2013 10 13 Right Here, Right Now from John Knox Kirk on Vimeo.
A sermon preached at John Knox Kirk of Kansas City, Missouri on October 13, 2013.
Psalm 66:1-12
and Jeremiah 29: 1, 4-7
When you hear the name Jeremiah, what do you think of?
I really love it how the two bible studies I led this week…both of them
instantly said “Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog”
when I asked them what first came to mind when we think about Jeremiah.
This is a pretty hip church, I thought. They love Three Dog Night
We’ll dig into Jeremiah in a moment,
but maybe you know that song too:
Joy to the world….All the boys and girls now.
Joy to the Fishes in the deep blue sea…
Joy to you and me…
* * *
If Joy means something like happiness, or contentment,
or having a “positive” disposition…
none of that really fits the prophet Jeremiah.
There isn’t much joyful about him,
at least not at first glance.
True: Jeremiah is considered
one of the greatest prophets of the Hebrew people,
second in importance only to Isaiah.
And true: Jeremiah is revered and respected and admired
but not so much for his message of Joy and glad tidings and comfort.
Some call Jeremiah the “weeping prophet”
because his particular watch
led him to work and to witness during a painful period of history.
Many found his words to be hard to hear,
uncomfortable for some, unbearable to others.
Since the start of his prophecy, during the reign of King Josiah in 626,
he felt compelled to warn the Hebrew People of the coming collapse
of their country, of Judea
and of their own blindness to how their material excesses
and their injustice towards the poor
and their lack of faith in God
was leading them to this pending confrontation.
And for this message, Jeremiah is attacked by his family,
is beaten and thrown into the stocks and dumped into a cistern.
He was called the Weeping Prophet
because during his reign he experienced the dismantling of reforms
the collapse of the Assyrian empire
and, eventually, the hoards of Babylonians
who came down over the plains to the north
to sack Jerusalem, destroy the beloved temple
and to take the wealth and the bulk of the Hebrew people
into captivity in Babylon.
* * *
It is really hard to overstate
the importance of the temple to the Hebrew people
and what it would have meant to have seen it destroyed
while you were being carried away to a foreign land.
I don’t think we have a good equivalent.
Some things might get close, but I think they fall short.
I thought this week about all the summer blockbuster movies this year
that revolved around a plot to attack our country.
G.I.Joe
Even one entitled “White House Down”…
three different movie trailers just this summer
with CGI explosions of the White House.
Moviemakers look to that edifice
as perhaps the symbolic heart of our people.
And I admit it does grab me momentarily.
But that led me to mediate about the twin towers, and the pentagon,
and the actual, very real, very not cinematic attacks
on fundamental symbols of our nation.
These struck our nation, struck me, to our very core. And rightfully so.
They still do.
But while wounded we remained intact; we remained resilient.
We remained.
The destruction that Jeremiah observed
of Jerusalem and the temple, by contrast
symbolized the end of everything that they had known:
their entire religious system—based on sacrifices in that temple.
their entire political system—no more kings, no more priests
their freedom and their land and the physical ties to the
promise of their ancestors—a place overflowing with milk and honey
all of that GONE…
* * *
They called their time away from Jerusalem the Exile.
And with the Exile came a long and deep yearning to return:
to go back, as quickly as possible,
to the way things were.
To set up shop again, to rebuild that temple
to re-establish the King, the anointed one
to get back what was lost.
And, in fact, these goals would define the Hebrew people
for the next six centuries.
This is a powerful, forceful human emotion,
to yearn for things the-way-they-once-were.
To want the glory days back again.
* * *
This all sets the scene for today’s scripture reading.
The people, recently, have been plucked from their home
and are living in Babylon.
They are hearing some voices tell them that this exile will be short
two years, that’s all they’ll have to wait
and then they’ll return back to Jerusalem and the way it used to be.
And then they get Jeremiah’s word to them instead:
Build houses, and live in them;
plant gardens, and eat what they produce
Take wives and have sons and daughters;
take wives for your sons,
and give your daughters in marriage,
that they may bear sons and daughters;
Multiply there, and do not decrease.
But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile.
And pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in ITS welfare,
you will find your welfare.
* * *
The people wanted to pitch tents,
but God tells them to lay foundation and to build houses.
The people planed to stay at hotels and to dine at restaurants
things we might do on vacation or a temporary stay
in a city that is not our own…
but God tells them to plant gardens,
to lay down roots and to expect to have children
and grandchildren there.
This new city, God tells them, is now their city.
* * *
God has this way of being impatient, in a sense,
with our reliance on nostalgia.
Time and time again in the Hebrew Scriptures,
God is taking ordinary people
and plopping them down in places they don’t want to be
and works through them to make God’s point.
I could go off on all sorts of tangents here—
with Jonah and his big fish
with Moses and his fear of leadership
with Aaron, after Moses doesn’t quite make it to the promised land…
Many tangents, but I’ll resist.
Suffice it to say that God keeps doing this: shaking up our expectations
and even our hopes and our dreams
and encouraging us to bigger and better dreams instead.
For the people Jeremiah spoke to,
this means living into the rather difficult new reality
in which they found themselves:
they’d have to build homes
they’d need to work the land
they’d need to devise new ways to worship and relate to God
ways that didn’t require the temple or its priests.
* * *
Ok, that’s all well and good.
But here’s the question that has been stuck with me all week:
I get all of this, God’s movement pushing us forward
even as we might long for the stability of the past.
I can even get excited about God doing this and can plan to trust God
through all things:
We, my brothers and sisters, we aren’t in exile
and if God doesn’t abandon God’s people in Babylon
who lost EVERYTHING
then God can handle OUR changing culture and OUR changing church
that seems to give us such vexing anxiety.
But here’s the thing:
God went a step further than simply urging the Hebrew people
to settle in, to build and to plant and to multiply.
God didn’t tell them to tend to their own.
God didn’t tell them to protect the old ways, to get back to the basics,
to circle the wagons and plan for their own needs,
to turn inward until they could go back home.
God told them this:
Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile.
And pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in ITS welfare,
you will find your welfare
God told them to LOVE the very people
that took EVERYTHING from them.
God told them to seek their peace, their prosperity, their WELFARE
this culture that was not their own,
because NOW its welfare and their welfare were intertwined.
What do we do with that?
What do we make of that?
* * *
Last week, I gave a brief presentation on a group called NEXTChurch
at the Heartland Center conference
Cathy helped put together for older adults.
The presentation talked about this changing culture we’re living in
and how NEXTChurch, among others, is seeking out
innovative forms of ministry
a renewed focus on shared mission
and a way for Presbyterians to
engage this new culture by taking it seriously.
The presentation went well and I wrapped it up
and started packing up my laptop and my notes
when one of the attendees came up and introduced himself
and he said to me:
“You know, I appreciate all of what you said,
and I listened carefully to all of it
but no where did I hear you talk of RETURNING to
the core teachings of the bible.
I think that’s the problem, all this changing culture stuff.
When we just need to STICK to the core teachings of the bible.”
And I thanked him.
And I mumbled something about how NEXTChurch
believes in the Bible too,
centers all of its gatherings in worship and the like,
and we both went on our merry way….
But here’s the thing: this adaption to the changes in culture
this listening for where God is calling us to serve
and finding ways of worshiping God THERE….
that IS a core teaching of the bible.
Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you.
Pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in ITS welfare,
you will find your welfare
It is a false option to ask us to choose between
following Jesus and engaging our culture.
Following Jesus IS engaging our culture:
Loving it and serving it and bearing God into it
so that its welfare becomes ours.
Our task is to serve God where we find ourselves:
Right here, right now
At 114th and Wornall
In Kansas City and Leawood
and Overland Park and Prairie Village
Wherever it is that you call home.
We will find our life and our livelihood not through serving just our own
but by seeking the welfare of the place where God has placed us.
For, as Jesus would later say, it is through serving and loving
and feeding and clothing and caring for others…
that we serve and love and feed and care for Jesus himself.
* * *
So I experienced my first Christmas in October yesterday.
I was woefully unprepared:
I failed to bring any tools.
I should have worn boots,
and got lucky that the nail I stepped on didn’t get me.
And I came away convinced that we instinctively get this,
that we know, in our bones, the importance of seeking the welfare
of our community.
It was in many ways a minor impact:
some debris cleared, some gutters installed,
new wiring and plumbing in place.
But note well: it was the heart of the gospel, acted out right here, right now
one of the many ways we try to do so in our community.
As we look to our future as the Kirk,
one of the challenges we will face is considering anew:
how is God calling on us to love and serve the place where we are?
what are the needs around us?
how might they match with our gifts and passions
and skills and energy?
what will need to change for us to do this work?
I don’t have definitive answers to any of that,
but I do know the question is a vital one for us.
For our welfare is intertwined with the welfare of our community.
And God wishes for us all to thrive.
* * *
I’m not sure that they knew it,
but our bible study folk have suggested for us a pretty good
benediction to our sermon today.
Joy to the world….All the boys and girls now.
Joy to the Fishes in the deep blue sea…
Joy to you and me…
As we ponder the new context for being church
that God has called us to,
may WE seek out the welfare of our community.
May we love our neighbor. May we seek to serve them.
May we pray for their joy…the joy of the whole world
all the boys and girls
Joy to You and Me.
And may we dream, oh may we dream
of ways that we can engage this world with the amazing love of God
so that we may be alive for years to come.
May it be so.
Amen.
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