Why Bother? (Jer 32:1-3a, 6-15)

A Sandcastle That Outlasted the Waves

They arrived early in the morning as the sun was just beginning to peek over the waves. The man secured the umbrella deep in the sand, the woman unfolded a few faded chairs, and the three children ran down from the dunes to the shore, where the cool water kissed their toes. They splashed deeper into the ocean and danced with the waves. Soon their lips were shivering—yet still upturned in irrepressible smiles. Finally they stumbled out of the water. After retrieving some tools from underneath the umbrella, they returned close to the waves and began work on a sandcastle.

They worked painstakingly for hours. The oldest of the three carefully plotted out the towers and the ramparts, using several sizes of buckets and a shovel. The middle child dug a moat around the castle and then used her fingers to transform some of the higher towers into turrets. The youngest scoured the shore for small seashells to stick into the castle as decoration.

When their father wandered down to admire their work, he pointed out that the tide had turned and soon their creation would be lost to the waves. Would they like help recreating their kingdom somewhere safer? Engrossed in their work, they shook their heads and carried on. Even as the waves came closer, they persisted, patiently putting the finishing touches on their masterpiece. Just when they finished, the first wave filled the moat. Soon after, another wave crashed into a rampart. The children stood back and watched with awe. Within minutes, their sandcastle was gone. There was no crying, however, for they were hungry, and lunch was ready. As the children devoured their sandwiches, they reminisced. Had anyone ever seen such a castle? It was magnificent, wasn’t it? And indeed, it must have been, for it lasted a long time in their memory and inspired a tradition that they would maintain for years and eventually pass on to their own children.

A Pointless Purchase

This tale was inspired by a recent picture book written by JonArno Lawson, who was himself inspired after a day at a beach in Virginia with his three children. He puzzled over why his kids built their sandcastle so close to the waves. Why bother building something that was sure to be destroyed?[1]

Today’s scripture presents us with a similar question. It is the tenth year of King Zedekiah, which is the very year that Babylon conquers Judah and destroys the temple and sends many of the people into exile. It is the end of the world for Judah. But right before the end, Jeremiah’s cousin, Hanamel, who has fallen upon hard times, comes to Jeremiah and asks him to purchase his field in order to keep it in the family. This request actually originates in an important Hebrew law. When God delivered the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt and gave them the promised land, God also gave them a set of laws designed to ensure that no Hebrew person would ever again live as a landless slave. These laws permanently assigned plots of land to Hebrew families. In the worst-case scenario, if land was sold outside the family, then after fifty years it would revert to the family to which it had originally belonged. When Jeremiah’s cousin asks him to purchase his land, he’s following a stipulation of this ancient law that is designed to preserve the people’s freedom on their own land.

But here’s the thing. Babylon is besieging Jerusalem, and it’s only a matter of days before all of the land is lost. In view of this certain outcome, any transaction of property seems pointless. It would be like buying a seafront cottage on a beach that is fast eroding. Why bother? Yet God tells Jeremiah to fulfill his duty and to purchase his cousin’s land. Today’s scripture recounts Jeremiah’s scrupulous fulfillment of his responsibility. To get a sense of the absurdity, try to imagine the sounds of war just outside Jerusalem’s gate—steel clashing on steel, the spinetingling cries of the wounded, the desperate shouts of commanders. But on the other side of the gate, there is Jeremiah along with a small group of witnesses; he is delicately weighing out silver for the purchase, piece by piece, patiently reviewing the terms and conditions, line after line, and carefully signing the deed to complete the transaction of a piece of land that will soon be trampled and destroyed by the Babylonian army. When Jeremiah is finished, he gives the deeds of purchase to his associate, Baruch, and then relays God’s instructions: put these deeds of purchase into an earthenware jar, so that they may last for a long time, because, according to God, “houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in the land” (32:14-15). Although this is certainly a word of promise and hope, we should remember that it is not a promise that Jeremiah will live to see. It will only happen after his lifetime.

The Difficulties of Faith:

When Love Seems Powerless

Which leads me to ask the same question that JonArno asked about his children building the sandcastle close to the waves: “Why bother?” It’s a question worth asking. Faith in God will inevitably bump up against the question, “Why bother?” because faith in God will inevitably bump up against difficult realities that we cannot change. These circumstances are where the rubber really hits the road—or where the waves hit the ramparts. Why bother with love when love seems powerless?

For example, why bother with listening when your conversation partner does not listen to you? Why bother with a troubled teen when he flagrantly throws away all you have given him and stubbornly sets a course for destruction? Why bother with recycling your plastic when nations and corporations maintain practices and policies that are exponentially worse for the environment than your little bit of waste? There is a saying in our culture that has come to express a spirit of cynicism: “I don’t give a…”—I’ll let you fill in the blank! The idea is clear. “I’m not going to bother.” I’m not going to care. If whatever I do will just come undone, then what’s the point? It’s a waste of my time and effort.

The Bird in the Cage Sings

I never saw the movie Titanic, but I’m very familiar with one of its famous scenes, which is based on historical fact. As the ship was sinking, the band leader Wallace Hartley and his string quartet played beautiful music, including the hymn “Nearer My God to Thee.” Why bother? There was nothing in it for them. They wouldn’t get a raise for their fidelity to the job. I doubt they were expecting a rousing applause. They had no guarantee of fame. Why bother? There would be no reason—unless their music was their utmost expression of life, even more expressive of life than breathing. Perhaps they were saying, to steal a phrase from Timothy in our lectionary scripture, “This music is ‘the life that is really life.’ We believe in it, even in the face of death.”

For people of faith, the question “Why bother?” is met with an insistent, “Because. Because this is the life that is really life. We believe in it, even in the face of death.” When I consider the string quartet on the Titanic, or the children on the beach, or Jesus on the cross, the common thread that I see is this: their faith insists on a reality that is more than meets the eye. Their faith insists on a deeper reality, a longer reality, a reality that resists the weathering of time. When Jeremiah gave the deeds of purchase to Baruch, he told him to put them in a jar “in order that they may last for a long time” (32:14). These acts of faith, whether they are remembered in family lore or celebrated on movie screens or preserved in clay jars, or not, are defiant declarations of what is really life. The result of the deed has no bearing on the declaration itself. The children on the beach declared, even as the waves came in, “This sandcastle, this fun is worth it. This is life!” Jeremiah signing the deeds declared, “This heritage of freedom that God gives us, it’s the truth!” Jesus on the cross declared, “This love is life, and I believe in it, even in the face of death.”

Jesuit priest Gregory Boyle, who helps ex-gang members to reenter society, likes to say that if he’s getting burned out from his ministry, he knows he’s doing something wrong. If he finds himself asking, “Why bother?” he’s thinking too selfishly. Faith is not about us changing the world. Faith is about celebrating the life that is really life, even (or especially) in circumstances that threaten to take it away. To steal an image from the poet Maya Angelou, the bird in the cage does not ask, “Why bother?” The bird in the cage sings.

Prayer

Faithful God,
Whose love is patient
And bears all things—
Empty us of the belief
That we need to be in control.
Fill us instead with the faith
Of the caged bird, and Jeremiah, and Wallace Hartley and his string quartet.
Attune our hearts to the life that is really life
That we may sing its goodness,
Regardless of the result.
…
In Christ, who sings your love: Amen.

 

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[1] Samantha Balaban, “A Kids’ Story Unfolds Without Words in ‘A Day for Sandcastles,’” https://www.npr.org/2022/05/22/1093588533/a-day-for-sandcastles-book, accessed September 19, 2022.

From Exile to Our Eternal Homes (Jer 8:18-9:1; Luke 16:1-13)

A Weeping Middle Schooler

These last few weeks in Jeremiah have not been easy reading, and today’s text offers little respite. So, before we dive in, allow me to begin with a more lighthearted tale.

I remember an incident when I was a middle schooler at a summer youth camp. It was “quiet time,” and everyone had spread out in the room to read their devotionals. For once, all was silent. A rare thing among a group of middle schoolers. Suddenly I felt a cough deep in my throat. Not just a solitary cough, but the kind that signals the onslaught of a violent coughing fit. I knew that suppressing the first cough was crucial; otherwise, I would be coughing up a storm. So, I kept my mouth shut and tried to swallow the cough. The last thing I wanted was to disturb the peace of the room and draw attention to myself. But the cough did not go easy. As I fidgeted in silence, tears began to creep out of the corner of my eye. Soon they were flowing freely down my face. I tried, as casually as possible, to wipe them away before anyone would notice.

I have to laugh as I remember the experience, because even though I avoided coughing, I’m pretty sure I ended up drawing just as much attention to myself through my fidgeting and my tears. I have to wonder if others had any clue about what was going on. Maybe they just thought I was an especially spiritual middle schooler who had been deeply moved by the morning devotional.

The Weeping Prophet

Jeremiah was caught weeping on so many occasions he’s become known as “the weeping prophet.” Most of the time, Old Testament prophets identify with God and speak on God’s behalf to the people. But Jeremiah regularly identifies with the people and weeps on their behalf to God. In today’s passage, Jeremiah sees the death, destruction, and despair that fall upon Judah as Babylon forces its people into exile. “For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt,” Jeremiah cries (8:21). “Why has the health of my poor people not been restored?” (8:22). It’s a rhetorical question. In fact, Jeremiah already knows why his people are hurting. He knows they have abandoned God and sought security in other things, like possessions and political power. He knows that suffering is the natural and unavoidable consequence of trusting in one’s own strength. But in this passage, what matters most to Jeremiah is not whether the people deserve their suffering. (In our conventional way of judging things, they have gotten what was coming to them.) What matters most to Jeremiah is simply that they are suffering. Not only are they living in a forced physical exile away from their homeland, even worse, they are also living in a spiritual exile, feeling the full brunt of their alienation from God.

God’s Eyes, Filled with Tears

There’s a hint in the text that Jeremiah is not the only party crying. The people ask, “Is the Lord not in Zion?” and then in parentheses Jeremiah gives whispered expression to God’s anguished response, “Why have they provoked me to anger with their images?” (8:19). We can almost hear the tears in God’s response. The people sit in exile, wondering how God could have let this happen—had God left them?—while God looks on them from afar, asking, “Why have they left me?” God suffers to see them suffer.

This scene is perhaps a helpful corrective to the judgmentalism of our world. God does not look upon Judah and say, “Told you so! You deserved this!” God weeps with them. Jeremiah weeps with them, even though he knows that they have reaped what they’ve sown. Our world can be so quick to pass judgment and then leave people behind to rot in their just desserts. But that is not the way of God. The ultimate divine work is not judgment but restoration, and its seed is sown with tears. Here we see that the primary response of God and Jeremiah to Judah’s suffering is grief.

What a revolution in perspective. When I look upon a world that is filled with anger and hate and conflict, I can easily lose track of the gospel and join the game, assigning blame and then celebrating when the wrongdoers get what’s coming to them. Today’s passage invites me to look upon the world’s rage and violence not with judgment, but with God’s eyes, with eyes filled with tears for the despair and loneliness and for the hurt that those things cause.

The Isolation of Wealth

By itself, today’s scripture from Jeremiah does not reveal a way out of Judah’s loneliness and despair. We are left with a people in exile who feel God-forsaken, precisely because they themselves have left God. We are left with a prophet and a God who weep for the people, lamenting their hurt and their lost hearts.

Today’s gospel text, however, may illumine a way forward. In it, Jesus tells his disciples a parable about money (Luke 16:1-9). The financial manager of a rich man has squandered the rich man’s money, presumably in an effort to benefit himself. When the rich man threatens to fire the financial manager, the manager goes to the rich man’s various debtors and cuts their debts in an effort to build relationships so that, in his words, “when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes” (Luke 16:4). Jesus, surprisingly, holds up this wheeling-and-dealing financial manager as an example (16:8-9). Where the law would find him guilty of fraud, Jesus finds him praiseworthy for his new ethics, in which he uses money to build relationships, rather than relationships to make more money. Jesus goes even further to characterize wealth as an “unrighteous” value and a temporary thing, but relationships as eternally significant: “Make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes” (Luke 16:9).

This parable is filled with surprising revelations. Notice, for instance, that Jesus identifies God’s eternal embrace with other people’s homes.[1] The kingdom of God is when others welcome us into their homes. The parable also suggests that the accumulation of wealth is not a prize to seek but a matter to grieve, for it is a form of exile. It threatens to isolate us and ultimately leave us without a home. (Which is maybe not such a surprise, when we consider that among the “developed” world, our wealthy nation ranks highest in the statistics of loneliness and despair—in suicides and homicides.) I wonder if the isolation and despair of money is not a cousin of Judah’s spiritual exile. They have lived for themselves, and so now all they have is themselves. It feels like God has abandoned them. But that is only because long ago they abandoned God and their neighbor, seeking security in possessions and political power.

“What’s Mine Is Yours”

Jesus’ parable invites me to consider how I use my money. Generously, to build relationships and discover God’s eternal welcome (Luke 16:4)? Or stingily, to secure myself in what is actually a very lonely place (16:3)?

Perhaps it is a question worth pondering as we approach our stewardship Sunday. For me, the question is larger than simply, “How much money do I commit to this or to that?” The question is, “Do I ever feel disconnected from others? Do I ever feel that life is just an endless struggle, just one thing after another with no real purpose?” If I do, then perhaps what I am actually feeling is the loneliness of self-seeking, which is what Judah felt when it went into exile. Jesus’ parable points the way home for me. It is better to give than to receive. For giving draws me into relationship. Giving reconnects me to my neighbor, to my God, and to myself. Giving draws me into my “eternal home” (16:9).

Rhonda Sneed, the woman who started the Blessing Warriors homeless ministry, shares how the folks on the street whom she has befriended will sometimes approach her with a spare dollar or two and insist that she take it for gas or for her next grocery run. They may have a lot less than I do, but perhaps some of them also have more. For their self-giving draws them into closer relationship with one another. If their money is gone, that is no matter. Jesus bluntly says in his parable that there will be a time for all of us when our money is gone, and whenever that time comes, our eternal reality will become readily apparent. We will discover ourselves either very alone indeed or in the good company of others. In the case of these generous individuals, they are already in good company, even as they still struggle for a life that is worthy of their inherent dignity as children of God.

Their example illustrates the motto, “What’s mine is yours.” Is there any other saying so frequently said yet so seldom practiced? Perhaps we keep saying it, because even as we fall short, we sense its deeper truth. Perhaps it is, in fact, the way of God’s eternal kingdom. For when we live otherwise and seek to secure ourselves, what’s “mine,” we isolate ourselves. But when “mine” is actually “yours,” we find ourselves already connected, already welcome into our “eternal homes.”

Prayer

God of eternal welcome,
Who never leaves us,
Even though we sometimes leave you—
Help us to grieve with you
The isolation that results
From our pursuit of wealth and possession
…
Invite us anew
Into our eternal homes—
Which are found in the good company of others. 

In Jesus Christ, who ate with tax collectors and sinners: Amen.

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[1] In fact, the word “homes” is skenas, more literally translated as “tents.” The implication may be that our home is not a permanent brick-and-mortar structure but rather a contingency oriented toward our neighbor. Wherever they are, is our “eternal tent.”

The End or the Beginning (Jer 4:11-12, 22-28)

Haunted by Doomsday

In the last century or so, our culture has shown an increasing fascination with the doomsday genre. Perhaps you’re familiar with the famous 1938 radio broadcast of H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds. It caused a significant public panic among listeners who actually thought Martians were overtaking our world. Since then, the genre has only proliferated. The list of books and movies is endless: Armageddon, The Day after Tomorrow, 2012, Interstellar, and one of my favorites, The Road. It seems that we love telling stories about the end of the world. Or, maybe “love” is not the right word. Maybe it is more accurate to say that we are haunted by stories about the end of the world. It is a story that we cannot escape. It is the truth visiting us in a dream.

There is a theme that pervades many doomsday stories. Whether the final disaster is ecological or inter-terrestrial or nuclear, the underlying cause is the same. It is we humans who are ultimately responsible. Maybe it is a piece of technology that goes awry and escapes our control and wreaks havoc on all the earth. Maybe it is a disease, and instead of fighting it together, people become suspicious of others and compete for limited resources. Maybe it is warfare, where the desire for control simply grows to astronomical levels and wipes everyone off the face of the earth. In each scenario, we are the common denominator. Our short-sighted, self-seeking tendencies prove to be our undoing. Or, to put it in theological language: our sin kills us.

I wonder if the end of the world is more than a storytelling device for providing us the vicarious moviegoing thrills of danger and survival. I wonder if it is not a prophetic expression of a difficult spiritual truth, namely that we are in danger of destroying ourselves and all creation, perhaps now more than ever.

Human Conduct, Cosmic Consequences

If that sounds a bit dramatic, just remember it’s not me—or anyone else today—who said it first. In fact, we find this message regularly in the Old Testament prophets. Over two thousand years ago, they declared that human conduct has cosmic consequences. In other words, how we treat our neighbor somehow has consequences for the trees and the rivers and the birds and the beasts of the field. This is not an obvious, common-sense observation. We like to think that we can contain and control the effects of our behavior. But the prophets tell us that our actions have an unseen, spiritual dimension that often unfolds in very real, unexpected ways.

In today’s passage, God begins with the charge against Judah that they are “skilled in doing evil” and “do not know how to do good” (Jer 4:22). Elsewhere, God elaborates that their wickedness is not simply a private, religious misdemeanor but a comprehensive failure to do justice. “Everyone,” God says, “is greedy for unjust gain,” and therefore they take advantage of the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow (cf. Jer 6:13; 7:6). But in today’s passage, after Jeremiah broadcasts God’s accusation of injustice, he shares a shocking vision that would rival any of our doomsday stories. The first line is about as end-of-the-world as you could get: “I looked on the earth, and lo, it was waste and void” (4:23). If that language sounds somehow familiar, it’s no accident. “Waste” and “void”—tohu va-bohu—are the very same words used at the beginning of Genesis, when we are told that before creation the earth was “[waste and] void and darkness covered the face of the deep” (Gen 1:2). Jeremiah is saying that when he looks into the future, he does not even see the recognizable forms of creation; he sees only the dark, murky elements of the chaos that preceded creation. To a modern audience, we might say that he sees the dark, mysterious nothingness that precedes the Big Bang. Jeremiah then expands on this image, saying that he cannot see the light that God created, he cannot see the creatures or vegetation that God created, he cannot see the natural boundaries between land and water that God created. He cannot make his point any more forcefully. It seems as though all creation has somehow been “uncreated.”

It’s difficult not to see parallels between Jeremiah’s vision and the world around us today. Just as Jeremiah envisioned a drastic collapse of creation into chaos, so we see in our world a host of ecological emergencies that threaten humanity’s wellbeing. This past week, I read about the flooding in Pakistan, a country that is twice the size of California and contains six times its population. Right now, over one third of the country is underwater. There are so many people displaced by the flooding, that the biggest concern is no longer safe shelter or housing but rather starvation. The emergency response has only been able to reach a fraction of the evacuated so far with food.[1] Although the scope of Pakistan’s flooding is what caught my attention, I’m all too aware that many people closer to home have also had to deal with more frequent flooding. It seems like David and God’s Pit Crew are going somewhere new for “muck-outs” every week. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that when I enter the word “flooding” into Google, the automated suggested response “flooding near me” pops up.

Our world’s climate can be a divisive subject of conversation. For me, it’s a not a matter of debate. I have no stake in party politics, nor am I a climate scientist. I simply observe that many of our brothers and sisters are already living through their own doomsday. And I’m haunted by the possibility that the same consumerist and materialist attitudes that devalue and disregard the poor and disadvantaged, have also devalued the earth, treating it as a resource rather than as a gift to be tended and shared. I’m haunted by the story that our short-sighted, self-seeking tendencies—or sinful tendencies—might be our own undoing.

A New Creation

Reading Jeremiah’s doomsday vision leaves me on the edge of a cliff. As I observe some similarities between his times and my own, I find myself asking, “How should you live when the world is ending?” Because maybe it is—at least in the sense that it is undergoing profound change and may look very different in a hundred years’ time.

Around one millennium ago, the archbishop of York, Wulfstan, preached to a people whose world was ending. Vikings raids had become increasingly common, and it was only a matter of time before the Vikings would prevail in England. Wulfstan’s sermon was unorthodox, to say the least. Like Jeremiah, he boldly proclaimed that the end would come and in fact had already come as many English had turned on each other in fear, suspicion, and power struggles. His response was disarmingly simple. No matter—keep living faithfully to God and one another. Do not worry about the result of things, but about your responsibility in things. Let your speech be honest. Uphold your commitments. Care for the vulnerable and the poor. It is common in difficult times for people to circle the wagons and live for themselves in a mode of self-preservation, but Wulfstan essentially invited his congregation to live even more than before for others.[2]

Concealed within Jeremiah’s doomsday prophecy is a similar call to faithfulness and hope. There’s a rascally ambiguity in his use of creational language, such as when he envisions the tohu va-bohu, the “waste” and “void” (Jer 4:23). For on the one hand, these words signal a return to chaos; they signal the end. On the other hand, these same words were originally the prelude to a good and beautiful creation. If they mean that creation has been undone, they also mean that it can be remade. Paul writes about this. He says, on the one hand, “The present form of this world is passing away” (1 Cor 7:31), but on the other hand, “In Christ, there is a new creation” (2 Cor 5:17). What the world sees as an end, Christ-followers see as a beginning. Followers of Christ see redemption in every circumstance and faithfully bear witness to Christ’s reconciling love, in which all things are being made new. 

Seeing crisis as an opportunity for God’s love, as a stage for our peculiar witness, is perhaps pertinent as we talk about stewardship this month and consider making commitments to Trinity. I won’t say much about your pledge. I will be honest that, in the past, I have looked cynically upon church stewardship drives. The request for money often seems to be more about self-preservation than the gospel’s call for self-giving. So my hope is that, if you do give, it is not to preserve Trinity or postpone its inevitable end—for all worldly things will come to their natural end (cf. Heb 12:26-28). My hope is instead that, if you give, you will be motivated by a desire to bear witness to God’s new beginning that happens wherever love welcomes the stranger and befriends the enemy and cares for the vulnerable. If you see that love here, if you have experienced it here, if you desire it here, then by all means please be a part of it in any way that you can. For our world, which is haunted by the end, needs to know about this love, which invites us into a new beginning.

Prayer

Creator God,
Who looks upon the waste and void
And sees within it a very good world—
In Christ, you reveal
That the end
May in fact be a beginning.
Give us courage
To live as joyful, faithful witnesses
To your way of love,
Even as the present form of things
Passes away.
In Christ, crucified and risen: Amen.

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[1] The Guardian, “‘There Is Nothing for Us’: Pakistan’s Flood Homeless Start to Despair,” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/06/we-screamed-our-hearts-out-for-help-homeless-escape-pakistan-floods, accessed September 6, 2022.

[2] Eleanor Parker, “The Sermon of the Wolf,” Plough 32 (2022): 32-37.

We Are the Clay (Jer 18:1-11)

What Shapes Us

Most of the time, the metaphor of God as potter is celebrated as an image of God’s power. But there is also a profound wisdom in the image of us as clay. It’s certainly an unfashionable wisdom this day and age, where many in our world still believe in the idea of the self-made man or woman. The American dream, for example, is not that we’re clay but that we’re our own potter. The American dream that has been baked into us is that anyone can pull themselves up by their own bootstraps and accomplish anything they set their mind to doing.

But I think Jeremiah’s metaphor is much closer to the truth. Like clay, we are regularly and deeply shaped by the world around us. Studies have found, for instance, that place shapes us. Zip code—where we grow up—is a better predictor of health than genetic code and is also closely correlated to its residents’ education and income levels.[1] Words shape us. Imagine, for instance, the difference between a child whose parents regularly tell her, “How sweet you are! How beautiful, how smart!” and a child who hears, “Why can’t you just be quiet! You’re so annoying.” One becomes a much-respected teacher or  a tactful business leader, the other becomes combative and suspicious and unable to hold down a job. Our screens shape us: our smart phones, which tell us we should always be entertained and there should never be an empty moment; the endless advertisements, which tell us that we don’t ever have enough, and wouldn’t this look good in our homes, and don’t we need another pair of these?; our social media outlets, which tell us who is good and who is bad and what the solution is. Our stories shape us, perhaps more than anything else: the stories we learn at school about what happened in the past and how it lives on in the present; the stories we learn in our homes about what matters most in life; the stories we learn in our churches, synagogues, mosques, about who God is.

We are shaped by so many different forces. Some of these are part of God’s handiwork, but many are not. For example, the idea that we do not have enough and the greed for more make us callous and less caring toward the need of others. God makes this exact diagnosis of the people of Judah elsewhere in the book of Jeremiah: “They have become great and rich [but] they do not defend the rights of the needy” (5:27-28).

Another influence that shapes us in ways contrary to God’s design is the idolatry of force and strength. The way of Christ is not the way of the sword, and yet the sword is precisely where much of our world places its trust. It trusts in armies and guns and powerful people. Similarly, when Judah felt threatened by Babylon, it sought the help of neighboring empires and their militaries. But God responds, elsewhere in Jeremiah, “Have you not brought this [imminent destruction and exile] upon yourself by forsaking the Lord your God, while he led you in the way? What then do you gain by going to [the empire of] Egypt…or what do you gain by going to [the empire of] Assyria? Your wickedness will punish you” (2:17-19). God implies a connection between Judah’s trust in the might and muscle of empire and its own wickedness. Because it worships force, its people use it at every turn to get their own way, which results in all manner of struggle and injustice.

God Works with the Clay Rather than on It

I’ve heard that potters, on occasion, will complain that the clay is just being stubborn and not cooperating. I think that is how God is feeling when God says, “I am a potter shaping evil against you” (18:11). In other words, I don’t think God purposefully shapes evil for Judah or anyone, but rather that this is the natural consequence when we allow ourselves to be shaped by something other than God’s love. We become hardened in our selfish ways, stubborn and obstinate. We become uncooperative clay. Elsewhere in the book of Jeremiah, God explains, “Your [own] ways and your doings have brought this upon you” (4:18; cf. 6:18).

The good news of Jeremiah, which is the same as the good news of Christ, is not that God is all-powerful and will work out any kinks in our clay and magically turn us into a good product. The good news is not a God of power, but a God of relationship. This is not a potter who works on the clay, but rather a potter who works with the clay. It’s not unlike the relationship between a parent and a child. A parent can guarantee love, but they cannot guarantee their child’s wellbeing. I had a good friend growing up whose sister tragically fell into a group of friends who lived recklessly and impulsively, constantly pushing boundaries and seeking new thrills, including drugs. Their influence shaped her. She absorbed the message that she was different and damaged. Her heart was hardened to her parents’ love. But after a couple of decades, she has rediscovered a healthy balance of life—and a fundamental reason for that was her parents’ love. Her parents’ love could not magically fix her life, not when she resisted it, but their love also never gave up or left her. So, when she finally broke down and opened up, they were there. Their love helped her to heal.

That is the good news that Jeremiah proclaims. God never leaves, God never gives up. When we turn away from the forces that are shaping us for ill, God will lovingly embrace us and shape us into a new, better shape (cf. 18:4). Even if we are as stubborn as Judah, so stubborn that there’s nothing to do but let the misshapen creation eventually shatter (cf. Jer 19), God will always be waiting for us with plans to restore us, as God was for Judah (29:10-14).

In God’s Hands, We Are Enough

Today’s passage invites me to consider myself as a lump of clay. It invites me to observe what is shaping me and to ask whether these influences are God’s handiwork or not.

Henri Nouwen, a Catholic priest who preached the good news of downward mobility—that is, living not for success but for relationship—said that the world tells us three common stories that shape us profoundly. One is the story that I am what I have. Another is the story that I am what I achieve, or what I am able to do. Another is the story that I am what others think of me. Each of these stories tells us that we are not safe until we have somehow secured ourselves. They make us hard and inflexible in the pursuit of something we’ll never find. They tell us we do not have enough, we cannot do enough, or we are not desirable enough. They tell us we need more votes, more victories, more money, more land, more followers, more likes, more members, more programs, more, more, more…

In stark contrast to these stories, is the story of a God who took some dirt from the ground, “formed” it (Gen 2:7)—just as a potter forms the clay[2]—and breathed his very own breath into it. According to this story, we are enough. Just as we are. God will forever love us, not for what we have or do or look like, but because we are God’s children. At the end of the day, being clay is not about accomplishing anything; in fact, it appears that self-striving makes us rigid and intractable and impedes the potter’s process. No, being clay is simply about appreciating the hands that form you and the breath that fills you with life and the God who says, “You are my beloved child. With you, I am well pleased.”

The good news of Jeremiah—and Christ—is not a God of power, but a God of relationship. It is the good news that we are in a loving God’s hands, and nothing other than our own stubborn, hardened will can keep us from feeling God’s touch. Tragically, Judah stopped listening to this good news, when it started aching for the security of possessions and power and prestige. We often forget the good news ourselves, we who are taught to be go-getters, movers-and-shakers, head-turners. But thankfully no amount of stubbornness or forgetfulness will ever change the good news itself. We belong to a God who loves us, just as we are. We are safe in God’s hands.

Meditation:

A Pebble and Some Play-Dough

At the beginning of the service,
You were given a sealed plastic bag
With a piece of play-dough and a little pebble.

Keeping the bag closed,
I invite you to feel the pebble with your fingers.
Feel its every edge.
Feel its hardness, how it will not be shaped.

Now feel the play-dough with your fingers.
Feel how it receives your touch.
Feel its softness, how it moves with your fingers.

Remember that you are clay.
And do not be afraid—
For you are in the hands
Of a God who loves you
With a love stronger than death,
Because you are God’s very own. 

Amen.

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[1] E.g., Jamie Ducharme and Elijah Wolfson, “Your ZIP Code Might Determine How Long You Live—and the Difference Could Be Decades,” https://time.com/5608268/zip-code-health/, accessed August 29, 2022.

[2] The verb “form” and the noun “potter” both derive from the same Hebrew root, יצר.

"Where Is God?" (Jer 2:4-13)

The Pinch-Hitter God

It has been said that even atheists become believers in a foxhole. Confronted with their powerlessness and the prospect of death, they suddenly find themselves praying for help. I imagine we can all identify with the experience—albeit in less surreal circumstances. It is common for us to turn to God when we run up against our own limits. Maybe a loved one has received a difficult diagnosis, and the doctors are doubtful. So, we turn to God. Maybe finances have dried up more than we anticipated, and we’re faced with the prospect of serious loss. So, we turn to God. Maybe we hit a rock bottom and realize we cannot manage our lives the way we thought we could. So, we turn to God. In each case, we turn to God as a sort of trump card, as a pinch hitter who will get us out of a jam.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor who resisted the nationalism that overtook his nation in World War II, observed that this way of thinking—calling upon God only when we get in a jam—is actually symptomatic of society at large. In other words, society turns to God only when it reaches its own limits. When science runs up against a contradiction or a mystery, suddenly people start whispering about God. When the Twin Towers were inconceivably destroyed on 9/11, churches were suddenly packed and people were asking, “Where is God?” When people’s health deteriorates and they face the certainty of death, which is certainly a mystery, suddenly they start talking about God. The common thread is that when human knowledge or power comes up short, we start looking for God. We do not look for God at the center of life, where we feel quite capable and in control.  Only at the outer limits, where we are uncertain or helpless, do we begin to ask, “Where is God?”

Forgetting God When Things Are Good

The people of ancient Judah were like us, apparently. They did not ask, “Where is God?” when their lives were untroubled and they felt in control.

To recap, last week we read from the beginning of Jeremiah. We discovered that the big surprise in Jeremiah’s prophecy was not that Babylon would surely destroy Judah. Certainly, that would have caught people’s attention, but it would not have been a strange or unexpected take on events. Babylon was a growing empire, and its military was enjoying success after success. The big surprise was the claim that God, not Babylon, would accomplish Judah’s destruction. The big surprise was the claim that Judah’s battle would not be lost in the future on the battlefield, but rather that it had already been lost in the past in their hearts.

How had it been lost? In today’s passage, God twice attributes Judah’s downfall to the simple fact that the people had stopped asking, “Where is the Lord?” (Jer 2:6, 8). They will ask that question a lot in the days to come (cf. 2:27), when the Babylonian army destroys their land and takes them away into exile. Like us, they will turn to God when things get bad. The problem, God says, is that we don’t ask this question when things are good. We don’t look for God in our everyday lives, we don’t see or respond to God’s frequent gestures of love. We may enjoy the gifts, but we forget the Giver and mistake life as the work of our own hands.

God says in today’s scripture that God had brought the people into a land filled with good things. Life, in other words, was good. But the priests, the lawyers, the rulers—all of them stop asking, “Where is God?” (2:8). They forget that life is God’s gift to be shared, and instead compete for it as a prize to be won. Thus begins the people’s quiet departure from God and the subtle disintegration of society. People begin to live for themselves instead of for one another. The seeds of selfishness grow inconspicuously into struggle, conflict, and injustice. Society becomes divided against itself. I think Abraham Lincoln gave eloquent expression to this process when he declared in 1838, over twenty years before the Civil War, “If destruction be our lot, we ourselves [will] be its author and finisher.” What destroys us is not other people. What destroys us is what’s in our heart.

The irony is that, if we stop asking, “Where is God?” when things are good, then when things get bad and we do ask that question, God may already be far away. Not because God left us, but because we long ago left God (cf. 2:27). We are in such a poor spiritual condition, that we cannot recognize or receive or respond to God’s presence.

Divine Hide-and-Seek

Throughout the centuries, Jewish and Christian mystics have talked about life as though it were a game of divine hide-and-seek, in which we should always be looking for God in the hidden things. Meister Eckhart, a German theologian and mystic of the thirteenth century, says, “God is like a person who clears his throat while hiding and so gives himself away.” God wants to be found.

The question is, are we looking for God? Will we hear God clear his throat? Or is our attention turned in other directions? It’s like Jesus said: where our treasure is, there our heart will be. When I cast my gaze over our national landscape, I see many hearts that dwell on Wall Street, or in the capital, or in Hollywood. I see people asking, “Where is the money? Where is power? Where is acceptance and popularity?” These questions, Jeremiah says, are like trying to draw water from cracked containers when we have a fountain of living water right beside us. Money, power, status—they all promise us so much but deliver so little. We never quite find what we’re looking for. We’re left striving, struggling, exhausted, and alone.

What will we find if instead we ask, “Where is God?”? Well, this may be obvious, but it’s certainly good news worth repeating. Jesus promised us that if we seek, we will find God’s Spirit (Luke 11:9-13). I imagine that we each encounter God differently. But however we encounter God, the effect is the same: we are drawn out of ourselves and into a deeper relationship with others and all the world. Our society prizes upward mobility, which often results in competition and isolation. But many spiritual leaders have remarked that looking for God will lead us downward, as it did for Christ. We may discover that looking for God draws us to the needs of others and also to acknowledge our own needs as well (cf. Luke 14:7-14).

The Examen Prayer

Jeremiah’s prophecy suggests that asking, “Where is the Lord?” should be a daily practice. When we ask this question, we find ourselves drawn into a better way of life. For this reason, I would like to share with you a particular practice of prayer that asks just this question, “Where is God in my world?” Popularized by the 16^th century Spanish priest Ignatius of Loyola, this practice is often referred to as the examen prayer because it is a prayerful examination of God’s activity in our life. There’s an insert in your bulletin that outlines this way of prayer. (You could also google it and discover much more.) I’ll invite us to practice an abbreviated form of it right now, but I’d also encourage you to try it out a few times on your own. If you find it helpful, you might add it to your spiritual toolkit.

I’ll invite you to keep your eyes closed throughout the guided prayer, if you feel comfortable, as it may be easier to focus without visual distraction.

We begin with an opening prayer:

1. Loving God, lift up our eyes
To see beyond the limits
Of our own immediate interests.
Help us to see our lives and world
As you see our lives and world.

…

2. Now, allow your heart to open up.
Allow your heart to be thankful…
For anything that is good and has drawn you into the fullness of life and closer to God.

…

3. Now, allow the events of this past week to arise in your mind.
They may be events that include others, or events that happened in solitude.
They may be events that made you happy, or events that made you upset.
Do not analyze the events that rise from your heart to your mind.
Simply observe them.

…

4. For now, select the two or three events that seem most significant to you.
Review each one and ask,
“Where was God?
Was I drawn closer to God?
Or led further away?”

…

5. Now, listen for how God may be teaching you.
What is God’s lesson for you in these events?
Can you live more closely to God in similar future events?
How might you live faithfully?

…

We end now with a closing prayer:

Loving God,
Fountain of living water—
We thirst for you,
Yet turn frequently to cracked cisterns
That will not satisfy.
Help us to ask regularly,
“Where are you?”
That we might know your love
And share it with the world.
In Christ, who humbled himself: Amen.

History Written by the Heart (Jer 1:4-10)

History as a Game of Power

I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Game of Thrones? It was a wildly popular HBO television series based on a set of fantasy novels written by George R. R. Martin. It is estimated to have made HBO a profit of over two billion dollars.[1] I’ve only seen a handful of episodes, but I wouldn’t really recommend it. It’s filled with gratuitous violence and sex, and at the end of the day, no matter how many thrills and twists it packs, it tells a very straightforward story. It is all about power. It is exactly as its title suggests. Competitors for the throne duke it out with one another, employing whatever means suits them. Their exercise of political power assumes various shapes: military, diplomacy, alliances, espionage, betrayal, and propaganda. On the one hand, the series revels in the drama and arguably exaggerates it, regularly depicting brutal backstabbing and bloody scenes of conquest. On the other hand, you might say the series is quite realistic. It reveals the logic that animates much of our politics today, namely win-at-all-costs.

In some ways, the series reminds me of history class. In history class, we studied the past as though it were shaped primarily by people who imposed their will on the world, either through war or revolution or legislation or a decisive contribution in the form of an invention or new idea. We studied history like a sports game that was won or lost by big players making big plays.

While our personal lives rarely approach the dramatic and bloody extremes depicted in history books and TV shows like Game of Thrones, I imagine this way of viewing life is actually our default. We look around and we see various powers competing with one another: nations, political parties, candidates for office, businesses, employees scampering up the ladder, and so on. I imagine that this way of viewing life has always been the default, even over two thousand years ago in the seventh century BCE, when the people of Judah looked beyond their walls at the national superpowers encroaching on their land. To the south stood the ancient empire of Egypt. To the northeast they saw the emerging empire of Babylon, who was on the cusp of overtaking Assyria, the old guard in the ancient Near East. Poor Judah didn’t stand a chance against these empires, and the people of Judah knew it. Every year, heavy taxes turned them upside down and emptied their pockets, just so their king could go groveling to either Egypt or Babylon and pay a hefty tribute that would hopefully ensure the empire’s good favor and protection. The people of Judah knew how precarious their situation was. It was like being caught between two bullies, never knowing if your lunch money would be enough to buy one off. If something ever happened, the situation could deteriorate very quickly, and Judah would have had little hope on the basis of its own military strength.

How History Is Really Written

It wouldn’t take any political expertise, then, to imply as Jeremiah does that Babylon would one day “pluck up” and “pull down” its little neighbor. It wouldn’t take much special insight to foresee that Babylon would “destroy and overthrow” Judah. That’s what the Babylonian empire was in the habit of doing. If they were a sports team, they would have been undefeated in the seventh century BCE. This is not to say that the people of Judah would have liked hearing this forecast. Most of them were rather like an ostrich sticking its head in the ground, trying to ignore the reality surrounding them until it went away. God says elsewhere that the powerful and privileged in Judah were too busy making a profit off the poor and growing “rich” and “fat” to pay much attention to what was happening (cf. 5:27-28). But Babylon’s growing power was undeniable. They were the big kid on the block, and few would have put money on Judah in a fight with Babylon. If Jeremiah had said, “They’re bigger than us. This is going to end badly,” people would have at least understood where he was coming from.

But that’s not what Jeremiah said.

Today’s scripture tells us what Jeremiah did say, and why he said it. This scripture is often referred to as Jeremiah’s “call story,” and it follows a familiar pattern that we see throughout the Bible. God calls somebody. They resist. We see this with Moses, who protests that he can’t speak well (Ex 4:10). We see it with Isaiah, who protests that his lips are unclean (Isa 6:5). We see it later in Peter, who protests to Jesus, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man” (Luke 5:8). In each case, God insists that what matters is not the individual’s ability, but simply their faithfulness. When Jeremiah protests, “I am only a boy,” God says, “Don’t be afraid, for I am with you and will give you the words to say.”

Then God announces to Jeremiah what will be the heart of his prophecy. “Today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant” (Jer 1:10). Hidden in this message is the real surprise of Jeremiah’s prophecy. Here God claims that history is not written by the obvious forces of empires and kings and military strength, but rather by an unseen spiritual power. For most people, it was obvious that, if anyone plucked up and pulled down Judah, it would be Babylon’s military. Just as today, it would be obvious that the rise and fall of nations has to do with governments and big business and armed forces. But God declares to Jeremiah that it is not Babylon who will accomplish Judah’s destruction. It is God. And it has to do with what’s been happening in the people’s hearts.

The Truth Erupts

It’s hard not to get ahead of ourselves with today’s scripture. God gives a preview of the prophecy that Jeremiah will proclaim, but no real details. We catch a glimpse global upheaval, nations rising and nations falling, and God somehow at the heart of it, but we are not given any explanation for why one nation rises and another falls. God hasn’t gotten around yet to explaining why Judah will be plucked up.

I want to maintain this suspense. Why is God planning to pluck up Judah? Why has God authorized its destruction? We don’t know yet. All we can say right now is that God interprets history not in the conventional terms of political power, of who has the biggest army or the smartest leader, but in spiritual terms. God interprets history not in terms of battles or elections or presidents or legislative victories, but in terms of (as our Hebrews passage today puts it) what “cannot be touched.” God seems to be relocating history from empires and armies to the quiet, unseen space of our heart and the inconspicuous, automatic habits that are slowly shaping us and our world. In our unremarkable, commonplace lives, Christ either lives or is rejected. Either way, our lives and our world bear the consequence.

As I ponder God’s interpretation of history, I am reminded of Vaclav Havel, who was a poet and playwright that lived in Czechoslovakia during its communist era. He wrote a famous letter to Czechoslovakia’s dictator, Gustav Husak, in which he effectively said, You can do whatever you like, but eventually the truth always wins. “Life and history,” he says, will “demand their due.”[2] He describes the truth as something that lurks in the heart, as something that can erupt out of nowhere: “The machine that worked for years to apparent perfection, faultlessly, without a hitch, falls apart overnight. The system that seemed likely to reign unchanged, world without end, since nothing could call its power in question…is shattered without warning. And, to our amazement, we find that everything was quite otherwise than we had thought.”[3] Havel wrote this letter in 1975. For nearly 15 years, the dictatorial government seemed to control history, but underneath the surface lurked the truth—the truth, for example, that artificial entertainment and a relatively comfortable home life could not satisfy a people’s need for honesty and real community and lives of purpose. Finally, in November 1989, the truth erupted. It began with a student movement and grew day by day until the entire nation went on strike. The communist government crumbled in the face of this nonviolent movement, which has been called the Velvet Revolution (or Gentle Revolution).

What is the truth that lurked beneath the surface in ancient Judah, in its people’s hearts? What is the truth that lurks beneath the surface in the 21^st-century United States, in our hearts? If Jeremiah’s prophecy is any indication, what happens in the capitol or on Wall Street or in Hollywood is but an extension of what is already happening in our hearts, where history is really unfolding.

Stay tuned for the truth that is unfolding in Judah as we read through Jeremiah these next couple months. (If you’d like, you can read ahead. We’ll be spending the next month in the first twenty chapters of Jeremiah.) Perhaps in Jeremiah’s prophetic word to Judah, we will hear a prophetic word for our own world. For like Judah, our world also puts its trust in outside forces and disregards what is in the heart.

Prayer

Hidden God,
Whose love works unseen in our world,
Overthrowing mighty empires
And raising life from the ruins
…
Help us to see
Beyond presidents and political parties
History being written
By the humble figure of Christ,
Who is making all things new. 

In Christ, crucified and risen: Amen.

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[1] “How ‘Game of Thrones’ Generated $2.2 Billion Worth of Profit for HBO,” https://decider.com/2019/05/21/game-of-thrones-hbo-profits/, accessed August 15, 2022.

[2] Vaclav Havel, Living in Truth (ed. Jan Vladislav; Boston: Faber and Faber, 1986), 34.

[3] Havel, Living in Truth, 30.

The Fire and Sword of Christ (Luke 12:49-56)

A Hero or a Fool?

Born in Austria at the beginning of the 20^th century, Franz Jägerstätter grew up with a reputation for being a bold, adventurous soul. He was the first man in his village to own a motorcycle. Given his competitive streak, he was no stranger to the odd fistfight. At the age of 26, he fathered an illegitimate child. At 29, he settled down and married, and he had three daughters. When the Nazis annexed Austria in 1938, he was identified as a natural leader and offered the position of town mayor, which he declined. Franz was no saint. But many of the townspeople respected him and even looked up to him. He was a man’s man, and his occasional missteps were just considered the collateral of a vivacious personality.

Apparently around the time of his marriage, Franz became curious about his faith. He had grown up in the church, but never taken it seriously. But his wife did. So he started asking questions about what it meant to follow Christ. And these questions ultimately set him on a collision course with the world, which would end in a fiery baptism. In 1943, with three daughters under the age of six, he was called to active duty in the Austrian military, which of course was under Nazi command. He refused to enlist on the grounds of his faith. He refused to take up the sword in a war machine that preyed on its neighbors and turned out death and poverty. For this, he was arrested and finally executed by beheading.

Was Franz a hero or a fool for living out his faith to the death? Opinion in his hometown and even within his family was sharply divided. Most people actually saw Franz as foolishly stubborn. In their eyes, this was a good, respectable family man who had gotten religion and gone too far. Was it worth risking his life for the sake of his faith? Would he deprive his family of a husband and a father? And what about his duty to his country? It was considered an obligation and an honor to serve one’s country when it called upon you. Even his priest and his bishop disapproved of his objection to military service. Citing Romans 13, they counseled him to submit to the governing authorities. When his body was returned to his hometown after his execution, many disapproved of the idea that he should receive a solemn funeral. Their sons, husbands, and brothers had fought courageously in the war. They were the heroes, not Franz, the man who had refused his duty. When his name was carved with other war casualties at a village memorial, it was defaced.[1]

In the eyes of the world, Franz was a fool. But in the eyes of God? Paul says that the wisdom of God is foolishness to the nations (1 Cor 1:23). Perhaps the foolishness of Franz was the wisdom of God. For his witness said “no” to the sin around him: “no” to the death camps where the Nazis sent all the undesirables; “no” to nationalism and the Nazi’s white supremacy; “no” to the sword of the aggressor that was ravaging the continent.

Change and Pain

Today’s gospel text is jarring for many of us. Jesus speaks in terms that seem antithetical to the gospel he had been proclaiming. Earlier in the story, he had rebuked James and John when they suggested calling down fire from heaven against unreceptive towns (9:54). But now he speaks about bringing fire to the earth (12:49). Earlier in the story, Zechariah had prophesied that Jesus would guide people “in to the way of peace” (1:79). Jesus himself instructs his followers to proclaim peace as they deliver the good news (10:5). But in today’s text, he insists he has come not to bring peace but rather division! (12:51). What’s going on? Is Jesus changing his message?

A closer look suggests that he is not changing his message, but rather that his message is all about change. Real peace—the peace that he brings—is like a fire and like a sword, because it says “no” to the judgment and violence that has become automatic in our lives. It burns and cuts at the sinful attitudes and practices that have become second nature. Blessing an enemy instead of retaliating? That is a real change. Giving to all who ask and not expecting anything in return? That is a real change. Not judging others or competing with them, but instead paying attention to our own spiritual condition? That is a real change (cf. Luke 6:27-38). Earlier in the gospel, John the Baptizer had proclaimed that Jesus would baptize people with “the Holy Spirit and fire” (3:16). Later in the New Testament, the writer of Hebrews refers to God’s word as “sharper than any two-edged sword” (Heb 4:12). When Christ dwells within us, there are sure to be painful moments when it feels like a fire or a sword within. The good news, of course, is that this pain is purposeful. In the words of our Hebrews scripture today, God is transforming life into “something better.” Jesus says that he cannot wait until the fire is kindled and his baptism is complete, not because he loves pain, but because God’s changes are for the better. God’s changes are what bring about the kingdom of God.

A Gospel That Burns and Cuts

It is hard for us to see it, but, according to Jesus, the life of Franz Jägerstätter was not in vain. True, he did not stop the Nazis. What he refused to do for them, someone else surely did. But he bore witness to a different way of life, and this witness was so strong that people couldn’t stop talking about it, even when they disagreed with it. That’s why his story is still told today. His story is kindling in God’s fire, a thrust of God’s sword, probing us as a society, asking us what really matters. National security? A political party’s triumph? The financial interests of the privileged? The preservation of our neighborhood’s demographic? Or…the wellbeing of the poor? The embrace of the marginalized? The welcome of strangers?

I heard the story once of a teenager who started going to church. At first, his parents were thrilled. They figured church could only benefit their son. But as it happens, the youth minister at this church was leading a study on the sermon on the mount, where Jesus boldly declares the values of the kingdom of God, such as simplicity, trust in God, and generosity. When the teenager graduated high school, he decided that he would move to an impoverished part of town to live there with a faith community that was working for better conditions in the neighborhood. His parents were surprised and deeply upset. Would he not go to college? Would he not get a job that paid him well? Would he really choose to live in this dangerous part of town? When they learned that their son had been inspired by his youth group’s study of Jesus’ teaching, their anger acquired a target. They took offense at the youth minister and clamored for his resignation. They had thought the youth group would provide their son with good friends and helpful advice for navigating life’s anxieties. They had not expected it to lead him into what they saw as harm’s way.

The prophetic Salvadoran archbishop Oscar Romero once said, “A church that doesn’t provoke any crises, a gospel that doesn’t unsettle, a word of God that doesn’t get under anyone’s skin, a word of God that doesn’t touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed—what gospel is that?” Well, today’s scripture confronts me with a gospel that burns and cuts. But it’s not a message of fire and brimstone, of punishment and condemnation. Rather, it is good news. Jesus really does take away the sin of our world. Only…it might feel like a fire or a sword, because the sinful attitudes and habits of our world are deeply ingrained and not easily removed. They do not fall away magically, but only as we follow Christ through flame and sword, and bear witness to a different, better way.

Prayer

Holy God,
Whose good news entails change:
Burn and cut within our soul
Where we still cling
To the violent, judgmental ways of our world
Instead of welcoming your kingdom
…
May we bear witness,
Like Christ, like Franz,
To your dream
Of abundant life for all. In Christ, crucified and risen: Amen.

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[1] Willard F. Jabusch, “Franz Jägerstätter: The Austrian Farmer Who Said No to Hitler,” https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2007/08/27/franz-jagerstatter-austrian-farmer-who-said-no-hitler, accessed August 9, 2022.