September 26, 2010 - Proper 21, Year C (RCL)
For the last few weeks
we’ve been hearing the words of the prophet Jeremiah,
and for the most part
it hasn’t been
good news.
Week after week
we’ve heard words of judgement.
The people of God
have messed up,
and the consequences
are, pretty much, destruction.
And by the time of today’s reading
that destruction
has begun to happen.
It’s somewhere around
587 BCE
and about ten years earlier
the armies of Babylon
had invaded Israel
defeated Jerusalem
and taken a whole bunch of people
captive,
taken them far away
to Babylon,
or so they said.
But no one
was really sure.
Babylon
was a long way away from Jerusalem,
The families and friends of the captives
hadn’t heard anything from them.
for all they knew
they could be dead.
And after ten years
of relative peace and quiet
they had begun to rebuild their lives,
begun to think
that life could be something like normal
again.
But then the worst happened.
One day
there had been a smudge of dust on the horizon,
and the next
it had grown
and then suddenly overnight
it had become an army
and not just on the horizon.
It was right up close
to the city walls,
and not just one one side.
All around the city
the armies waited, blocking every way in
and out.
The people of Jerusalem,
the people of God
were under siege.
And in the middle of it all, the prophet Jeremiah
was in prison.
He’d been dumb enough to suggest
that the best response to the siege
would be for the people to lay down their arms
and surrender.
Bad idea.
Not so much the idea of surrender. Because the reality is, if you’re vastly outnumbered,
it can be better to surrender
and stay alive to fight another time
than to try to fight a battle you have no hope of winning
and die in the attempt,
and along with you
the whole community.
Sometimes surrender
is the best option.
And even more so,
when you have God whispering in your ear
that the opposing army
is actually doing God’s work.
Surrender may not be a bad idea,
but it’s usually the sort of idea
that’s best left to the king and generals
to suggest.
Not such a good idea
for a lowly prophet.
No wonder Jeremiah
was thrown into prison.
But it was what he did then
that had the people
really confused.
Jeremiah
was known as a bad news prophet.
He preached about sin. About judgement.
About destruction.
And then, in the middle of all the disaster
Jeremiah
changes his message.
All the time
that things were looking good,
he preached bad news.
Now that things were bad,
he suddenly started preaching good news.
And not just preaching it,
but acting as if it
were true.
Jeremiah sat in prison
in the middle of a city that was surrounded by armies,
a city that was under siege and going to fall
any day.
Any day
the city would be overrun by Babylonians,
and the residents, those who were left from ten years before,
they would be taken away into exile. Or worse.
Jeremiah
sat in prison,
and then he signed a contract
to buy a piece
of land.
A piece of land
that had been in his family
for generations,
and he bought it
so it would stay in the family
for generations to come.
How stupid
can you get?
The Babylonians
were taking over.
That land
would belong to him
for about three weeks
if he was lucky,
three days
the way the siege was going.
The Babylonians
would take over,
and the land would be gone
and everything he spent on it
with it.
No wonder the people were confused.
And Jeremiah gave the deed
to his trusted friend, Baruch,
the one who acted as his scribe,
and he did it in the presence of witnesses
so that everyone would know about his purchase.
And he sealed it in a clay jar, to preserve it.
As a sign.
A sign not of stupidity
but of hope.
A sign, commanded by God,
to show that all was not last.
The time would come
when houses and fields and vineyards
would be sold again.
A sign that the exiles would return
and families would go back to their ancestral lands,
and life would, one day, return to normal,
And the people of Israel
would be safe once again
in the promised land.
The situation of the Israelites
when Jeremiah bought his land
is not so strange to us.
While it’s unlikely that in the twenty first century
an army would surround Washington D.C.,
block all the roads
and hold our leaders
in a state of siege,
we do know what it’s like to feel hopeless.
This week we heard reports
that the recession
is officially over. In fact, it’s apparently been over
for more than a year, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research
Yeah right.
The economic indicators
may be saying that
but for anyone who’s out of the job, it won’t feel like the recession’s over
until they get back to work.
And for the rest of us,
it would be really nice to actually get some interest on our savings, and and have a little cash for extras.
And it’s not just the economy.
There are countless ways in which we sometimes find ourselves
despairing.
When we go to get on an airplane to go on vacation or business,
and have to face long lines
and searches
and fees for just about everything,
and we remember how it used to be
when you could drop off your two free pieces of luggage,
walk up to the gate and get on the plane
and enjoy - it’s that’s the word for it - a meal.
And get to your destination on time.
When we see the amount of money spent on schools
and yet still see kids
who can’t read or do basic math,
and haven’t a hope of getting to college
because their schools
for one reason or another
aren’t able
to educate them
or their home lives
are such a mess
that they can’t focus
on school.
When we realize
that moral values have changed,
and the standards that that were once held by everyone
are no longer universal.
Or here in the church.
Many of us have stories of years past
when the youth group was huge
and they had to put seats in the aisle
to fit all the people
and the Sunday School
was bursting at the seams.
When everyone you knew
was at church
every Sunday,
and there was no shortage of people to do things.
But there is hope.
I see it every time I look out
and see the children here in this congregation.
Yes, they’re noisy at times,
and they wriggle,
and sometimes miss the solemnity of parts of the service.
But they are here.
In spite of busy schedules
and Sunday sports
and birthday parties,
they are here, joining in worshipping God.
They are
a sign
of hope.
When I walk into the library
and see adults with children
helping them to read,
working math problems,
giving them not just academic help
but the experience of an adult
who is interested in them
Another
sign
of hope.
When I listen, as I did on Thursday
to the story of two men.
The grandson of one
shot and killed the son of another.
For no good reason.
And they now travel together around the world
speaking about forgiveness and reconciliation.
And what makes it even more profound,
is that the father whose son was killed is a Muslim,
and the grandfather a Christian,
and even with their religious differences,
they can speak of forgiveness and reconciliation.
And to make it practical, the father
has offered the grandson a job
when he gets out of jail.
That’s a sign
of hope.
And also this week
I heard an interview on NPR
with Ingrid Betancourt,
the Columbian senator and presidential candidate
who was held as a hostage by rebels in the jungle
for six years.
And she said
that one of the high moments of all those years
was when she discovered the Bible and finally read it from the first page to the last. And it changed her life. She said that she discovered things that were answering questions that she had in her heart, and she discovered a voice that she fell in love with because it was a voice that -- it was intelligent, and it had humor, and it could love. (http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2010-09-23/ingrid-betancourt-even-silence-has-end/transcript).
Another
sign of hope.
And finally today, as we celebrate the faithfulness of many of our members in marriage.
Yesterday
I officiated at the wedding of a young couple.
During the sermon
I was talking about love
and the way that love
is not just about the big statement of a wedding
and the overwhelming feelings
of new love,
but the everyday decisions
that support your love.
And I told them
about the fourteen couples in our congregation
who have been married for more than fifty years.
And everyone suddenly became attentive.
You are
a sign of hope.
A sign that
in this world
where we constantly hear
about marriages that are falling apart,
there are some marriages, many marriages
that are still strong.
Many of you here, probably most of you,
have had difficult patches.
But you have stuck it out.
Your love has changed;
I doubt it is the same
as when you first married,
just as you are not the same people
as you were back then.
But your relationships
are a testimony to your love
and your faithfulness.
You are
a sign of hope.
And all these
point to the greater hope
that we have in Christ,
a hope that does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit,
a sign and seal
of the God who is with us
and will continue to be with us,
in this life and in the next.
Thanks be to God.
© Raewynne J. Whiteley 2010