Proper 25
Sermon
GOOD GOD, WHERE In The WORLD Are YOU?
Sermons for the Last Third of the Pentecost Season
Jeremiah, the Crazy Old Coot Who Was Right When the World Was Wrong; How God Delivers and How Great it Is; and How to Say "Thanks."
"Well, I don't like to say, 'I told you so', but ..." You've heard the line, maybe used it. You issue your warnings or give your advice. It is not taken. The events that follow fulfill all those warnings you issued, and then you say it or at least feel it. "Well, I don't like to say, 'I told you so' but I did." To be really truthful, there is often a definite feeling of satisfaction to say, "I told you so." Isn't there? Admit it now.
Few people in history had a more delicious opportunity to say that than the prophet Jeremiah. For forty years he had been warning them "You lie, cheat, steal, you run after other gods, you take advantage of the weak, you neglect the poor. God will not tolerate this forever; his justice will fall on your heads and your nation will be destroyed."
And for forty years they "pooh-poohed" him. Crazy old coot, Jeremiah, prophet of doom, nabob of negativism, perennial "nay-sayer," pessimist, pessimist. Our economy is strong, the poor are quiet, our enemies are at bay, God loves us, "pooh-pooh, Jeremiah, crazy old coot!"
For forty years that's what he said and what they said. From time to time, of course, they were considerably nastier than that. Periodically, they got angry enough at him that they had Jeremiah arrested, tried and convicted of treason for that kind of talk.
But over those years, clouds were gathering. Then one day, the word circulated in the market places, "The current negotiations between our King Zedekiah and Babylon's Nebuchadnezzar did not go well. It is said a Babylonian army is on the march." As the days went on, the rumors thickened and became a certain report. And then some days after that, the shout came from a watchtower in the wall. "Army sighted, there they are." God! tens of thousands of them in closed ranks, disciplined, their armor glistening in the sun.
The gates of the city were slammed shut. Huge bars slid into position, while the glistening army surrounded them. Methodically, they set up their tents and command posts and moved the siege machines into position. Having sealed off the city, they settled down for the wait. Week after week passed, month after month - a year.
In the city, food supplies were rationed thinner and thinner. Month after month, food supplies were exhausted. They began to eat rats and bugs, and even bodies of their own dead. Dysentery, starvation, body sores and disease. Hundreds were now dying each day.
Finally, with scarcely a healthy person left in the city, the Babylonian commander, Nebuzaradan by name, at the head of his relaxed and well-fed army, confidently advised his king, "The time has come, we now can do it, resistance will be negligible." The battering rams were pushed and winched into position against the north wall and began their work. In a couple of days, the wall was breached and in they poured - shouting, laughing, slashing, raping, pillaging; terror, screaming, running, falling, death, flames. For days it went on, and finally stopped. After all, even rape and slaughter ceased to be fun after a while.
Zedekiah, the king of the Jews, was captured. First, they let him watch as his sons were killed before his eyes; then they blinded him so that would be the last thing he ever saw. Manacled, chained, totally humiliated, he was marched through the streets of Babylon to the jeers and spit of its citizenry. Jerusalem, itself, was in total ruins, every building, public and private, every foot of wall. This happened at the end of summer. Those who were left in the city still would have to survive a winter with no time left to plant a crop, with little body strength even to pile together some kind of lean-to. Even though it was all over, the dying would continue.
"I told you so!" Well, there really are times when the consequences are so dire and disastrous, you really don't want to say, "I told you so." And Jeremiah, prophet of doom, crazy old coot, he didn't say it.
Instead, he said what we read in the Old Testament lesson for the day. "For thus says the Lord: 'Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob, and raise shouts for the chief of the nations; proclaim, give praise, and say, 'The Lord has saved his people, the remnats of Israel.' Behold I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth, among them the blind and lame, the woman with child and her who is in travail, together; a great company, they shall return here. With weeping they shall come, and with consolations I will lead them back, I will make them walk by brooks of water, in a straight path in which they shall not stumble; for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my first-born."
Jeremiah, crazy old coot, at this point, he begins to promise a restoration. Against all these odds, with Babylon solidly in the saddle as the most powerful nation the world had ever seen, with the Hebrew nation, no exaggeration to say, wiped from the face of the earth, he is promising restoration!
What a totally ridiculous sound that must have had! To promise in the name of God such a thing at a time like that! Little wonder that they again thought he was insane.
But, of course, we know what they could not know, namely, that just as Jeremiah was right the first time about the destruction, he was right the second time about the restoration. And, because we, from where we stand, know that, we take, as the theme of this text, not as we might, "words of hope in hopeless times" but a theme far more in keeping with the Gospel's on how God delivers.
Because Jeremiah's words came true. As insanely impossible as they sounded, they came true. He even had put a time line on it, seventy years to the restoration, he said (Jeremiah 29:10) and, give or take a few, that was it. Just as he said in this text, they were able to come back in caravans, bundles on their backs, pots and pans ringing away slung across the haunches of their pack animals, laughing and crying with joy as, with each approaching mile, they began to recognize the streams and hills their parents had described so many times. They were coming home, to a home they had never seen, but the only place a Jew could ever call "home." "Oh, Jerusalem, we are coming back to you and you will be ours again! Again you belong to us! Oh God, you are the father of Israel, you are bringing us back!"
There are those times when God really does do it. And we are delivered. There are those times when God gives what we ask. "Bar Timaeus, receive your sight!" There are those times. The surgeon smiled. "You are going to be o.k.; the operation was a complete success." There are times when God delivers. No more of those stinking unemployment checks! I got a job, a real job, a good job! "It's a girl! After these months of pain and bleeding and fear, we have a daughter and she is whole, strong and healthy! Look at her! She is a miracle - a miracle." There are times when God delivers! Sam, I've been praying for you, how I've been praying! And you are not going to die. We are going to have you with us! There are times when God delivers! "Oh Jerusalem! you are ours again!" There are those times when God comes through just as we hoped, and he delivers.
What can we say about, what can we learn from these times? Any general principles in this restoration here in Jeremiah?
First, and centrally, it comes by the grace of God and not by our deserving. What was deserved was the destruction that they earned. The restoration, that was by grace. No way was that earned.
Astounding how often that absolutely central point is lost, is not understood. "God, all these years I've been coming to church. All these offerings I've put in the plate, not always that much but you know I've had other responsibilites. I obey the law, try to be a helpful neighbor to most people I can. God, you can't let this happen to me. It wouldn't be fair. You wouldn't be keeping your side of the bargain. This should happen to somebody else, I've been a good boy."
We can't pray that way. If it comes, if we are delivered, it is not because God owes us. It comes by grace, not because of what we are. Because of what he is. Can't pray that way, "God you owe me." Jeremiah, and finally his people, knew what was owed, and they got their deliverance. That was grace.
Well, how do I pray for that grace to get it? No, not that either, wrong again. It is not a matter of proper prayer technique. There is no proper protocol here on how we approach the throne of grace. If we fail to do it this way, God, like some offended oriental despot, will dismiss the petition and banish us from his presence. But, if we use this proper approach, we will have his ear, he will respond. So we need to learn that proper protocol, sharpen our prayer technique, and attend a seminar on successful prayer. No, not that.
It does not have to do with technique. You want proof of that? Listen to this prayer - one written by one of the exiles, praying for restoration. Listen to this plaintive cry: "If I forget you, oh Jerusalem, let my right hand wither ... if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy ..." But then, "O daughter of Babylon, you devastator. Happy shall be he who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock." (Psalm 137)
A hateful, wicked prayer. Hard to conceive a prayer more deserving to be thrust aside. Yet that prayer was granted.
"Lord, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless not my will, but thine be done." A beautiful prayer. A perfect prayer. But, petition denied. Drink. I rest my case. Not proper prayer technique. That's not what brings grace and deliverance. Grace comes by grace alone - His grace alone.
That leaves us here. "God, I cannot ask this because I deserve it. I don't. I can ask it and do because I want it. I can ask it and do because I know you have the power to grant it. I can ask it and do because you are a God of grace and you welcome my asking. Should you grant it, I will be grateful. If you should not, I will ask for your strength to bear that. You have promised to hear; I have spoken. You have promised to answer; I wait."
Not by deserving. Not by proper technique. By Grace that is first and central, that we can take as lesson one in this experience of deliverance - restoration.
Our job, our doing is in the nature of responding - responding to the deliverance. There should be nothing surprising there, because all of our life is like that. Historically, we live in response to the creation of this world and our human race. Abraham, in response to his call. Moses and the children of Israel in the response to the Exodus. Jeremiah and his exile in response to their deliverance. We Christians in response to the deliverance wrought in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Individually, in response to our own creation and placement here, and to our own Baptism by which we are welcomed into and made a part of this whole long history of all the deliverances of the delivering God.
How do we respond? Jeremiah's words begin rather specifically. "Sing aloud with gladness ... raise shouts ... give praise."
We respond simply by praising God. Not that he needs it, but just as any of us appreciate a "thank you." It is appropriate and ought to be as natural as breathing.
We do this in our worship. It is possible to make the case that praising God is the major component of our worship. The person who says, "I came to church but didn't get anything out of it" may have heard a bad sermon, and for that we pastors must be held responsible. But that person has also come to church with a fundamental misunderstanding about what goes on here. If you come primarily to "get something," you are perhaps better advised to go to a Bible class or one of those classes designed for "seekers" and "explorers." Our worship is not merely a religious lecture introduced with invocation and concluded with benediction nor is the Lord's Supper the mere ingestion of a bit of bread and wine. We come to church and worship to "give praise." To praise God in the ancient words of the psalms. To praise him in the traditional words of the liturgy. To praise him in the time honored words of old hymns. To praise him in fresh words when we sing to the Lord "a new song." We praise him in the words of Scripture for what he has been and done. We praise him in the words of the Creeds for what he is. We praise him in our spoken and silent prayers for what he will yet be and do.
First, in response to our deliverance, we praise him. Another word Jeremiah uses, "proclaim." Second, we witness. We don't want to flaunt our buildings; but we build our churches as monuments to what God has done. We don't want to make a show of our religion; but our coming here is a testimony to what God has done for us and we want the world to see - not a dribble of people, but crowds. We don't want to be hard-sell salesmen or shouting propagandists, but we want to find our quiet and genuine ways to tell the story of what God has done for us and is to us and how he is the sustainer of our lives and all life. We don't do good to be "do-gooders" or do good as a hook so you can hit them with that hard-sell. But our doing good is a response and reflection and witness to the good deeds God has done us.
So, out of his powerful and abounding grace, there are those times that he delivers. We, then, in joyful response praise him and proclaim his goodness.
"Well, I don't like to say, 'I told you so', but ..." You've heard the line, maybe used it. You issue your warnings or give your advice. It is not taken. The events that follow fulfill all those warnings you issued, and then you say it or at least feel it. "Well, I don't like to say, 'I told you so' but I did." To be really truthful, there is often a definite feeling of satisfaction to say, "I told you so." Isn't there? Admit it now.
Few people in history had a more delicious opportunity to say that than the prophet Jeremiah. For forty years he had been warning them "You lie, cheat, steal, you run after other gods, you take advantage of the weak, you neglect the poor. God will not tolerate this forever; his justice will fall on your heads and your nation will be destroyed."
And for forty years they "pooh-poohed" him. Crazy old coot, Jeremiah, prophet of doom, nabob of negativism, perennial "nay-sayer," pessimist, pessimist. Our economy is strong, the poor are quiet, our enemies are at bay, God loves us, "pooh-pooh, Jeremiah, crazy old coot!"
For forty years that's what he said and what they said. From time to time, of course, they were considerably nastier than that. Periodically, they got angry enough at him that they had Jeremiah arrested, tried and convicted of treason for that kind of talk.
But over those years, clouds were gathering. Then one day, the word circulated in the market places, "The current negotiations between our King Zedekiah and Babylon's Nebuchadnezzar did not go well. It is said a Babylonian army is on the march." As the days went on, the rumors thickened and became a certain report. And then some days after that, the shout came from a watchtower in the wall. "Army sighted, there they are." God! tens of thousands of them in closed ranks, disciplined, their armor glistening in the sun.
The gates of the city were slammed shut. Huge bars slid into position, while the glistening army surrounded them. Methodically, they set up their tents and command posts and moved the siege machines into position. Having sealed off the city, they settled down for the wait. Week after week passed, month after month - a year.
In the city, food supplies were rationed thinner and thinner. Month after month, food supplies were exhausted. They began to eat rats and bugs, and even bodies of their own dead. Dysentery, starvation, body sores and disease. Hundreds were now dying each day.
Finally, with scarcely a healthy person left in the city, the Babylonian commander, Nebuzaradan by name, at the head of his relaxed and well-fed army, confidently advised his king, "The time has come, we now can do it, resistance will be negligible." The battering rams were pushed and winched into position against the north wall and began their work. In a couple of days, the wall was breached and in they poured - shouting, laughing, slashing, raping, pillaging; terror, screaming, running, falling, death, flames. For days it went on, and finally stopped. After all, even rape and slaughter ceased to be fun after a while.
Zedekiah, the king of the Jews, was captured. First, they let him watch as his sons were killed before his eyes; then they blinded him so that would be the last thing he ever saw. Manacled, chained, totally humiliated, he was marched through the streets of Babylon to the jeers and spit of its citizenry. Jerusalem, itself, was in total ruins, every building, public and private, every foot of wall. This happened at the end of summer. Those who were left in the city still would have to survive a winter with no time left to plant a crop, with little body strength even to pile together some kind of lean-to. Even though it was all over, the dying would continue.
"I told you so!" Well, there really are times when the consequences are so dire and disastrous, you really don't want to say, "I told you so." And Jeremiah, prophet of doom, crazy old coot, he didn't say it.
Instead, he said what we read in the Old Testament lesson for the day. "For thus says the Lord: 'Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob, and raise shouts for the chief of the nations; proclaim, give praise, and say, 'The Lord has saved his people, the remnats of Israel.' Behold I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth, among them the blind and lame, the woman with child and her who is in travail, together; a great company, they shall return here. With weeping they shall come, and with consolations I will lead them back, I will make them walk by brooks of water, in a straight path in which they shall not stumble; for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my first-born."
Jeremiah, crazy old coot, at this point, he begins to promise a restoration. Against all these odds, with Babylon solidly in the saddle as the most powerful nation the world had ever seen, with the Hebrew nation, no exaggeration to say, wiped from the face of the earth, he is promising restoration!
What a totally ridiculous sound that must have had! To promise in the name of God such a thing at a time like that! Little wonder that they again thought he was insane.
But, of course, we know what they could not know, namely, that just as Jeremiah was right the first time about the destruction, he was right the second time about the restoration. And, because we, from where we stand, know that, we take, as the theme of this text, not as we might, "words of hope in hopeless times" but a theme far more in keeping with the Gospel's on how God delivers.
Because Jeremiah's words came true. As insanely impossible as they sounded, they came true. He even had put a time line on it, seventy years to the restoration, he said (Jeremiah 29:10) and, give or take a few, that was it. Just as he said in this text, they were able to come back in caravans, bundles on their backs, pots and pans ringing away slung across the haunches of their pack animals, laughing and crying with joy as, with each approaching mile, they began to recognize the streams and hills their parents had described so many times. They were coming home, to a home they had never seen, but the only place a Jew could ever call "home." "Oh, Jerusalem, we are coming back to you and you will be ours again! Again you belong to us! Oh God, you are the father of Israel, you are bringing us back!"
There are those times when God really does do it. And we are delivered. There are those times when God gives what we ask. "Bar Timaeus, receive your sight!" There are those times. The surgeon smiled. "You are going to be o.k.; the operation was a complete success." There are times when God delivers. No more of those stinking unemployment checks! I got a job, a real job, a good job! "It's a girl! After these months of pain and bleeding and fear, we have a daughter and she is whole, strong and healthy! Look at her! She is a miracle - a miracle." There are times when God delivers! Sam, I've been praying for you, how I've been praying! And you are not going to die. We are going to have you with us! There are times when God delivers! "Oh Jerusalem! you are ours again!" There are those times when God comes through just as we hoped, and he delivers.
What can we say about, what can we learn from these times? Any general principles in this restoration here in Jeremiah?
First, and centrally, it comes by the grace of God and not by our deserving. What was deserved was the destruction that they earned. The restoration, that was by grace. No way was that earned.
Astounding how often that absolutely central point is lost, is not understood. "God, all these years I've been coming to church. All these offerings I've put in the plate, not always that much but you know I've had other responsibilites. I obey the law, try to be a helpful neighbor to most people I can. God, you can't let this happen to me. It wouldn't be fair. You wouldn't be keeping your side of the bargain. This should happen to somebody else, I've been a good boy."
We can't pray that way. If it comes, if we are delivered, it is not because God owes us. It comes by grace, not because of what we are. Because of what he is. Can't pray that way, "God you owe me." Jeremiah, and finally his people, knew what was owed, and they got their deliverance. That was grace.
Well, how do I pray for that grace to get it? No, not that either, wrong again. It is not a matter of proper prayer technique. There is no proper protocol here on how we approach the throne of grace. If we fail to do it this way, God, like some offended oriental despot, will dismiss the petition and banish us from his presence. But, if we use this proper approach, we will have his ear, he will respond. So we need to learn that proper protocol, sharpen our prayer technique, and attend a seminar on successful prayer. No, not that.
It does not have to do with technique. You want proof of that? Listen to this prayer - one written by one of the exiles, praying for restoration. Listen to this plaintive cry: "If I forget you, oh Jerusalem, let my right hand wither ... if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy ..." But then, "O daughter of Babylon, you devastator. Happy shall be he who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock." (Psalm 137)
A hateful, wicked prayer. Hard to conceive a prayer more deserving to be thrust aside. Yet that prayer was granted.
"Lord, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless not my will, but thine be done." A beautiful prayer. A perfect prayer. But, petition denied. Drink. I rest my case. Not proper prayer technique. That's not what brings grace and deliverance. Grace comes by grace alone - His grace alone.
That leaves us here. "God, I cannot ask this because I deserve it. I don't. I can ask it and do because I want it. I can ask it and do because I know you have the power to grant it. I can ask it and do because you are a God of grace and you welcome my asking. Should you grant it, I will be grateful. If you should not, I will ask for your strength to bear that. You have promised to hear; I have spoken. You have promised to answer; I wait."
Not by deserving. Not by proper technique. By Grace that is first and central, that we can take as lesson one in this experience of deliverance - restoration.
Our job, our doing is in the nature of responding - responding to the deliverance. There should be nothing surprising there, because all of our life is like that. Historically, we live in response to the creation of this world and our human race. Abraham, in response to his call. Moses and the children of Israel in the response to the Exodus. Jeremiah and his exile in response to their deliverance. We Christians in response to the deliverance wrought in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Individually, in response to our own creation and placement here, and to our own Baptism by which we are welcomed into and made a part of this whole long history of all the deliverances of the delivering God.
How do we respond? Jeremiah's words begin rather specifically. "Sing aloud with gladness ... raise shouts ... give praise."
We respond simply by praising God. Not that he needs it, but just as any of us appreciate a "thank you." It is appropriate and ought to be as natural as breathing.
We do this in our worship. It is possible to make the case that praising God is the major component of our worship. The person who says, "I came to church but didn't get anything out of it" may have heard a bad sermon, and for that we pastors must be held responsible. But that person has also come to church with a fundamental misunderstanding about what goes on here. If you come primarily to "get something," you are perhaps better advised to go to a Bible class or one of those classes designed for "seekers" and "explorers." Our worship is not merely a religious lecture introduced with invocation and concluded with benediction nor is the Lord's Supper the mere ingestion of a bit of bread and wine. We come to church and worship to "give praise." To praise God in the ancient words of the psalms. To praise him in the traditional words of the liturgy. To praise him in the time honored words of old hymns. To praise him in fresh words when we sing to the Lord "a new song." We praise him in the words of Scripture for what he has been and done. We praise him in the words of the Creeds for what he is. We praise him in our spoken and silent prayers for what he will yet be and do.
First, in response to our deliverance, we praise him. Another word Jeremiah uses, "proclaim." Second, we witness. We don't want to flaunt our buildings; but we build our churches as monuments to what God has done. We don't want to make a show of our religion; but our coming here is a testimony to what God has done for us and we want the world to see - not a dribble of people, but crowds. We don't want to be hard-sell salesmen or shouting propagandists, but we want to find our quiet and genuine ways to tell the story of what God has done for us and is to us and how he is the sustainer of our lives and all life. We don't do good to be "do-gooders" or do good as a hook so you can hit them with that hard-sell. But our doing good is a response and reflection and witness to the good deeds God has done us.
So, out of his powerful and abounding grace, there are those times that he delivers. We, then, in joyful response praise him and proclaim his goodness.
