Pain and Promise: A New Song

The Psalter - the entire book of Psalms - ends with the Psalm we just heard. Psalm 150 is the last of seven psalms of praise, an extended call to praise - that invites everything that breathes to praise the Lord. Everything that breathes. People. Animals. Birds. Fish. Plants. All of God’s creation in this psalm is invited into an attitude of praise.

Yet, we know that not everyone experiences grace from God. We grow sick. We can be killed. We can be oppressed. We can experience disaster.

Over these past six weeks, we’ve been reading selections from Jeremiah and the Psalms. We’ve heard of Jeremiah’s call and his subsequent challenge to the kings and people of Judah to turn back. And of their failure to do so. And the resulting destruction and exile. We’ve sat in Saturday with them for a time as they lamented. Grieved their losses. Trapped in a place they did not want to be. Wondering how they might go on. We’ve witnessed Jeremiah’s symbolic act of hope and heard his call to the people to prosper where they were planted, even as they waited for restoration.

Today, we hear the promises of what that restoration will be. How God will restore, not only the people, but the nation and its leaders. Today, we read our last reading from Jeremiah. This work of resilience. This survival manual. This story that seeks to help Judah, and us, make sense of the wreckage of their world. 

We begin with chapter 33. 

The time is coming, declares the Lord, when I will fulfill my gracious promise with the people of Israel and Judah. In those days and at that time, I will raise up a righteous branch from David’s line, who will do what is just and right in the land. In those days, Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is what he will be called: The Lord Is Our Righteousness. The Lord proclaims: David will always have one of his descendants sit on the throne of the house of Israel. And the levitical priests will always have someone in my presence to make entirely burned offerings and grain offerings, and to present sacrifices. --Jeremiah 33:14-18 (CEB).

This first passage is about leadership. It is a promise of a new shoot from an old tree. Here Jeremiah picks up a prominent theme from Isaiah, that in the grand restoration of the nation, an ideal king will come from David’s line, one who will bring about a reign of perfect justice.

Our minds immediately take us to the New Testament promise and fulfillment of The Anointed One. Jesus. Son of God. Son of Man. Yet, this covenant of which Jeremiah speaks is a continuation - not the end - of the covenant made with Israel and Moses at Sinai. It is a promise that, for Israel, David’s line will not end. That God will provide legitimate and righteous rulers - both political and religious - so that the people will once again live in safety. So that the nation can be saved. And, particularly, so that Jerusalem will be restored and will become known as a place of righteousness and justice. This is a covenant from which Israel can expect great things from God for its future leaders and for its future nation. 

But, this is not all. Because, not only is this renewed covenant between God and a nation and its leaders. It will be the old covenant reborn in a much deeper and more profound way. 

Our reading continues in chapter 31.

The time is coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. It won’t be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt. They broke that covenant with me even though I was their husband, declares the Lord. No, this is the covenant that I will make with the people of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my Instructions within them and engrave them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. They will no longer need to teach each other to say, “Know the Lord!” because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord; for I will forgive their wrongdoing and never again remember their sins. --Jeremiah 31:31-34 (CEB)

This new covenant that God will create with God’s people is not radically new. It is the old covenant, reaffirmed, reasserted, and re-inaugurated, but in a deeper, more intimate, more equitable way. This relationship that it promises will be as intimate as the marriage relationship. God’s instruction will be written on the hearts of the people. So that they will know God internally. No longer will this covenant exist only on tablets of stone and require an obedience to an external rule, but it will be something that God’s people will live and breathe. It will move into their hearts and take residence within their very beings. They will know God. From the least to the greatest. No longer will any individual or group have spiritual superiority in the community. All of the members of God’s family will share equally in the dignity of their humanity. And all will participate in God’s life. Their knowledge of God will be the same as the knowledge of lovers, one for another. 

This is the gift of the book of Jeremiah - the gift of God’s Word spoken through Jeremiah. It provokes possibility and awakens within us a yearning for a better world. It breaks into the frightening aftermath of a diminishing disaster by insisting that God and God alone has the power to bring about new life and a changed world. It defends God, yet promises an intimate relationship with God - a relationship that is profound, life-altering, and life-sustaining. It promises a life for everyone that is marked by equity, by thriving, and by a radical joy that will help us to forget the bitter sorrow of the past. 

Finally, it disrupts the apathy and cynicism of the present time because it teaches us that God is the interrupting energy within the heart of the world, who breaks into our suffering, meets us where we are, then restores and leads us into a renewed place through the most mysterious Spirit of God’s incarnated, arisen and ascended Son. 

Is it any wonder that, in that new world that is about to break in, old and young, laity and priests, men and women, black and white, gay and straight, all people eat, rejoice, and dance together, singing the words of the psalmist: “All that is alive, praise. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah!”?

May we, too, join the song of praise! Amen.

Preached online July 4, 2021, with Grace & Glory Lutheran, Goshen, and Third Lutheran, Louisville.

Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

Readings: Jeremiah 33:14-18, 31:31-34; Psalm 150

Pain and Promise: Acts of Hope

 Psalm 30 is what we call a song of thanksgiving. It is what the Hebrew calls a “new song,” a song that is sung after a person or a people have been delivered by God from crisis, whatever that crisis may be. 

Our Jeremiah text this week names one of those crises. An existential crisis for Judah and, particularly, for Jerusalem. Our story opens in the tenth year of King Zedekiah of Judah. Jerusalem is under siege by the king of Babylon. Jeremiah, once again, is imprisoned for harsh and difficult words he has spoken to Zedekiah: they are words of the demise of Jerusalem and its king, both of whom will be taken into exile. We are at the point of death that is coming in many forms.

Our reading is from Chapter 32. Its placement is odd, because surrounding this chapter are chapters from the second part of Jeremiah, what is often called the Book of Comfort. Chapters 30, 31, and 33 are all chapters that promise Israel’s return from exile. Set into these words of restoration is this odd story, a story about a real estate transaction.

We read now from Jeremiah, chapter 32.

Jeremiah received the Lord’s word in the tenth year of Judah’s King Zedekiah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar’s rule. At that time, the army of the Babylonian king had surrounded Jerusalem, and the prophet Jeremiah was confined to the prison quarters in the palace of Judah’s king. Judah’s King Zedekiah had Jeremiah sent there after questioning him.

Jeremiah said, The Lord’s word came to me: Your cousin Hanamel, Shallum’s son, is on his way to see you; and when he arrives, he will tell you: “Buy my field in Anathoth, for by law you are next in line to purchase it.” And just as the Lord had said, my cousin Hanamel showed up at the prison quarters and told me, “Buy my field in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, for you are next in line and have a family obligation to purchase it.” Then I was sure this was the Lord’s doing.

So I bought the field in Anathoth from my cousin Hanamel, and weighed out for him seventeen shekels of silver. I signed the deed, sealed it, had it witnessed, and weighed out the silver on the scales. Then I took the deed of purchase—the sealed copy, with its terms and conditions, and the unsealed copy— and gave it to Baruch, Neriah’s son and Mahseiah’s grandson, before my cousin Hanamel and the witnesses named in the deed, as well as before all the Judeans who were present in the prison quarters. I charged Baruch before all of them: “The Lord of heavenly forces, the God of Israel, proclaims: Take these documents—this sealed deed of purchase along with the unsealed one—and put them into a clay container so they will last a long time. The Lord of heavenly forces, the God of Israel, proclaims: Houses, fields, and vineyards will again be bought in this land.”

Jeremiah has received a word from Yahweh, from God. "Your cousin, Hanamel, will come to you in prison and offer you the opportunity to purchase a piece of property.” Jeremiah has first dibs on this property. He has the right to “redeem” this family property according to Jewish law that provides for the next of kin to buy back property that is in danger of being lost to debt. Jeremiah is that next of kin. 

When his cousin arrives, Jeremiah is now sure that this is the work of God. The story continues with surprising technical details of that transaction. Jeremiah prepares the deed, with the help of his personal secretary and scribe, Baruch. He gathers the necessary witnesses for the transaction. Then, Jeremiah weighs out the money, seventeen shekels of silver. He signs the deed, seals it, gets witnesses, and, again, weighs the money on scales. He takes the sealed deed of purchase that contains the terms of the agreement and gives it to Baruch in the presence of his cousin, charging Baruch with putting them into a clay container - the safest of places - so that they will last a long, long time.

Like the witnesses to this transaction, we are likely questioning in our thoughts the wisdom of investing in land which, at that very moment, is being besieged and destroyed by a large foreign power. It makes no sense. As if Jeremiah can read their thoughts, and ours, he responds with a word of hope. Someday, he says...someday, there will again be fields and houses and vineyards on this land.

It’s an act of hope. A symbolic act of hope that proclaim Jeremiah’s words through action. At this worst moment in Judah’s life, Jeremiah’s act of hope - his land deal - shows that there will be a future. A hopeful future for God’s people. It is an action taken in the face of what seems impossible. Proclaiming in the thick of captivity that there will be life again in the land of Judah. That not only will Jeremiah survive, but the land will, too. 

We’re a lot like Jeremiah, I think. As I’ve been reflecting back over these past 15 months, I’ve been thinking about similar acts of hope that I’ve engaged in myself or seen others engage in. Planting a garden in the midst of a pandemic is an act of hope. Sewing masks for healthcare workers is an act of hope. Birthday parades are acts of hope. Assembly and delivering gift baskets to nursing home residents, isolated from their families, is an act of hope. Recognizing and cheering for frontline workers is an act of hope. Creatively changing an entire curriculum to teach online is an act of hope. Acts of kindness, of volunteering, of charitable giving are all acts of hope. Learning a new way of gathering online is an act of hope. Joining a protest for change is an act of hope. Walking in a Pride parade is an act of hope.

All of these acts that we witnessed and, perhaps, engaged in ourselves are symbolic actions that say that no matter how hard and difficult things are, no matter how important it is that we sit in our grief, no matter our need to process our grief and pain in a healthy way, we believe the God will bring us through this. And that God will not only bring us through this, but that God will be us to a new day. To a new way of being.

This is what Psalm 30 speaks to. This song of thanksgiving. Or what Brueggemann calls psalms of reorientation, or new orientation. It bears witness to the surprising gift of new life when none had been expected. It recognizes that we have made it through the storm and reached a new place. Yet, having reached this new place, there is no going back to what was before. That we can no longer pretend that all will always be well and that all is as it should be. And yet, that even in the midst of our Saturday - as we have sat for a very long time in Saturday - we have not lost the hope that despair will not win out. And that evil does not have the last word.

This is what Jeremiah’s act of hope proclaims. This is of what Psalm 30 sings. That those who have walked the darkest valleys, who have stood in the midst of shaking mountains, who have experienced life when the bottom drops out, will, with creation, in time experience new life and grace. Together. As God’s beloved people. 

This is our hope. This is God’s promise. Amen.

Preached June 27, 2021, online with Third Lutheran, Louisville, and Grace & Glory, Goshen.

5th Sunday after Pentecost

Readings: Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15, Psalm 30

Pain and Promise: When the Floods Rise

The psalm we just heard - Psalm 13 - is a psalm of lament. A song written from a place of deep despair and darkness. It suggests to us the nature of our reading today from Jeremiah, which also suggests a time of difficulty. Mostly the difficulty that Jeremiah, the prophet, experiences, from to help the people and their leaders understand their need to turn back to God, to put aside the ways that are contrary to those of God. To repent and seek God’s forgiveness.

To this point, I haven’t provided much context for either the book of Jeremiah or the Prophet Jeremiah. For today’s reading, in particular, this background becomes helpful to know and understand.

Roughly a century before the beginning of Jeremiah’s mission, the northern kingdom had fallen to Assyria. We heard stories of this last fall - the twelve tribes that made up the kingdom of Israel split in two. Ten tribes in the north, forming a nation called Israel. The remaining two tribes in the south forming Judah. So, 100 years before Jeremiah, this northern kingdom had been defeated by the Assyrian Empire, never to return again. They became known to Judah as the “lost” tribes - eliminated forever. This haunted the remaining two tribes in the south. Terrified of being overrun by the Assyrians from the north. But, also, of another growing threat in the north. This time from the Babylonians. 

It was during these hundred years that King Josiah made sweeping reforms, centering the worship of Judah in the temple in Jerusalem in an attempt to bring the people back from worshiping other false and strange gods, worship that had led them to horrific practices, including child sacrifice. Josiah believed that this false worship would lead directly to national disaster and exile as punishment for their failure to honor their covenant with God. So, for a time, there was a brief respite for the southern kingdom. But, not for long. Because Josiah’s successors did not follow his lead. Soon, the Babylonians attacked Judah and began a two-year siege of Jerusalem. 

It was in the midst of this time that Jeremiah was called by God to denounce the wayward behavior of the people of Judah. As you can imagine, he was not a popular public figure. He was jailed over and over by successor kings because, although speaking the Word God gave to him, his message was unwelcome by the political leaders. And the people. It is during one period of confinement where our story today is located - during the reign of King Jehoiakim. 

We read in Jeremiah, chapter 36.

In the fourth year of Judah’s King Jehoiakim, Josiah’s son, this word came to Jeremiah from the Lord: Take a scroll and write in it all the words I have spoken to you concerning Israel, Judah, and all the nations from the time of Josiah until today. Perhaps when the people of Judah hear about every disaster I intend to bring upon them, they will turn from their evil ways, and I will forgive their wrongdoing and sins. So Jeremiah sent for Baruch, Neriah’s son. As Jeremiah dictated all the words that the Lord had spoken to him, Baruch wrote them in the scroll. Then Jeremiah told Baruch, “I’m confined here and can’t go to the Lord’s temple. So you go to the temple on the next day of fasting, and read the Lord’s words from the scroll that I have dictated to you. Read them so that all the people in the temple can hear them, as well as all the Judeans who have come from their towns. If they turn from their evil ways, perhaps the Lord will hear their prayers. The Lord has threatened them with fierce anger.” Baruch, Neriah’s son, did everything the prophet Jeremiah instructed him: he read all the Lord’s words from the scroll in the temple.

The king sent Jehudi to take the scroll, and he retrieved it from the room of Elishama the scribe. Then Jehudi read it to the king and all his royal officials who were standing next to the king. Now it was the ninth month, and the king was staying in the winterized part of the palace with the firepot burning near him. And whenever Jehudi read three or four columns of the scroll, the king would cut them off with a scribe’s knife and throw them into the firepot until the whole scroll was burned up.

The Lord’s word came to Jeremiah after the king had burned the scroll containing the words written by Baruch at Jeremiah’s dictation: Get another scroll and write in it all the words that were in the first scroll that Judah’s King Jehoiakim burned.

The time is coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. It won’t be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt. They broke that covenant with me even though I was their husband, declares the Lord. No, this is the covenant that I will make with the people of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my Instructions within them and engrave them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. They will no longer need to teach each other to say, “Know the Lord!” because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord; for I will forgive their wrongdoing and never again remember their sins. --Jeremiah 36:1-8, 21-23, 27-31 (CEB).

Why does it happen that sometimes everything just falls apart? When we experience chaos, such as that which we experienced over the past 15 months or so, which may not even yet be over as much as we might wish it to be? 

Our traditional Lutheran theology has taught us that “bad things happen” because of sin and human brokenness. This is true, although sometimes it is also true that bad things just happen. Yet, by far they happen because of human action. Certainly, we saw that this past year, as we could see human failure and pride impact and perpetuate the growth of the pandemic - growth and expansion that did not have to happen. Hundreds of thousands of lives that could have been spared. 

All because of our sin and human brokenness.

We also saw the rise of civil unrest and disobedience in our nation last summer, perhaps really seeing for the first time through an apocalyptic-type unveiling of the great injustice in our systems. Systems that keep people of color, the queer community, women, the poor and others on the margin in bondage. That drive and maintain inequality. Not that we, as individuals, necessarily want this. But, perhaps, that we have been less than willing to notice it before, or to simply ignore it, unwilling to step out of our places of comfort. 

All because of our sin and human brokenness.

And, then, there’s the deep division in our world. A seemingly epic struggle that has taken its toll on so many relationships. So many families. So many churches and their pastors. I know of this toll on pastors because I spent a few hours this past week, just sitting and listening. As colleagues literally wept over the division in their congregations, and how many of them have become targets themselves of the vitriol and anger that hovers just below the surface, ready to strike at any time. Not to mention the heavy load that so many of us have been carrying. And the exhaustion, too. Perhaps, the same exhaustion you’ve felt. Is it any wonder that something like 25% of pastors in the church are seriously considering leaving the ministry or have already left?

All because of our sin and human brokenness.

When did you feel most broken in this past year? Was it as we saw pandemic numbers spike, the curve of deaths skyrocket? Or perhaps it was in the summer as we watched the video of George Floyd or heard the horrific story around the death of Brionna Taylor? Was it during the days of protests and civil disobedience? Or perhaps you can’t even remember such a time because you have tried so hard to put it behind you. To not think about it. To pretend it away. To leave behind the despair and the grief and the sense of hopelessness. Too often, as theologian Walter Brueggemann writes, we are afraid to sit in Saturday. You know, Saturday, right? That day after the Friday crucifixion, when the disciples, too, likely had to face their own fear and grief. Their own complicity. Their own sin and human brokenness. Not knowing that Sunday would come. 

Perhaps, we should sit longer in Saturday. Feeling lost and alone. Crying out to God, like the psalmist, “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?

But there is this obscure message - this obscure gospel message - in today’s Jeremiah text. The command by God to Jeremiah to write his words - to write God’s Word - down. Ensuring that this Word will endure forever, notwithstanding any human desire to ignore or erase it. This Word that comes to us. This New Covenant. This Word Incarnate that meets us where we are. In our messiness and chaos. In our human sin and brokenness. That abides with us. Even when we don’t fully realize that, in our guilt and despair and suffering, God has been present with us all along. Right there, beside us. Preparing to lead us to a new day. And a new way of being. 

But, for today, let’s just sit now for awhile in Saturday. Recognizing our sin. And brokenness. Our complicity. But, also remembering and holding fast to the one truth, as the psalmist does, too, that God is faithful. And forgiving. And that soon, we will sing again. Amen.

Preached June 13, 2021, online with Grace & Glory Lutheran, Goshen, KY, and Third Lutheran, Louisville, KY.
3rd Sunday after Pentecost

Readings: Jeremiah 36:1-8, 21-13, 27-31; Psalm 13

Pain and Promise: God Stoops Down

Last week, we began our six week series through Jeremiah and, accompanying this, the Psalms because, just as with us, the songs of the people often express their experience.

We also talked about trauma. And how, after an experience of trauma, it is natural for people - and us - to try to make sense of what has been experienced, to make meaning of it. Much of scripture is an attempt by God’s people to make meaning out of trauma and traumatic experiences. If this is not done - if time is not taken to make sense of the experience, it can have devastating effects. Leaving people isolated and suffering. Leading to the breakdown of community and the broader society. And even leading to a loss of faith. 

Jeremiah and the Psalms offer a way. A way by considering the story of Israel’s exile to help us make sense of our traumatic experience that can help to lead us out of the chaos to a new way of being and a new understanding of God. 

Last week, in our opening texts from Jeremiah, we heard about Jeremiah’s call - two aspects of what God had called him to do. The first could be identified as the problem or the cause - what caused God to call Jeremiah as prophet to Judah.  The people have been going after other gods. They have been oppressors, particularly, of the alien, the orphan, and the widow - those who represent the most vulnerable members in society. The second aspect we heard was the nature of Jeremiah’s call. The reason he was selected by God and sent to the people. A twofold call. First, to dig up and pull down, and to destroy and to demolish. But, then, to build and to plant. 

Today, we move to the potter’s shed. And read from Jeremiah, chapter 18.

Jeremiah received the Lord’s word: Go down to the potter’s house, and I’ll give you instructions about what to do there. So I went down to the potter’s house; he was working on the potter’s wheel. But the piece he was making was flawed while still in his hands, so the potter started on another, as seemed best to him. Then the Lord’s word came to me: House of Israel, can’t I deal with you like this potter, declares the Lord? Like clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in mine, house of Israel! At any time I may announce that I will dig up, pull down, and destroy a nation or kingdom; but if that nation I warned turns from its evil, then I’ll relent and not carry out the harm I intended for it. At the same time, I may announce that I will build and plant a nation or kingdom; but if that nation displeases and disobeys me, then I’ll relent and not carry out the good I intended for it. Now say to the people of Judah and those living in Jerusalem: This is what the Lord says: I am a potter preparing a disaster for you; I’m working out a plan against you. So each one of you, turn from your evil ways; reform your ways and your actions. --Jeremiah 18:1-11 (CEB)

It might be hard for us, with our 21st century sensibilities, to accept the image of God as some remote potter, up in heaven, molding and shaping our destiny. Yet, the word in Hebrew used here for “potter” has the same root as the word in Genesis for “creator.” Just as God shaped every beast of the field and the birds, the heavens and the earth and all aspects of creation, so, too, God shaped humankind. From the very dust of the ground.

So, perhaps, it’s not such a stretch for us to imagine God as potter. Molding and shaping us. Sometimes needing to start over because of a flaw or blemish in the clay. There are no specifics as to what the blemish is. Just that, for whatever reason, the potter remakes the piece into another that is pleasing to his eyes. Do you notice, though, that the potter never tosses the defective clay away? But, continues to work it. To mold it and shape it with his hands. To form it into a thing of beauty.

This what God desires for our world and for each of us. That it and we might be things of beauty. That we might be fully transformed and made whole, and then serve in the world to share the fullness we have been given. A wholeness and a fullness that comes Christ. That is offered to each of us. And to everyone. Graciously so. 

But, too, often, as with the people of Judah, we turn to other “gods.” Money, prestige, power - those things that draw us away from God and often result in oppression, as we seek to preserve what we have with no regard to the fullness or lack thereof for others in our world. It’s why at the end of our reading today, there is a call to repent. To turn back from the evil that not only separates us from God, but that separates us from each other. God is affected by this evil. Both the Jeremiah text and the psalm report that God is impacted by the actions of God’s creation - displeased with the defects. Towering above the nations, the psalmist writes, yet stooping down to correct the injustices perpetuated by humankind. 

How do we turn back? How do we center ourselves in the midst of the pull of the world and, particularly, that which would pull us away from God and from God’s desire? This, too, is suggested by the psalmist in the opening words. “Servants of God, praise, praise, the name of the Lord!”

Each week, when we bring our worship, our attention, our ears, our hearts to God in this centering space, we can clear space in our heads and our hearts to discern that which pulls us away from God. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, we can turn back to God and be re-centered again. Reminded, once again, that God is present. That God is not some distant, unmoved creator. But that God comes to us into the chaos. Restores us. And works to bring us and all people into relationship and into community. Because this is God’s plan. It is the purpose of the Great Potter - a purpose that supersedes all others. A plan to mold and shape and create out of our flaw and defect and trauma, a world, here on earth, that is a thing of beauty.

How can we not say, “Hallelujah!” Amen.

Preached June 6, 2021, at Grace & Glory Lutheran, Goshen, KY, and Third Lutheran, Louisville, KY.

2nd Sunday after Pentecost

Readings: Jeremiah 18:1-11, Psalm 113.

Pain and Promise: The Way

We just heard Psalm 1. We often forget that the Psalms are the songs of Israel. Songs of the joy they experienced, both as individuals and collectively as a people. Songs of praise sung to a gracious and benevolent God. Songs of lamentation sung in times of vast despair. And many other types of songs that come out of the lived experience of a people.

We also often forget as one theologian has noted that much of scripture comes out of lived experience. And particularly, out of trauma. Out of people trying to make sense or make meaning of their traumatic experience. Beginning with the banishing of Adam and Eve from the garden, through the flood and its aftermath, to the enslavement and eventual freedom for Israel, to the first destruction of the temple and the Babylonian exile, even to the time of the Christ, living as a subjugated people and the second destruction of the temple - over and over and over again, God’s people have attempted to make meaning of it all and to understand where God might be working in the midst of it.

So, beginning today with Psalm 1 seems right - this song placed at the beginning of all of Israel’s songs. A song that talks about two ways. Two paths. And about what happens to a people when they stray from the path of life, from God and the ways of God.

This is also a similar theme in the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah - a prophet called by God to help Judah survive. Sometimes harsh and bitter. Sometimes a predictor of the terror to come. And, yet, a prophet and a book that is a quest for meaning and about how, even in the midst of communal disaster, the people of Judah (and we) we might find both the human and the divine. 

And so, today, we begin in Jeremiah. 

The Lord’s word came to me:
“Before I created you in the womb I knew you;
    before you were born I set you apart;
    I made you a prophet to the nations.”
“Ah, Lord God,” I said, “I don’t know how to speak
    because I’m only a child.”
The Lord responded,
    “Don’t say, ‘I’m only a child.’
        Where I send you, you must go;
        what I tell you, you must say.
Don’t be afraid of them,
    because I’m with you to rescue you,”
        declares the Lord.
Then the Lord stretched out his hand,
    touched my mouth, and said to me,
    “I’m putting my words in your mouth.
This very day I appoint you over nations and empires,
    to dig up and pull down,
    to destroy and demolish,
    to build and plant.”

Jeremiah received the Lord’s word: Stand near the gate of the Lord’s temple and proclaim there this message: Listen to the Lord’s word, all you of Judah who enter these gates to worship the Lord. This is what the Lord of heavenly forces, the God of Israel, says: Improve your conduct and your actions, and I will dwell with you in this place. Don’t trust in lies: “This is the Lord’s temple! The Lord’s temple! The Lord’s temple!” No, if you truly reform your ways and your actions; if you treat each other justly; if you stop taking advantage of the immigrant, orphan, or widow; if you don’t shed the blood of the innocent in this place, or go after other gods to your own ruin, only then will I dwell with you in this place, in the land that I gave long ago to your ancestors for all time.

And yet you trust in lies that will only hurt you. Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, sacrifice to Baal and go after other gods that you don’t know, and then come and stand before me in this temple that bears my name, and say, “We are safe,” only to keep on doing all these detestable things? Do you regard this temple, which bears my name, as a hiding place for criminals? I can see what’s going on here, declares the Lord. --Jeremiah 1:10-10; 7:1-11 (CEB)

In 2014 I was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. It was the result of over 40 years of loss I experienced throughout my life - loss that continued to impact me even after I’d done much work with mental health professionals over that time. The diagnosis was the result of my individual, accumulated experience of trauma. 

Today, though, and over these next several weeks we are not talking about individual trauma. Now that is not to say that some of us, or even all of us, have not experienced some level of individual trauma over these many months. But, we have also experienced collective trauma - trauma that has come over the series of events we’ve experienced together in this time - disaster and its effects that have disrupted our lives on a vast scale, turning them upside down, shaking our world apart, destroying our day-to-day existence and even shattering our understanding of our own reality and even, perhaps, that of God.

It’s normal for us to want to get as far away from this experience as soon and as quickly as we can. It’s likely why there is so little history written about the 1918 pandemic - that, perhaps, there was a rush to put it behind them. Yet, those who deal with disaster and trauma know of its effects if it is not tended to - hidden effects that can leave us isolated, keep us in our own suffering and grief, and, in time, lead to a collapse of faith and trust in one another, in our society, and in God.

Jeremiah was called to serve God’s people in a similar time as ours, an experience that is hinted at even in Psalm 1, a straying from the true path to one that leads to destruction. And collective trauma. This is Jeremiah’s call from God - to both stand with and against the people, to call them out and to call them in, so that they might endure what is to come, that they might live, and that they might yet realize a future that includes a new covenant with God. Or as we just read: to dig up and pull down, to destroy and demolish, to build and plant.

Isn’t Israel’s way our way? Isn’t Israel’s experience our human experience? Over and over again in the narrative of scripture we read of a three-fold pattern of our world, of our human experience.

There is a triune pattern in the world. Creation - Uncreation - Re-creation. Richard Rohr calls it “order, disorder, reorder.” Walter Brueggemann names it orientation, disorientation, reorientation. It is a pattern we see through the entire story of scripture. 

God creates all things. And it is very good. Then, humanity chooses to betray God and we are plunged into a violent system of shame and blame. The violence comes to it’s apex and the world is plunged into a flood of some kind that threatens to destroy everything with chaos. And yet...God turns the flood into a promise. And resurrects humanity into a new covenant.

And then the cycle repeats itself. Again and again. Over and over. God creates. We uncreate. And God re-creates. Life, death, resurrection. It’s how things grow. It’s how we grow.

Or think about it in another way.

If all of reality was singular, was one. Then it would be static. There would be no diversity. No movement. It would be nothing.

If all reality was split in two, divided between this and that, between us and them, there would only be division. A dualistic or binary system. This is where most of us get stuck. We think the world is divided between God and creation. Between heaven and hell. Between good people and bad people. Between absolute right and absolute wrong. Between us and them. 

But there is a third way. 

The movement of God is to keep these dualities, these binaries, from destroying each other. To use the tension between them to instead open up a new life of hope and possibility. Because, again, this is how we grow.

We start in simple consciousness as children. Life is good and ordered.

We grow into adolescence and begin to focus on our individuality - the things that divide and that define us from each other. We construct our false selves in a way that separates us from each other. That often leads us to division and violence. 

But there is this third way. The way where Jesus invites us to take up our cross and follow him. This third way is the way of Jesus. The way to which we have been called, just as the early disciples were called.

And, yet, in John 16, Jesus tells the disciples that, though he has much to tell them, they are not yet ready to bear it. But, he promises that the Spirit will guide them (and us) in the way of the cross and in the life of resurrection and rebirth. 

Because this is who God is. A Triune God. A threefold God. Three persons, one Godhead. The Trinity. A God who is dynamic and ever changing. Self-emptying. Loving. Ever expanding and inclusive. Creating and sustaining. Working to bring about the unity and harmony of all living things so that all creation might live in shalom. A God who is in relationship within God’s self, but, more importantly, a God who is in relationship with us. A God who can move into the darkest places of our collective trauma to reveal life to us, even when all we can see is death.

As we continue to move through Jeremiah and the Psalms, may begin to understand that this God was the God of the psalmists. This God was the God of Jeremiah and the people of Judah. This is our God, too. Ever creating and re-creating. Always bring us from death to life.

And for this, we say, “Thanks be to God!” Amen.

Preached May 30, 2021, at Grace & Glory Lutheran, Goshen, and Third Lutheran, Louisville, KY.

Trinity Sunday

Readings: Jeremiah 1:10-10; 7:1-11; Psalm 1

Birth of the Church: Building God's Beloved Community

We began this preaching series at the end - following the crucifixion, we have walked through the days of the early church, from Jesus’ appearances to his disciples to early days of conflict. Today, we remember that all are welcome in this place, and we are all part of the big picture - God’s picture of gathering all people into beloved community. We read today from the third chapter of Paul’s letter to the Galatians. 

You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly exhibited as crucified! The only thing I want to learn from you is this: Did you receive the Spirit by doing the works of the law or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? Having started with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh? Did you experience so much for nothing?—if it really was for nothing. Well then, does God supply you with the Spirit and work miracles among you by your doing the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard?

Just as Abraham “believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” so, you see, those who believe are the descendants of Abraham. And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, declared the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “All the Gentiles shall be blessed in you.” For this reason, those who believe are blessed with Abraham who believed.

Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise. --Galatians 3:1-9, 23-29 (NRSV)

When I first moved to southern California in 1978, I was a redneck. And I say that in the most honest and true ways. I’d grown up on a ranch. And, although I went to a boarding school for high school, I’d never really experienced life outside that context: northern European, white, rural. 

You can imagine what a culture shock Los Angeles was for me. This sense of cultural difference continued through most of the time I lived there. Even after 20 years, my life was still one of growth and transformation, set in the context of a huge, continuously changing, diverse community.

It was then that I began working at the regional body of a public sector labor union. Say or think what you may about a labor union, our primary goal was to help people understand and build power for themselves. We sometimes think that power, and amassing power, is a bad thing. But power can be used constructively. To drive social change, to improve lives, to bring about greater equity and fairness. 

The people I worked with were so diverse. In fact, I, as a white person, was in the minority. I’d never worked in a place quite like this. I’d never been in such close contact on a daily basis with people of color. African-American, Latinx, Asian, Jewish. We were a diverse group. It was here that I first tasted soul food. Or bagels with lox. Or pancit. It was an amazing multi-cultural experience. 

And, yet, there were times when it wasn’t amazing. When we clashed over cultural differences. Or over the ways in which we understood or had experienced life and the work we were doing. Sometimes this led to deep disagreement.

It’s this - this disagreement that can come from our differences - that Paul is talking about in our text today. Last week, we heard the underlying reasons for the conflict between the Jewish and Gentile believers in the churches in Galatia - what we know as present day Turkey. Paul understands that the Galatians churches have become so focused on the argument around practices of the Torah and, particularly, the practice of circumcision. He understands that the churches have become so focused on this argument that they’ve become completely distracted in their faith. That they’ve become so focused on the circumcision agenda, that they’ve forgotten what had been happening in their midst - the amazing transformation work of the Spirit. 

Paul isn’t throwing out the law. His letter is a reaction to those who are saying that the law is paramount. It’s an argument that just the law, for the sake of the law, is not faithful to God. So, Paul reaches back to Abraham and makes the point that God counted Abraham righteous, not because of the law, but because of his faith. Faith came first for Abraham, then the law. And the purpose of the law was not to bind them, but to transform them as a people, to set them apart. So that, from Abraham and his descendants - this people set apart - would come One who would fulfill the law in its entirety. And, in the process, blow the doors of God’s beloved community wide open. 

Or as one theologian puts it: The redefinition of the people of God is now complete. Before the coming of Christ that people’s pride was the law; it was the gift of God which set her apart as a special people, unlike other nations and religions. By attention to the law she sought to maintain her privileged position as the chosen of God. Then the Messiah came, and the question of who really belongs to God’s people was transformed. Christ fulfilled a promise to Abraham which had to do with the expansion of his family as a component in their heritage. The people of God no longer are determined by the law but by Christ, belonging to him, being joined to him in baptism. But to redefine God’s people in this way is to imply revolutionary consequences for the nature of the new fellowship. (Charles Cousar)

So, when Paul gets to that infamous passage - there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, Paul isn’t advocating for some massive social revolution. Instead, he is calling for the Galatian churches, separated by their differences, to remember what connects them. What unites them. And what transforms them into beloved community. It is their unity made possible only through Christ.

The distinctions don’t evaporate. They are simply left powerless. Because the distinctions are cultural constructions, not the will of God. In God through Christ, there is only oneness. And, as the people - the body - of Christ, the Galatians, and we, are called to continue this trajectory. Not of “saving souls,” but of building and expanding beloved community here. And out there.

---

It was unity of purpose that eventually led my co-workers and I to work through our differences. Not in a way that insisted we all be the same or do the work in the same way. But, in a unified way, even in the midst of our diversity of backgrounds, experience, ethnicity or even food.

May this be our desire for the church, which is God’s desire for the church. That, regardless of our differences, our bond to one another is in Christ. And may the Spirit continue to transform us, so that we might continue the work of expanding God’s beloved community in our time and place. Amen.

 

Birth of the Church: Being Radical

Last week, we heard about a conflict in the church in Antioch - a division between Jewish and Gentile Christians - that was resolved through listening and compromise at the first ecumenical council in Jerusalem.

As we near the end of the Narrative Lectionary year, we will be spending this last three weeks in Galatians - Paul’s letter to the churches in Galatia, including the church in Antioch. This letter provides us with a view of Paul’s perspective of the disagreement we first heard about last week. This letter is also central to our Christian faith and our understanding of the doctrine of justification. It is also a letter that is often called the Magna Carta on Christian freedom. 

So, this morning, we read in Galatians, chapters 1 and 2.

You have heard, no doubt, of my earlier life in Judaism. I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it. I advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors. But when God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles, I did not confer with any human being, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were already apostles before me, but I went away at once into Arabia, and afterwards I returned to Damascus.

But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood self-condemned; for until certain people came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But after they came, he drew back and kept himself separate for fear of the circumcision faction. And the other Jews joined him in this hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that they were not acting consistently with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?”

We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law. But if, in our effort to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have been found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! But if I build up again the very things that I once tore down, then I demonstrate that I am a transgressor. For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing. --Galatians 1:13-17; 2:11-21 (NRSV)

Have you ever struggled with playing it safe instead of being radical? 

A few years ago in my former church in Pasadena, we experienced this. For several years, we had professed and believed that we were a hospitable congregation, welcoming all people. And, for the most part, we were.

Yet, we had a problem with the homeless population in our neighborhood. They liked to camp out overnight on the church property. Usually, though, if we gave them a little cash or let them use the phone or internet, or allowed them to stay overnight, well, eventually, they would move on. 

But, then, Monica and Vern arrived. (I’ve changed their names.) They lived in a beat up, broken-down van - a van they parked at the edge of our parking lot. Figuring they would move on as so many others had, we were polite. And helpful. And hopeful that they would eventually leave.

But, they didn’t leave. In fact, they started to push themselves into our congregation. When we opened up on Sunday morning, Vern was right there to help set up tables for morning fellowship. Both of them began coming to Sunday morning Bible study. Monica asked if she could sing in the choir. And on and on. They just continued to push their way in the
congregation.

Now mind you, most congregations would be thrilled with newcomers like this. How often do we proclaim our openness to visitors and our desire for them to become a part of us? How thrilled we would be if newcomers wanted to immediately become so involved!

To be truthful, we weren’t really all that thrilled. We weren’t thrilled because Monica and Vern were so different from us. For one thing, they were homeless. For another, well, they didn’t have regular access to showers. And so, sometimes, they smelled a little. Sometimes, they smelled a lot. They didn’t always say or do the “right” things. They didn’t fit into our norm. Into our small-minded, closed-hearted norm of what our church should look like.

And so, we struggled with being radical people. With being followers of a radical Gospel that teaches us that each one of us is enough and is good enough. That God has done it all for us and for every person. That there is nothing - nothing - we need do to be made righteous. That all of us, whether Jew or Gentile, whether white or black, whether gay or straight, whether binary or non-binary, all of us are made righteous before God through Christ Jesus. That is radical.

But, that’s not all. For too long we have used language that has rejected the validity of the covenant of God with the Jewish people. Parts of this letter, written by Paul, were used in the mid-20th century as a basis to extinguish the lives of millions of people. Even Luther, in his writings, used this part of Galatians to malign the Jews.  Because in large part, we have misconstrued what Paul is saying here. 

After decades of scholarship, it is now generally recognized that first-century Jews didn’t actually think that their “right status” with God came from keeping the Torah. Instead, like us, they believed they were saved solely by God’s grace. But, they also believed that their saved status was demonstrated by their obedience to the Torah, practices that marked them as God’s people, that set them apart. 

So, when Paul writes in chapter 2 that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith, this is not a diatribe against Judaism and the keeping of the Torah. Paul was a Jew, who kept the Torah religiously. Instead, if we look in the first chapter of Galatians, verse 16, we have a clue. Here Paul notes that Jesus was revealed to be God’s Son so that he might “proclaim him among the Gentiles.” Woven into the letter to the Galatians is a key idea - that the ancient promise of God - the covenant with Abraham to bless all the families of the world through his people - is now being fulfilled by the Messiah, Jesus. Christianity is not superior to Judaism. Rather, as one theologian puts it, “Christianity exists as the gracious fulfillment of the already gracious Judaism. It is the climax of the covenant, fulfilled in Jesus, through whom, as John writes, we have received grace upon grace upon grace. The holy Scripture tells this story - of how God’s past, present and future grace goes forth from Israel to the world through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ.

So, when Paul opposes Peter to his face, it’s not because Peter was a legalist, attempting to earn his way into heaven. Instead, Paul is saying Peter was acting hypocritically by leading others in a way that was out of step, even contrary, to the multi-ethnic, cross-cultural, radical nature of the gospel. By refusing to eat with Gentile Christians when a faction of Jewish Christians arrived in Antioch, Peter was essentially saying that there were two classes of Christians, divided by ethnic lines. And that to be a “real” Christian, one must live according to the markers of the Torah. But, Paul was having none of that. Because Paul’s idea of justification by faith in this letter is not an individual act of inclusion, but a communal act of inclusion - bringing the non-Jews into the sect of Jesus believers. It answers the question of who’s in and who’s not. For Paul, because of the radical faithfulness of Christ, nobody is out. Everybody is in. 

Monica and Vern eventually became a beloved part of our Pasadena church. Members. We learned to live into being the radical people of love that the Gospel called us to be. And, when they decided to move on, nearly two years later, we were heartbroken to see them go. 

This is what it means to be radical people of a radical Gospel, whether we are from Galatia or Pasadena, from Goshen or Louisville. To be people reaching out by grace to grab for dear life onto the perfect divine life of Jesus Christ, given for us. To be a new creation, given a new status. Included. Transformed by grace. To love. Deeply. According to the will of our God and Father. 

To God be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

Preached May 9, 2021, online with Grace & Glory Lutheran/Goshen, KY, and Third Lutheran/Louisville, KY.

Easter 6

Readings: Galatians 1:13-17, 2:11-21; Luke 18:9-14