Planning has never been my strong suit. For most of my life I’ve been a procrastinator, waiting until the very last minute to even think about the things I needed to do. I remember a history paper that I wrote in college. It was about the Russian Revolution. I didn’t do anything on the paper until the night before it was due. I hadn’t even checked out books about the subject, let alone read them. So, about 30 minutes before the college library closed on the night before the paper was due, I went and checked out the exact number of books that were required for the assignment and took them back to my dorm room. Then I sat at the computer, skimmed a portion of one book, typed up what the basic essence of what I’d skimmed was, tossed in a quote somewhere, and then moved on to the next book. I managed to do that for eight pages and finished the paper at like 2 or 3 in the morning. I tell that story, not because I’m proud that I managed to pull off something like that at the last minute, or even because I managed to get a B+ on the paper, but because it epitomizes my typical habit when it comes to planning. My planning method for most of my life has been to not plan.

Now, this doesn’t mean that I never think about the future. I just don’t translate that thinking into a plan very well. I read an article this week from Thrive Global listing seven benefits of planning. For those of you who are good at planning, tell me if these have been true for you. And those of you like me, who are less good at planning, tell me if these are things that your fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants lifestyle does not afford. Here are what they list as the benefits:

1. Planning helps manage stress.
2. Planning is good for your brain. It helps you learn and remember more.
3. Planning helps you achieve more goals.
4. Planning can make you more productive.
5. Planning saves you time.
6. Planning helps you develop mindfulness. You’re better able to find time for yourself.
7. Planning can make you happier.

Whether you are a planner or not, how do you feel about that list?

In our Scriptures for this morning, we hear John the Baptist being proclaimed as the one “crying out in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord!’” That is a quote from the prophet Isaiah that people came to view as a prediction about John the Baptist. This was the fulfillment of God’s plan. The one crying out in the wilderness was setting the stage for God’s Messiah, the savior of the people. Times were challenging for the people of Israel at the time when Jesus lived. Rome controlled the land. They allowed the Jews to worship as they wished, as long as they continued to uphold their duties to the Roman Empire, namely, pay their taxes. Knowing that a savior was coming, that a plan had been made to give them a better future, was what kept them going. Sometimes having a plan, even if it is not one we created, can give us hope and peace.

In our text from the prophet Jeremiah, we hear the prophet share with the people the words that God has given him to speak. The Jews of Jeremiah’s time were living in exile. They’d been driven out of their land and lived in Babylon, continuing to worship in secret, waiting for the time when they will be able to return to their land. But they don’t know when that will be or even if it will happen for sure. They had no plan. They’ve been biding their time, hoping the day of return would be soon. They are struggling because they feel unsettled. They feel like they are strangers in a strange land. They are resisting setting down roots because they are longing to return home. Have you ever felt that way? It’s like you’re hoping for something different but don’t really have a plan to achieve it.

Jeremiah’s words to them are not what they want to hear. He says, “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.” I think the Jews hearing this probably had their jaws drop to the ground. “You want us to do what?” They are in a foreign land, amidst people who do not live like them or worship like them or eat like them. And God wants them to build houses and settle down there? And even worse, God wants them to pray for the people’s welfare? That is just too much.

It’s kind of ironic. The people wanted a plan. They weren’t happy with life the way it was. But when presented with God’s plan, I suspect they were not too excited about it. Have you ever had that feeling where you knew you had to do something, but you weren’t at all excited about it…in fact, you were kind of dreading it? I suspect that’s how the Jews felt when they first heard Jeremiah’s words. “What do you mean we have to stay here? We need to go home.”

But Jeremiah continues God’s words to the people. “For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let the prophets and the diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to your dreams that you dream, for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them, says the Lord.” It sounds like there were some competing prophets in the area that were telling the Jews a different story. You have to wonder if what these prophets were saying was simply a confirmation of what the people already wanted to happen. Were they telling the Jews that they would soon get their land back? Were they supplying them with false hope? Jeremiah goes so far as to say, “For thus says the Lord: Only when Babylon’s seventy years are completed will I visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place.” So not only are they to make themselves comfortable in this foreign land, but they will have to stay there awhile…70 years, Jeremiah says. I don’t think this prophecy would have made Jeremiah a very popular guy at the time.

But God had a bit more to say through Jeremiah. And this final part helps redeem things at least a little. Jeremiah says, “For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart, I will let you find me, says the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.” The first part of this is familiar I imagine to a lot of us. We hear it quoted all the time, in various different contexts. You just graduated from high school and will be headed to college? God knows the plans he has for you and they are plans for your welfare and not harm. Did you just lose your job and don’t know what to do? God knows the plans he has for you and they are plans for your welfare and not harm. Did you lose the championship game? God knows the plans he has for you and they are plans for your welfare and not harm. We apply this verse liberally to a lot of different events of life. And always we look at it as a promise to each of us individually, no matter our circumstances. God knows the plans he has for us and they are plans for our welfare and not harm.

And while that is a wonderful sentiment and may provide us with some semblance of hope, I’m not sure  it’s really what God is saying here through Jeremiah. The words Jeremiah speaks are not for you or me or Steve or Joan as individuals. The words Jeremiah speaks are for a people. They are for the people of God as a whole. Yes, that means that this hope is for each of us, but it is not for us on our own. It is for us all together. And while that may seem like splitting hairs a bit, I think it actually has a significant impact on how we live it out.

I think that if we understand that these plans are for us as a group and not us as individuals, it changes the way we look at one another. We are in this together. Have you ever been part of an event or group where the leader says that if everyone completes so and so project the whole group will get a reward. Why do leaders do an exercise like that? It’s because they want to show the group how important it is for us to all work together and for the strong to help the weak. We all succeed together or we all fail together. God’s plans are for us collectively, so we should help one another along the way.

John the Baptist proclaims the coming of one who is greater than he. This coming one, he says, will baptize people with the Holy Spirit. This coming one is Jesus. And he came, has come, and is coming with a plan for us, a plan for our welfare. In Jesus Christ, we see that plan begin to come to fruition. But the plan is not what many expect. It’s not a plan to force our way back home. It’s a plan of sacrifice and waiting. It’s a plan of hope for the world and peace in our hearts. And that plan began with the birth of Jesus Christ, the thing for which we currently wait.

This Advent season, as we plan our parties and our shopping and our travel, may we remember that God’s plan was not just for our welfare but for the welfare of all. And let’s show compassion and love to one another. May we act with peace for the whole world. God knows the plans he has for us. So, let us prepare the way for those plans to be fully enacted. And let us look with hope to the day when we will all see the glory of God and be filled with the Holy Spirit. Amen.