
The Faith of a Stranger: Guest Preacher Rev. Rachel Helgeson
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. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But 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 29:4-7
Image: Christ with the Grateful Samaritan Leper, 20th c., St. Andrew’s Church, Buckland, Oxfordshire. UK, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=57163 [retrieved October 7, 2025]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St_Andrew,_Buckland,_Herts_-_Window_-_geograph.org.uk_-_368076.jpg.