differently—feeding the hungry, caring for the sick, adopting abandoned children, forgiving their enemies. They planted gardens of grace in the middle of an empire of cruelty. And in time, the world took notice.
The church is called to be that kind of community today, too—a countercultural witness in a world addicted to outrage. That doesn’t mean we all have to agree on everything. But it does mean we agree to stay at this communion table behind me. In a polarized world, simply staying together—worshiping, praying, serving alongside people who think differently—is a radical act of faith. Because it declares that our unity in Christ is stronger than our differences in opinion.
Here at St. Andrew’s we are a microcosm of this, an example to the world. In this room there are conservatives and progressives, traditionalists and reformers, lifelong Episcopalians and newcomers. We don’t all read Scripture the same way, or vote the same way, or see the world the same way. And yet we kneel at the same altar rail. We receive the same bread and wine. We share the same peace. The world says, “You can’t love those people—they’re the enemy.” But Jesus says, “Those people are your neighbors. Your siblings. Your fellow travelers on the way.” “There are two kinds of people in the world,” Jesus says: “Your neighbors, whom you should love, and your enemies, whom you should also love.” If the Church can’t model that kind of love, who will? Hatred is contagious—but so is compassion.
To “seek the welfare of the city” doesn’t mean abandoning our convictions. It means holding them with humility and compassion. It means remembering that our highest allegiance isn’t to any party, ideology, or media outlet, but to the Kingdom of God. It means caring about the common good—not just our good. It means listening before speaking, seeking to understand before persuading. It means showing the world that grace still works. It means, like we were told when we were little kids, “Count to ten before you respond to someone in anger.”
When we pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” we are saying to God: Let your peace drown out our outrage. Let your mercy disarm our contempt. Let your Spirit renew this divided world through the small, simple,mustard-seed-sized faithfulness of your people.
Sometimes it feels like we’re shouting into the wind. Like everything is getting louder, meaner, more fragmented. But Jeremiah’s promise still holds: “In its welfare, you will find your welfare.” Our well-being is tied to the well-being of our neighbors. We cannot thrive while despising one another. But if we plant seeds of peace, however small, God will make them grow. There’s an ancient Jewish saying from The Ethics of the Fathers that fits this moment perfectly: “You are not required to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.” We can’t fix the whole system, but we can live differently within it. We can build houses of belonging. We can plant gardens of civility. We can raise children who see the image of God not only in their friends but in their adversaries. We can pray for the welfare of the city—and mean it.
So, my beloved friends—let’s not let the outrage machine take over our hearts and our souls. Let’s not become what the world tells us we must be: angry, fearful, suspicious, perpetually offended. Instead, let’s become what God calls us to be: Builders. Gardeners. Peacemakers. Neighbors. Let’s reclaim our spiritual imagination. Let’s show the world that it is possible to disagree deeply and still love profoundly…That grace is stronger than grievance…That hope is more powerful than hate.
Jeremiah’s words echo across the centuries, right into our divided world: “Seek the welfare of the city… for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” May we be the ones who refuse to be exiles of outrage. May we be planters of hope and seekers of the common good. May we be builders of God’s shalom: healing and wholeness, and may God make us instruments of His peace.
Fr. Keith+
(Here is a link to Part 2)
