What a really odd story from the scripture this morning! At the core of the passage from Jeremiah, is a Word. Word, you say - so what? Yet this is no ordinary word, but extraordinary Word. Think about some times when there were extraordinary words, which located us so completely that we remember to this day where we were and what we were doing. They might be words of disaster, words of insight, or prophetic words which stop us short in our tracks.
Have you had an experience where a word comes, just an ordinary word, but it comes in such a powerful way that it is WORD.
Back in my administrative days, around 1990, I was discouraged by a superior from applying for a higher position because - he said- a Master of Divinity degree was needed. Yet that requirement was not listed in the job description; I was too naive then to realise that the motives were political and personal on the part of the other person, and not even legal. I remember sitting in a car venting to a trusted friend, who responded “Well, why don’t you just go get the degree!”. The effect was jarring, and I can still feel it. It might seem like a simple thing to say, but the words stuck as prophetic. .....it was the equivalent of God telling Jeremiah to go out and buy land.
The Word from God comes to Jeremiah with such jarring effect that the text is even precise about the timing - right when Zedekiah the Israelite King was finishing his first decade, and King Nebuchadnezzar was finishing nearly two decades of fierce rule.
Probably the worst possible time for this Word to come: Jerusalem is outnumbered, surrounded by a superior force. They have tried to ally with Egypt to fight the Babylonians. That, according to the king of Babylon, is the end. It gets worse - the Babylonian army sets up a siege against Jerusalem; Jeremiah is in jail. He is there because he dared to speak the annoying Word from God. He has dared to speak up and speak the truth about reality. Now, if the King has a different view than God has, obviously there is a problem.
Here’s the Word which landed Jeremiah in the guardhouse:
This is God speaking . . .the thing you have ignored, hoping it would just disappear, is about to happen. So I’m going to tell you plainly- your dreaded enemies are going to break through, and I’m the one letting them in. Your king Zedekiah will surrender, Nebuchadnezzar will take him to Babylon, and he will stay put there till I say otherwise.
So listen up - keep on fighting, you will lose.
Now, that should have resulted in Jeremiah being executed - yet he wasn’t. There must have been something about the unvarnished, raw quality of the Word that had the ring of truth to it. The message was clear: God?s judging actions would seem to end things forever for these people.
That raises questions for us. How do we masking our real condition by choosing only what we want to hear? Prophets speaking prophetic words better be on the appointment system and not the popular vote system - because otherwise they won’t be around long. How do we dance around reality and the truth about our lives because to do otherwise would be painful?
It’s easy, actually, to become the villagers who see the truth about the emperor and his clothes when he’s making a naked fool of himself. Everyone of the villagers see his nakedness but keep silent, because they have been told, "only the dull and incredibly stupid cannot see the new clothes." So the silence goes on; we continue believing in life as usual, choosing to ignore the messages that God sends to our bodies, our neighborhoods, our congregations, and our nations.
So Jeremiah sits in jail, silenced for speaking out and breaking the silence about the truth.
Strange thing, though. Even though the villagers ignore Jeremiah?s words, as they have throughout his gadfly career, deep down they know he?s right. They know the truth when they hear it. So the story begins with nothing in the present that encourages any investment in the future. "Hey, Jeremiah," God whispers to the prophet who sleeps between two guards.
"That you again, God?" “Yes, it’s me. Listen up. When your cousin drops in for a prison visit and starts talking about the family farm, go ahead and buy it.”
Note that Jeremiah says no fewer than five times "this is the Word of the Lord", as if to say, not my idea! So Jeremiah buys property from jail with the Babylonians at the gate. Imagine the press coverage in the village paper the next week: Real Shekels Nets Worthless Land." S
So what did the writer want us to walk away with? What is it about this story that will help us in our own discipleship?
This story is about betting on the future. It is the gospel of grace that promises a future even when we barely have a present. What a daring, risky act of faith in God-to believe the Word that says, "Don’t despair, don’t fear; this is not the last chapter for my people. In my time and through my grace, you will once again be back and buying and selling and living in peace."
To those who didn’t believe Jeremiah, his actions would have been cause for great humour. His purchase of land would seem completely against logic and completely silly. But the point is, even when things looked totally hopeless, Jeremiah didn’t just sit on his hands - he still did something to bring about significant change in the fortunes of the people. God doesn’t say to him “Leave it all to me.”, God says “Do something while you’re trying to see what comes next.” His purchase of the land is God’s Word of blessing in the midst of the reality of hopelessness. We discover that God has placed the people and land on loan to the Babylonians, but both will be given back, because the God of hope sent a Word.
This story reminds us that there will always be Babylonians on the doorstep. They have been there before, and they will be back again. In a struggling church facing financial difficulties - expenses seem to go up annually, making the budget shrink even as you seek new ways to be in mission-this story is for you. Not hard to feel surrounded by gloom and negatively that sees only next week, let alone a renewed, empowered future. Take this story and own it. Devour the Word
of God to this ancient people. Take a risk. Trust God. Even while you are trusting God, do something, but still continue to trust that God sees, hears and knows. Let this story be your hope - God’s grace will sustain where God leads.
There will be times when we face our own "self-invited troubles."times when we get boxed into a corner through misguided choices. That is, of all times, when we turn to God for courage and wisdom to go forward, to return to where God wants us to be. We can bet against the future because we know that God invites us into a hope of recovering, and becoming fruitful again.
Finally, the story teaches that God has no limitations - but that we do, and we cannot overcome those limitations without God. God can break out of all conventions and overcome all constraints - to bring about a new reality.
May the God of all hope in our future produce from our wayward fearful hearts a new spirit, new life, and a new way of living and thinking in the presence of God.
Sources:
1. Buying New Land - a sermon by Fran Ota
2. Betting on the Future, a sermon by Rev. Thomas Hall
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Saturday, September 11, 2010
A Land of Desolation and Mourning sermon based on Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28 September 12, 2010 Glen Ayr United Church
At that time this people and Jerusalem will be told, "A scorching wind from the barren heights in the desert blows toward my people, but not to winnow or cleanse; a wind too strong for that comes from me. Now I pronounce my judgments against them.
"My people are fools; they do not know me. They are senseless children; they have no understanding. They are skilled in doing evil; they know not how to do good." I looked at the earth, and it was formless and empty; and at the heavens, and their light was gone. I looked at the mountains, and they were quaking; all the hills were swaying. I looked, and there were no people; every bird in the sky had flown away. I looked, and the fruitful land was a desert; all its towns lay in ruins before God’s fierce anger. This is what God says: "The whole land will be ruined, though I will not destroy it completely. Therefore the earth will mourn and the heavens above grow dark, because I have spoken and will not relent, I have decided and will not turn back."
************************************************************
Nine years ago, terrorsts hijacked four passenger planes, flew two of them into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre. The other two crashed. More than two thousand people from seventy different nations died. We relive the images this weekend, and commensurate with the reliving has come the inevitable flag waving and false patriotism, with overtones of semi-Christian self-righteous anger.
In the reaction following that day, a so-called War on Terror was declared, which included both Afghanistan, and Iraq. In the case of Iraq, war was waged on a country which had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11. Yet by the time the war on Iraq was declared, more than fifty percent of North Americans had been hoodwinked into believing he was responsible.
Documented deaths in Afghanistan are 19,629 as of 2010. Documented deaths in Iraq are over 150,000 since the war began in 2003. Terror has been used to attack terror. Lands have been reduced to desolation, and destabilised to the point where they may never recover.
I can almost hear the words of God through Jeremiah’s mouth. My people do not know me, they are senseless children, they are skilled in doing evil, they don’t know how to do good. The earth will mourn and the heavens will grown dark.
As I watch the videos, the memorials and the services remembering those days - there is a part of me that knows it would be easy to fall back into a run-down of the number of times the US interfered in the Middle East in ways which were less than constructive - its role in supporting Afghanistan against the Russians, and funding Osama Bin Laden. It would be easy to go back and look at the history of the US in Iraq, Iran - and so many other places. It is easy to say when you meddle with other people’s countries, you have to expect something to happen sooner or later.
All of those things are true, documented historical events. But I think that is no longer where we have to put our focus. What has been learned? Has anything been learned?
Rev. Ron McCreary in Florida comments in his sermon “Prophets have the gift to be able to "see through"...if there had been a State Department or Pentagon analyst on the ground with Jeremiah the analyst would have seen the same thing Jeremiah reported. How can Jerusalem and Judea be so blind? How can they not have seen the buildup of Babylonian strength and come to the obvious conclusion? Often we see what we expect to see, and cannot comprehend what we do not expect even when it is right in front of us.”
Rev Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Centre in Gainesville, Florida, had planned to burn copies of the Qur'an yesterday on the anniversary of the attacks. I believe Jones was an opportunist of the first order. Had he wanted to burn the Qu’ran with his congregation, he could have just done it - but instead turned it into a media event. I also believe he had in his head a very clear picture of what he thinks Christian faith and American citizenship are about, and what Islam is about; and this is a picture which, truth be told, others share as well.
Jones discovered that a lot of people, Christians and Jews and Muslims, liberals, moderates, conservatives, religious leaders, political leaders and just plain common folk thought his ideas were all wrong. How could he have been so isolated in his thinking?
Jeremiah’s words echo - the land shall be desolate and the earth shall mourn. I don’t think we should ever forget the desolation and the mourning - those are part of learning. But if we continue to repeat the same patterns, we are doomed over and over again. Hatred, bigotry, media manipulation breed more hatred and bigotry, and more violence.
I have been heartened, in these days, to see that wisdom and sense have prevailed. The outcry from everywhere, directed to Rev. Terry Jones, has made it clear that we have indeed learned a lesson about fanaticism of any kind. I want to read to you part of an open letter from clergy in Tallahassee, Florida - directed to Rev. Jones.
“Although our faith traditions differ in significant ways, we have many things in common. Among these principles we share are respect for one another as human beings created in the image of God, love of neighbor, and the obligation not to bear false witness against one another.
To burn the Koran would violate all of these principles, and has already fanned the fires of religious hatred and bigotry. “
I asked a friend in New York to reflect on the days following the attacks. Here are her thoughts:
“I was overseas on Sept 11, 2001, but live about a 10 minute walk from the World Trade Center. When I saw the live footage on television, I said to myself, "what an awful movie!" It took me several minutes to realize that this was the news, and yes, this was happening in my hometown.
I arrived back in the US on September 15, on one of the first flights back into New York. JFK, unsurprisingly, was chaotic, though surprisingly lax with security at customs and at baggage claim. Outside the airport, which is about 12 miles east of Manhattan, huge smoke could be seen coming out of what was now renamed Ground Zero. As much as I wanted to look away, my eyes kept veering southwest, towards Lower Manhattan.
I wasn't able to get into my apartment for weeks, and it was only by luck that I had my passport with me, which was required to get back into the neighborhood. Our building super left messages on his voicemail daily to apprise us of the current status in the neighborhood while making sure that the building was secure. He and his team were just a few of the many, many everyday heroes during that time. A Red Cross station was set up in the building lobby, and huge piles of debris were stacked up, 1-2 stories high, at intersections. One apartment, in a building a few blocks closer to me to Ground Zero, had its entire external wall ripped off, and the insides could be seen, like a dollhouse had it been in a war zone. A smell of burnt building material filled the air, and there was constant noise of things being moved and rearranged.
As weeks went by, though, New Yorkers adapted to a new normalcy. The ever present National Guard became a part of the neighborhood. Walking right on the West Side Highway - which was closed for traffic - seemed like a regular thing. Seeing straight through what were the World Trade Centers gave the neighborhood new views, and going around Ground Zero, instead of zipping through the mall at the WTC was an inconvenience but not unlike other pedestrian issues the New Yorkers faced daily.
While we could never go back to before 9/11, little signs of New York as we remember it began cropping up. The newspaper guy outside the corner deli reappeared one morning. New palm trees were carted into the famed Winter Garden, promptly greeted with New York-style graffiti on the particle boards holding the place together welcoming them back. Ads featuring New York celebrities appeared on TV telling tourists that it was not only ok, but encouraged them to come visit.
And thus we plodded on. Streets reopened and new buildings popped up. Defiant barriers were erected around 'high alert' sites, such as the Stock Exchange and the train stations. A major effort to revitalize the downtown resulted in a rebirth of the area. There is now a Tiffany's on Wall Street. Around the corner is Hermes, and Whole Foods is just a couple of blocks north of Ground Zero on the West Side Highway. During the blackout of 2003, the city again came together with most people remembering how it was that awful day.
Nine years later, I'm not sure what we've learned. As with many large cities, much of the population is transient, so a good number of people who live here now weren't even in the city when it happened. Tourists walk by Ground Zero with a Starbucks iced latte in hand, some posing in front of it with a smile. Many do remember bitterly, though, and there is currently staunch opposition against building an Islamic Cultural Center several blocks from Ground Zero.
I've got mixed feelings, as do most New Yorkers I think. Sad doesn't seem to convey them completely enough. It's more of a combination of a loss of innocence and resolve to move forwards while not forgetting. As trite as it sounds, though, I think the least we can all do is to count our blessings and to appreciate the most basic things in life. Even the toughest and strongest of us can be made vulnerable.”
On this day - and on days to come - we mourn with New York. We know nothing will be the same. We mourn with all those who lost loved ones, not only on that day, but in the nine years of war which have ensued. The land in Iraq is desolate, and there is mourning. The land in Afghanistan is desolate, and there is mourning. God looked at the desolation, and mourned. God mourns yet. If you read Jeremiah carefully, God has not done this. God looks and sees the evil humans are capable of perpetrating on each other. God is angry that the children - all of them - have learned nothing.
We - each of us - can do something. Each of us individually has a power which, together, makes us strong enough to change the world. Our faith is supposed to BE a world-changing faith - the call of the Gospel is to change the world.
Today - I’m going to try to change the world.....
Sources:
1. Rev. Ron McCreary, Gray Memorial United Methodist Church, Tallahassee, Florida.
2. Open letter - Tallahassee Interfaith Clergy
"My people are fools; they do not know me. They are senseless children; they have no understanding. They are skilled in doing evil; they know not how to do good." I looked at the earth, and it was formless and empty; and at the heavens, and their light was gone. I looked at the mountains, and they were quaking; all the hills were swaying. I looked, and there were no people; every bird in the sky had flown away. I looked, and the fruitful land was a desert; all its towns lay in ruins before God’s fierce anger. This is what God says: "The whole land will be ruined, though I will not destroy it completely. Therefore the earth will mourn and the heavens above grow dark, because I have spoken and will not relent, I have decided and will not turn back."
************************************************************
Nine years ago, terrorsts hijacked four passenger planes, flew two of them into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre. The other two crashed. More than two thousand people from seventy different nations died. We relive the images this weekend, and commensurate with the reliving has come the inevitable flag waving and false patriotism, with overtones of semi-Christian self-righteous anger.
In the reaction following that day, a so-called War on Terror was declared, which included both Afghanistan, and Iraq. In the case of Iraq, war was waged on a country which had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11. Yet by the time the war on Iraq was declared, more than fifty percent of North Americans had been hoodwinked into believing he was responsible.
Documented deaths in Afghanistan are 19,629 as of 2010. Documented deaths in Iraq are over 150,000 since the war began in 2003. Terror has been used to attack terror. Lands have been reduced to desolation, and destabilised to the point where they may never recover.
I can almost hear the words of God through Jeremiah’s mouth. My people do not know me, they are senseless children, they are skilled in doing evil, they don’t know how to do good. The earth will mourn and the heavens will grown dark.
As I watch the videos, the memorials and the services remembering those days - there is a part of me that knows it would be easy to fall back into a run-down of the number of times the US interfered in the Middle East in ways which were less than constructive - its role in supporting Afghanistan against the Russians, and funding Osama Bin Laden. It would be easy to go back and look at the history of the US in Iraq, Iran - and so many other places. It is easy to say when you meddle with other people’s countries, you have to expect something to happen sooner or later.
All of those things are true, documented historical events. But I think that is no longer where we have to put our focus. What has been learned? Has anything been learned?
Rev. Ron McCreary in Florida comments in his sermon “Prophets have the gift to be able to "see through"...if there had been a State Department or Pentagon analyst on the ground with Jeremiah the analyst would have seen the same thing Jeremiah reported. How can Jerusalem and Judea be so blind? How can they not have seen the buildup of Babylonian strength and come to the obvious conclusion? Often we see what we expect to see, and cannot comprehend what we do not expect even when it is right in front of us.”
Rev Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Centre in Gainesville, Florida, had planned to burn copies of the Qur'an yesterday on the anniversary of the attacks. I believe Jones was an opportunist of the first order. Had he wanted to burn the Qu’ran with his congregation, he could have just done it - but instead turned it into a media event. I also believe he had in his head a very clear picture of what he thinks Christian faith and American citizenship are about, and what Islam is about; and this is a picture which, truth be told, others share as well.
Jones discovered that a lot of people, Christians and Jews and Muslims, liberals, moderates, conservatives, religious leaders, political leaders and just plain common folk thought his ideas were all wrong. How could he have been so isolated in his thinking?
Jeremiah’s words echo - the land shall be desolate and the earth shall mourn. I don’t think we should ever forget the desolation and the mourning - those are part of learning. But if we continue to repeat the same patterns, we are doomed over and over again. Hatred, bigotry, media manipulation breed more hatred and bigotry, and more violence.
I have been heartened, in these days, to see that wisdom and sense have prevailed. The outcry from everywhere, directed to Rev. Terry Jones, has made it clear that we have indeed learned a lesson about fanaticism of any kind. I want to read to you part of an open letter from clergy in Tallahassee, Florida - directed to Rev. Jones.
“Although our faith traditions differ in significant ways, we have many things in common. Among these principles we share are respect for one another as human beings created in the image of God, love of neighbor, and the obligation not to bear false witness against one another.
To burn the Koran would violate all of these principles, and has already fanned the fires of religious hatred and bigotry. “
I asked a friend in New York to reflect on the days following the attacks. Here are her thoughts:
“I was overseas on Sept 11, 2001, but live about a 10 minute walk from the World Trade Center. When I saw the live footage on television, I said to myself, "what an awful movie!" It took me several minutes to realize that this was the news, and yes, this was happening in my hometown.
I arrived back in the US on September 15, on one of the first flights back into New York. JFK, unsurprisingly, was chaotic, though surprisingly lax with security at customs and at baggage claim. Outside the airport, which is about 12 miles east of Manhattan, huge smoke could be seen coming out of what was now renamed Ground Zero. As much as I wanted to look away, my eyes kept veering southwest, towards Lower Manhattan.
I wasn't able to get into my apartment for weeks, and it was only by luck that I had my passport with me, which was required to get back into the neighborhood. Our building super left messages on his voicemail daily to apprise us of the current status in the neighborhood while making sure that the building was secure. He and his team were just a few of the many, many everyday heroes during that time. A Red Cross station was set up in the building lobby, and huge piles of debris were stacked up, 1-2 stories high, at intersections. One apartment, in a building a few blocks closer to me to Ground Zero, had its entire external wall ripped off, and the insides could be seen, like a dollhouse had it been in a war zone. A smell of burnt building material filled the air, and there was constant noise of things being moved and rearranged.
As weeks went by, though, New Yorkers adapted to a new normalcy. The ever present National Guard became a part of the neighborhood. Walking right on the West Side Highway - which was closed for traffic - seemed like a regular thing. Seeing straight through what were the World Trade Centers gave the neighborhood new views, and going around Ground Zero, instead of zipping through the mall at the WTC was an inconvenience but not unlike other pedestrian issues the New Yorkers faced daily.
While we could never go back to before 9/11, little signs of New York as we remember it began cropping up. The newspaper guy outside the corner deli reappeared one morning. New palm trees were carted into the famed Winter Garden, promptly greeted with New York-style graffiti on the particle boards holding the place together welcoming them back. Ads featuring New York celebrities appeared on TV telling tourists that it was not only ok, but encouraged them to come visit.
And thus we plodded on. Streets reopened and new buildings popped up. Defiant barriers were erected around 'high alert' sites, such as the Stock Exchange and the train stations. A major effort to revitalize the downtown resulted in a rebirth of the area. There is now a Tiffany's on Wall Street. Around the corner is Hermes, and Whole Foods is just a couple of blocks north of Ground Zero on the West Side Highway. During the blackout of 2003, the city again came together with most people remembering how it was that awful day.
Nine years later, I'm not sure what we've learned. As with many large cities, much of the population is transient, so a good number of people who live here now weren't even in the city when it happened. Tourists walk by Ground Zero with a Starbucks iced latte in hand, some posing in front of it with a smile. Many do remember bitterly, though, and there is currently staunch opposition against building an Islamic Cultural Center several blocks from Ground Zero.
I've got mixed feelings, as do most New Yorkers I think. Sad doesn't seem to convey them completely enough. It's more of a combination of a loss of innocence and resolve to move forwards while not forgetting. As trite as it sounds, though, I think the least we can all do is to count our blessings and to appreciate the most basic things in life. Even the toughest and strongest of us can be made vulnerable.”
On this day - and on days to come - we mourn with New York. We know nothing will be the same. We mourn with all those who lost loved ones, not only on that day, but in the nine years of war which have ensued. The land in Iraq is desolate, and there is mourning. The land in Afghanistan is desolate, and there is mourning. God looked at the desolation, and mourned. God mourns yet. If you read Jeremiah carefully, God has not done this. God looks and sees the evil humans are capable of perpetrating on each other. God is angry that the children - all of them - have learned nothing.
We - each of us - can do something. Each of us individually has a power which, together, makes us strong enough to change the world. Our faith is supposed to BE a world-changing faith - the call of the Gospel is to change the world.
Today - I’m going to try to change the world.....
Sources:
1. Rev. Ron McCreary, Gray Memorial United Methodist Church, Tallahassee, Florida.
2. Open letter - Tallahassee Interfaith Clergy
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