Paul Vieira

Hey everybody,
I haven’t blogged in such a long time. I’m sorry about that. I’m lost in Babylon this summer. I’m really busy, but life is good. Please be patient with me. Things will slow down in September and I’ll be back online.

peace
Paul

Okay, I have more thoughts to share with you about life in exile. In a previous post, I talked about how truth has a context; truth is relative to the occasion. Something true in one context might be a lie in another. I also posted about the truth that we need to know as believers living in exile. Please read those posts before moving on to this one. You can find it by clicking on the category “living in exile” on the left side of this page.

In Jeremiah 29 we can find a letter that was written to the exiles in Babylon. This letter has become my personal lifestyle guide for this season that I`m in. Many of you feel that you are in this same season of living your life outside the organized Christianity that you came from. This letter to the exiles basically encourages them to settle in Babylon. They will be in this for the long haul. It warns them not to be anxious about getting back to their old life any time soon. They are to build homes, plant gardens, raise kids and grandkids, and they are to prosper in Babylon being agents of peace in that city. This is the season that I find myself in now. After being in the church sub-culture for so many years, I lost touch with life and what it means to be in this world.

It has become clear to me that the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible is truth intended for seasons like the one we`re in now. It seems this is the only book I can read right now. I know I must understand the truth being presented in these writings of the old wise king Solomon. The message of Ecclesiastes is very relevant to people living in exile. It grapples with the meaning of life and it gives us a compass to follow in these waters of uncertainty, this life in Babylon.

My personality tends to seek out meaning in everything. I want to live a large life. I want to make a difference. I have a powerful drive to be important and make my mark on the world some how. Because of this, I tend to wallow in the past and obsess about the future. For years, I`ve lived a very moody existence because I`ve held to this picture of what my life is supposed look like but it rarely ever seems to unfold the way that I picture it. I am constantly disappointed because things don`t happen the way I imagine them. Since I`m always living in the future, I miss the present moment. This kind of obsession steals my time away. I`m not actually living at all if I don`t fully engage in the present moment. My wife, my kids and what really matters most, are all here in the present and I`m missing it because of an undisciplined mind that constantly wanders into what my future aspirations will look like. I am sick of dreaming. I want to live! I want to join my family in the present and embrace the ordinary.

I`m learning to love the ordinary. I work a respectable job Monday to Friday, and I look forward to every weekend. I enjoy taking home a regular pay check. Actually, getting a “real job” (as my wife calls it) has saved my marriage. I used to be in professional Christianity ministry and the financial instability of that career path almost destroyed my family. However, these days, on the weekends I play with my kids. We have pizza and movie night. I play hockey with my sons. We hang out together as a family on Sunday mornings and enjoy our regular Sunday morning breakfast of waffles and turkey bacon. I`ve started playing in a rock band.

I wanted my life to count, to be great, to make a difference. I never dreamed that I would find the meaning of life in the ordinary. Embracing the ordinary has changed my entire outlook on life. I think I will still do the things that our in my heart to do. However, my obsession to be “great” was sabotaging those dreams by causing me to miss the moment, to not live and enjoy the present.

These everyday encounters make life real and it`s through loving and enjoying the people around us that our life becomes great. Our lofty pursuits often become meaningless efforts at chasing the wind, while our kids stand on the side lines wishing that they had our affection and attention.

This is what Solomon wrote about pursuing greatness and finding meaning in the ordinary:

I also tried to find meaning by building huge homes for myself and by planting beautiful vineyards. I made gardens and parks, filling them with all kinds of fruit trees. I built reservoirs to collect the water to irrigate my many flourishing groves. I bought slaves, both men and women, and others were born into my household. I also owned large herds and flocks, more than any of the kings who had lived in Jerusalem before me. I collected great sums of silver and gold, the treasure of many kings and provinces. I hired wonderful singers, both men and women, and had many beautiful concubines. I had everything a man could desire!

So I became greater than all who had lived in Jerusalem before me, and my wisdom never failed me. Anything I wanted, I would take. I denied myself no pleasure. I even found great pleasure in hard work, a reward for all my labors. But as I looked at everything I had worked so hard to accomplish, it was all so meaningless, like chasing the wind. There was nothing really worthwhile anywhere.
Ecclesiastes 2:4-11

So go ahead. Eat your food with joy, and drink your wine with a happy heart, for God approves of this! Wear fine clothes, with a splash of cologne!

Live happily with the woman you love through all the meaningless days of life that God has given you under the sun. The wife God gives you is your reward for all your earthly toil. Whatever you do, do well. For when you go to the grave, there will be no work or planning or knowledge or wisdom.
Ecclesiastes 9:7-10

Every other ‘prophetic’ voice in Jerusalem in the days of Jeremiah proclaimed that Jerusalem and the Temple would be safe from attack by the Babylonians. They even had a Bible verse to reassure the people that what they were saying was true. However, that particular verse of prophecy spoken by Isaiah was for another season and situation. The people of Jerusalem were led astray because they made the Bible fit into their own delusions. They created their own truth and their own reality. Only one voice spoke the truth for that season. For every season there is a corresponding truth that sheds light and reveals the beauty of that season. Only Jeremiah saw that light. He tried to warn the people but no one wanted to listen. They didn`t want to believe that God would allow their beloved Temple to be destroyed, nor could they fathom that God would raise up a godless King to bring discipline on His people. This is exactly what Jeremiah told them and it is exactly what happened.

Over a period of about 20 years, the King of Babylon came down on Jerusalem in three separate occasions, each time taking more people away to Babylon. Finally, the third attack happened in 586 B.C., completely leveling Solomon`s temple and killing many of the city`s inhabitants. All who survived were dragged away to Babylon. The city was left desolate.

It was after attach number two, when 10,000 people were taken to Babylon, that Jeremiah sent this message to the exiles from his home in Jerusalem. This is what he had written (Jeremiah 29):

This is what the LORD of Heaven`s Armies, the God of Israel, says to all the captives he has exiled to Babylon from Jerusalem:
‘Build homes, and plan to stay.
Plant gardens, and eat the food they produce.
Marry and have children.
Then find spouses for them so that you may have many grandchildren.
Multiply! Do not dwindle away!
And work for the peace and prosperity of the city where I sent you into exile.
Pray to the LORD for it, for its welfare will determine your welfare.’

‘You will be in Babylon for seventy years. But then I will come and do for you all the good things I have promised and I will bring you home again. For I know the plans I have for you,’ says the LORD. ‘They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. In those days when you pray, I will listen. If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me. I will be found by you,’ says the LORD. ‘I will end your captivity and restore your fortunes. I will gather you out of the nations where I sent you and will bring you home again to your own land.’

This passage is the most meaningful source of truth for me right now because I believe that I have been sent into exile, into our very own modern day Babylon. Many of you feel the same. God is doing what some thought He would never do. He is emptying the organized church (Jerusalem) and bringing His people out into society (Babylon). He is doing this to reshape what His people look like and to restore His reputation in the earth. He is using Babylon to do this and we will also have a role to play in Babylon. Like Daniel, who was sent to Babylon, we will help our world by interpreting the signs and bring God`s message in times of great trial and uncertainty. However, we must first be prepared by embracing this season of exile. This passage in Jeremiah 29 gives us our mandate for this season. I will talk more about this in the days ahead, but for now I will simply state some of these important truths to embrace:

– It`s a time to focus on our home life.
– It`s a time to raise our kids and see them become well established in their life.
– It`s a time to find and enjoy the simple pleasures of life.
– It`s a time of waiting. What the church is going to look like is going to take time. We can`t be in a hurry. We must learn how to live again. How to do ‘church’ is not the agenda. The agenda is learning how to do ‘life.’
– It`s a time of peace and prosperity as we thrive in Babylon.
– It`s a time to pursue the everyday joys and responsibilities of natural living and not to give ourselves to extended, sacrificial times of praying for change. We are going to be in this season of exile for a while, trying to pray ourselves out of it will waste our time and cause us to miss the beauty of this season.
– The season will change again. When it does God will call us to extended prayer and fasting. Then He will hear us and be found by us. But now, in this season, His word to us is to live life and learn how to see the beauty in working hard, loving our spouse, raising our kids, enjoying hobbies and living life to the full. God is destroying the wall we`ve erected between sacred and secular, spiritual and natural. We are becoming more holistic. We are learning to see God in life and not just in church.

Okay, that`s enough for now. Let`s unravel the truth of this season over the next little while. Let`s help each other thrive in the place where God has brought us.

Long ago, six hundred years before the birth of Christ, there lived a man named Jeremiah. He had this message that God was leaving the building but the people didn`t believe him. The popular idea circulating around the ancient city of Jerusalem was that God would never allow anything to happen to their established system of worship, especially when it came to the temple that God had instituted. The people believed that as long as they went to church, they were safe. The looming threat came in the form of a massive world empire called Babylon and its self-indulgent king Nebuchadnezzar. He was conquering nations left and right, but the people of Jerusalem were assured by their ‘prophets’ that nothing would ever happen to them and their beloved temple. Why were they so sure? Did God tell them that He would protect them?

Actually, they were standing on a Bible verse. Through Isaiah 37:6, 7, 29, God promised to protect the temple from being destroyed! However, this truth was meant for a generation that lived over 100 years previously, another moment in history when the people of that city were under fear of being attached by the world power of their day, the Assyrians. The inhabitants of Jerusalem in Jeremiah`s day were trusting in a promise that was made to a completely different group of people, under different circumstances. They were taking a truth from a previous time and applying it to their own season without making sure the context was the same. This prophecy from Isaiah became a lie to them because it was taken out of it`s context. Actually, Jeremiah warned the people that they were trusting in lying words. (Jer. 7:3, 4) Their false sense of security was based on a verse of prophecy, but mistakenly applied to a wrong season. There are seasons of peace and seasons of discipline. The people of Jeremiah`s generation were entering into a time of discipline, while clinging to truth that was meant for times of peace.

We do this all the time with the Bible. We hold on to all our favorite verses that promise the good things we desire, while ignoring other verses that aren`t as pleasant. What we fail to understand is that all these verses are frozen in time. They have a context and you can`t ignore the context or even the Bible can become a source of deception for you. The key is to find out what season you are in and then read the truth from scripture that belongs to the appropriate season. It’s not too difficult. You need to know what is going on in the story of scripture and ask God to show you if your story matches that particular season.

I`m convinced that we here in the West have entered into a season similar to the days of Jeremiah. This is what I write on page 245 of my book:
Most churchgoers do believe they have a certain degree of immunity to judgment simply because they go to church. We have a misguided faith in our connection to the church as an institution. We feel safe behind its four walls. Perhaps this security is in our denominational affiliation, or in adherence to certain theological positions, or just due to the fact that in some way we are associated with Christianity. Who would dare to imagine that God would ever dismantle the church as we know it? It`s been here for so long. Nothing could sink this ship. Biblical history tells a different story. It seems as though God has no trouble forsaking an old form to move onto something new, even if it was He who established it in the first place.

Jeremiah`s message to his people was that God was leaving the building, the Temple will be destroyed and it was a time to turn back to God. Jeremiah prophesied the exile and God`s people entered into a very interesting season. This is the season that I and many others have come into; more about that soon.

I believe that truth is relative! In many Christian circles, making a statement like this would be considered false teaching. However, before you start gathering a ‘burn the heretic’ mob against me, let me explain what I mean. I come from a Christianity that puts all its value in things that don`t seem tangible. The focus is on getting to heaven, learning theological statements about God, or the pursuit of knowing God through participating in church worship services. But as I said in a previous post, I never learned how to live. Somehow the truth that I learned didn`t translate well into everyday life. God was in one box and the rest of my life seemed void of God. This disconnect led me to search for God in life itself. God shows different parts of Himself through different circumstances. Truth is intimately tied to experience. When I say that ‘truth is relative,’ I don`t mean that there is a different truth for each person, but that there is truth for each season.

The third chapter of Ecclesiastes goes along these lines. There, it talks about the complementary seasons of life. On one hand, as humans, we experience seasons that we would call ‘good times.’ On the other hand, we also endure times of great difficulty and trial. The writer of Ecclesiastes so poetically describes how there is a time to live and a time to die; a time for love and a time for hate; a time for peace and a time for war; a time to plant and a time to uproot; a time to build and a time to break down; and the list continues like this at length. After this detailed description of the contrasting ups and downs of life, the writer pens these remarkable words: Everything is beautiful in its time. There is beauty in every season of life. There is something to know about God in each experience, whether we perceive that experience as good or bad. If we can learn how to acknowledge the beauty in every season that we find ourselves in, we would be learning a secret to life. There is truth that belongs to suffering and other truth that belongs to prosperity. There is truth to embrace when you loose someone you love and other truth to guide you when you are succeeding. In this way, truth is relative to the season that you are in.

The problem occurs when people pull truth out of its context and try to apply it to a different context. The beauty to be seen in the valley is much different than the beauty in the mountains. Where are you? What season are you in? This is a critical question in knowing what truth is most important for you to know right now!

Knowing the season that you are in brings peace and understanding. I hope my blog posts this week can be helpful to you. I have a good feeling that many of you are in a similar season. Perhaps the things that I`m learning about this season I call ‘the exile,’ will bring clarity to some of you. Let`s begin to talk about it tomorrow. Please stay tuned.

I came to an important realization today. I feel that I am supposed to continue to be open with the Christian community at large, to keep sharing my journey with those who want to learn from it. There is a reason why I haven`t been blogging very regularly. I`ve been pushing away any responsibility to share my heart and life with Christians in general. I grew weary in Christian leadership and I came to this point where I really don`t want to have any visibility in the Christian church. I know I wrote this book and it gives me a little visibility, but I always intended this book to be a goodbye to formal ministry of any kind. Read this epilogue from Jesus Has Left the Building:

Well, this is it. We`ve come to the end. Although I have spent the last several years mostly outside the walls of the church, I have never formally said, ‘Goodbye.’ In some ways I have had one foot in and one foot out, as I have continued to speak in churches on Sunday mornings in my travels. However, I must go now. I must find my way out into the world that so desperately needs to see Jesus and hear Jesus through me. I have a house to build and garden to plant. I have to raise my kids and see them find their own place in this world. I am compelled to follow this path to its end.

I imagine for awhile, if you`re interested, you may hear or see me talk about the themes contained in the pages of this book. I am willing to further discuss it. I expect a flurry of activity for a season, as readers wrestle through the issues this book raises. I am open to hearing from you and talking through what needs to be said. However, honestly, it has always been my intention for this book to be a farewell message to the institutional church. I am leaving for ‘Babylon’ and I don`t imagine I`m ever coming back. I don`t know how much longer we will have the opportunity to talk. Perhaps it will be longer than I think. Inevitably, and probably sooner than later, I will be gone. This is what I leave with you.

Although this ‘farewell’ is primarily addressed to the organized church, I`ve also been hesitant to correspond with believers who have left the walls behind. I have about 150 emails to respond to in my inbox. I guess I lost heart with ministry and I just want to live life now. I don`t want to be a leader in the emerging church. I just want to learn how to live and enjoy life. However, I don`t know how or why, but my perspective is changing. I believe God is strengthening my heart to rise to the task before me. I do need to live my life and learn what it means to be a believer in exile, but I don`t have to do this alone. I believe that I should be open and share my journey as honestly as I can. I think it will be a help to others who are on a similar path. So, please forgive me for holding back. I`ll do my best to be transparent and together we can figure out this life and what it means to follow Christ here and now, in this new season that I call the Exile.