NOW WHAT?
Jeremiah 29:1-14
[Since spoken communication differs from written, some of the grammar and syntax of this transcript may seem awkward in written form. To keep integrity with the spirit of the original delivery, the transcript stays close to the exact words spoken.]
This morning is Part 2 of a two-part mini-series on Jeremiah. I do want to invite you to read the insert in your bulletin that gives a little background to the scripture that Mary Alice just read, and that we're going to be reflecting on this morning.
As I begin this sermon--I'm going to begin as is, I find, my habit…with a question. And it's a question that's actually going to carry forward to the next series that I'll be doing on the Parables. So stay tuned--we're going to keep thinking about this question. Here it is, the question for the day: What does it mean to live the blessed life? What does it mean to live the blessed life under God?
And as we look at Jeremiah, we're going to consider that question mostly in the context of what it means for a nation, a people, to live the blessed life under God. As I, I think, mentioned in a sermon this past summer, about the prophets--the prophets of ancient Israel were less concerned about individual morality than they were about public morality. Individual action is important to the extent that it affects the health of the whole people. And so we'll be looking at, as we look at Jeremiah, what does it mean for a nation to live under the blessing of God?
Let's begin here. For the popular mind of the people, at the time of Jeremiah, they might have thought that the baseline for God's blessing was protection. Being the people of God, and having God's favor, meant that God will protect us. In a way, whether that's true or not is the central question in the book of the prophet Jeremiah. Because Jeremiah does not believe that. Jeremiah's prophecy is about the fact that no, just because we are God's people doesn't mean we can do anything we wish and violate the covenant that the people have made with God. It's not automatic, that God will protect the people just because they are somehow chosen of God. But, living under the blessing, the popular mindset would have been God's favor, God's blessing, equals protection.
Further, living the blessed life meant possessing the land. The people of God had been promised the land where they were living (why it is sometimes called the promised land): the land flowing with milk and honey that was promised to the children of Abraham. And the people had to endure slavery in Egypt, and 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, and bloody conquests and finally… "we've got the land, God is never going to let that get away again."
And in the center of that land is the capitol, the religious center, Jerusalem, and the temple, where it was thought that God, literally, dwelt. If you're living in ancient Israel, you don't just go to your local church in Nazareth to worship, you have to go to Jerusalem, to the temple where God lives. Maybe there's a synagogue in your hometown, where you come together and talk, but the temple is where real worship happens. And so there was the idea, in Jeremiah's time, that God would never let anything happen to that, to the temple. And the prophets, those Jeremiah calls false prophets, who benefited from the status quo, basically held forth this message, this party line: don't worry, be happy. Nothing bad is going to happen. And so don't worry about the kind of rapacious economic policy or about how we are violating those values upon which this nation was founded.
So that's what it means to live the blessed life: to have a land, and a people, and to have protection. And as we learned--we spoke about this last Sunday, as I spoke of the false prophets who were saying to the people, basically, that nothing possibly could happen to us, and how Jeremiah prophesied against them, saying that they were wrong; he tried to warn the people that something catastrophic was about to happen, and it did.
In 597 B.C.E. something unthinkable happened.
You know, sometimes I admit to a kind of perverse imagination. I find myself sometimes thinking about our lifestyle here in America, and I think about the question, "What if all that was taken away?" I think to myself, "How sustainable is this life that we're living?" I think sometimes, "What if it were like Planet of the Apes?" Remember that movie? What if our life became like a bad B movie? Because in Planet of the Apes, remember, it was the monkeys that had taken over everything, and civilization as we know it had ceased to be. Remember…the image of the Statue of Liberty, protruding forth from the beach? What if that happened? What if the trappings of what we might call and imagine today to be the blessed life, here in America, were gone? What if it all went south, through a depression, or a war?
In many ways this generation of Americans has lost any consciousness of that kind of experience. There are very few people in this sanctuary today who have lived through, certainly the Great Depression, or World War II. The kind of experience that required from the people of our nation a sacrifice. I remember some of the talk on talk radio around 9/11 and the aftermath, and how people in general in this country didn't have to sacrifice much at all. No one was conscripted. Those who of economic necessity had joined the Army or were in the reserves--they're the ones fighting the war, in Afghanistan, or in Iraq. There was a little dip in the stock market and then it was indeed, "Don't worry; be happy!" Consider whether this generation living in America (and I'm only talking about America) is perhaps the most privileged, or one might even say entitled, generation in the history of the world. How long can that last?
I'll give an example of what I mean. When I was a kid, we used to go to a family reunion every year--40, 45 of my cousins and aunts and uncles and all that. And we would go to Madison-on-the-Lake, Ohio, on Lake Erie, and that's when it was kind of still toxic. You remember that? Wasn't it the Cuyahoga River emptying into Lake Erie outside Cleveland that caught fire? The place we would go, it was called a resort, but that in no way does justice to what the place was like. The cottages held together by screen and cheap plywood. You would roll a marble, it would take a second to get to the middle of the floor, because the floors were sloping and rotted. And it wasn't about the kind of place. It was about community and having fun. Nobody cared that a spring was jabbing you in the kidney all night. You know? It was about the Diperoo club; about softball, and the daily putt-putt game. But today, you know, some 30 years later or so, or 40, it's a big issue where we stay…it's got to be a nice place, with the right amenities, and it costs several thousand dollars a week to stay at the places where my family now stays. Now I think about that, and I think, "How long is that sustainable?" Is that the blessed life, a standard of living that keeps going up and up and up, and is it possible that it could end? Is that our expectation of the blessed life, to be comfortable? What would you do if it all went south? What then?
As I said just a moment ago, and as we spoke of last Sunday, it did go south for the people of Israel, the people living in a land called Judah, in 597 B.C.E. The unthinkable happened. The Babylonians, the rising power in the area, breached the walls of Jerusalem, and eventually they ended up destroying the city and the temple. Picture a phalanx of doctors and lawyers, and the king and the queen, and merchants of fine jewelry and pearls, dressed in purple…salvaging what they could that wasn't taken by the Babylonians, and strapping it on their backs. Imagine that the last taste they had of the Promised Land was the dust on the road to Babylonia. The people had been taken from their land and shipped off to live in Babylonia, which is in modern-day Iraq, by the way. And they fond themselves by the Euphrates river, in a refugee camp, and their captors tormented them, seeing the instruments they had brought from their homeland, and they yelled, "Sing us a song of Zion. Make merry!" And the question for the people was, "How can we sing God's song in a foreign land? Now what? God has abandoned us. God is homeless! We're homeless. There is no temple, no land. No blessing."
What do you do when it's all gone south? When all those trappings of what you thought was the blessed life are gone. Maybe it's a job. Maybe family life has gone caput. Or maybe it's your health. What will we do in our, "Now what?" Babylonian moment?
Jeremiah had warned them that this was going to happen, and it did. Now can you imagine the temptation for Jeremiah to say, "I told you so! Why didn't you listen to me?" If you read the book of Jeremiah, it's divided into several parts, but the two main parts are the parts having to do with Jeremiah's warning that something terrible was coming, and the people needed to pay attention; and the part of the book that happens when that terrible thing has happened. It's interesting that Jeremiah changes from the "doom and gloom" channel to the "hope" channel. Now that this terrible thing has happened and Jeremiah knows that the people are going to be in exile in Babylon for 70 years, he goes and buys a field from his family, knowing that the land is going to be occupied for such a long time. And contrary to the false prophets, the same ones who were saying, "Don't worry; be happy" before this catastrophe, Jeremiah says to the people, "You're going to be in it for the long haul." The false prophets were saying, you know, a month, two months top, and then God, like the deus ex machina of Greek tragedy will come and save you, and you'll be back home, and the stock market will once again be flying high.
Not so, says Jeremiah. He says: You have to find the blessing in Babylon. This is the very strange advice that Jeremiah gives those exiles living in Babylon. Listen to this. He says, "Build houses there. Plant gardens. Get married, and have kids." And this is the really startling thing that Jeremiah says, he says, "Seek the shalom--the welfare--of the city where I have sent you into exile. For in it's welfare, you will find your welfare." Jeremiah says, Seek the welfare of your enemy, for in his welfare, you'll find your welfare. Is that not crazy? It's about as crazy as Jesus saying, "Love your enemies." It's hard to imagine how radical that advice would have seemed to the people at that time. Maybe almost as radical as praying for the people who bombed the World Trade Center. Can you imagine that? That would be seen as seditious, and crazy. Jeremiah says to those people suffering in Babylon, "You will find the blessing in Babylon."
You can find the blessing in Zion, or in Babylon. Because God isn't bound by a temple. God is the God of every situation and every moment whether it's pleasant or not. God's blessing isn't demarcated by a land. God is the God of every situation and circumstance of life, offering the choice of living the blessing, or embracing the curse.
Here's the main point of my message today. Living the blessed life is not about the state of your life. It's not about manipulating life to conform to your desires of it. It's about a way of life. It's about a way of life that meets God's blessing in every situation. And so you don't need a temple, or a city, or a land to live the blessed life. You can live it in Jerusalem, or you can live it in Babylon. You can live it with one leg; with blurred vision. You can live the blessed life as a paraplegic; as a beggar. You can live it with no stock portfolio, or you can live it as a fabulously wealthy person (although it's harder.) You can live it when you're jobless; on chemo; struggling with addiction; when your marriage has gone to crap. But Jeremiah says to us, "Live it, right now, wherever you are. Study this life." Jesus, in his teaching, called it, "The Kingdom of God." That's what we're going to be studying in the coming weeks, as we look at the Parables. As we look at how the blessed life is not about the state of your life--it's a way of life. It's about having God's blessing written on your heart.
So find the blessing. Whether you're living in Zion, or in Babylon. Find it and live it now.
Amen.
September 23 , 2007
Jeff Vamos
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