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You are here: Home / america / Sermon: Right Here, Right Now

Sermon: Right Here, Right Now

October 13, 2013 by Chad Herring Leave a Comment

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

three-dog-night-joy-to-the-world-probe

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.

         Olympus Has Fallen

         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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Chad Andrew Herring

Chad Herring

kairos :: creature of dust :: child of God :: husband of 21 years :: father of 2 :: teaching elder/minister of word and sacrament in the presbyterian church (u.s.a.) :: exploring a progressive-reformed – emergent-christianity :: more

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