⁷ Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” (Jeremiah 29:7, New International Version, ©2011)

If only for selfish reasons, let us seek a pray for even the cities where we are exiled.

So often, we have this stranger-exile complex that separates us from the daily concerns of the people of the cities where we dwell. After all, we are "pilgrims and strangers" in the earth, a holy people, a kingdom of priests. All these things we are as God's people, but they are reasons for engagement rather than isolation.

Here is a key phrase:

"… to which I have carried you."

We are here, in this time, in this place, for a purpose higher than we can know.

The cities where we live are our own. Our lives, prosperity, well-being, and peace are intimately interwoven into the same fabric as our neighbor's. We are people of God, but we are also people of the city. Incarnational witness means that we rise or fall with the tide that moves all ships.

We shall transcend and we shall rise, but, in the meantime, we sink or swim with the poor, downtrodden, oppressed, and repressed people around us at every place on the social or economic strata.

All the people around us are our people.

We must seek the peace of the city and pray for it. Notice in the text how seeking comes before praying. This may be merely a literary device or it may be an intentional reminder that the prayers of those engaged in active seeking are more heartfelt, specific, and effective than those of the passive and unconcerned. Our passion arises from our engagement.

Our involvement is our witness as much as and, probably more than, our words. Let us present ourselves to God during this season of Lent, and always, as instruments

through which our prayers for peace can be used to bring shalom to our cities.

“We are a colony of heaven on earth.” (Philippians 3:20a, Moffatt translation)