Faith Is

Faith Is
Luke 17:5-10
October 7, 2007
27th Sunday in Ordinary Time

© 2007 by Christopher D. Drew

Sermon Focus: Luke recounts what appears to be two separate yet related sayings of Jesus. The first saying deals with the nature of faith and, by extension, some of the characteristics of faith. Immediately following this first saying is another relating how a servant isn’t praised for doing what is normally required. The statement lends to an interpretation that we ought not to boast of our discipleship. By connecting this story with the first story about faith, we can say that neither should we boast of our faith, which is a gift from God.

Sermon Function: To proclaim the nature and power of Christian faith, and to highlight how faith itself is a grace from God, and to encourage the congregation to be thankful for faith and to let the power of faith illuminate and drive human life.

[Click to Show/Hide Sermon Text]

Introduction

Our scripture for today is found about two-thirds of the way through Luke’s gospel. In this section of Luke are many parables and sayings of Jesus that are told as he and his disciples are on the road to Jerusalem, en route to the last supper at Passover, the crucifixion, and the resurrection. Two of these sayings are in today’s reading. They are separate, but related.

Listen now to God’s word.

[Read Scripture - Luke 17:5-10]

Faith

I was in San Francisco for a few days this past week for a big meeting with San Francisco Presbytery’s Committee on Preparation for Ministry (or SFPCPM). As many of you know, I have been ministering to this church as an unordained candidate for ordination in the Presbyterian Church. My meeting this week was to undergo what someone on the committee refers to as the “final trials of ordination.” At this final assessment meeting, I was required to deliver a sermon, report progress on a set of covenant objectives I had agreed to last year, and present my statement of faith. At the conclusion of all this, the committee takes a vote and decides whether or not to authorize the candidate to actively pursue and accept a call to a particular church. This is a big step in the long process towards ordination. For me, it was the culmination of just over three years of preparation.

The meeting began with my delivery of a sermon. We then gathered back around our table and I was asked to present my statement of faith.

And so I did. It was excellent, I think.

But it did make me wonder: What exactly is faith? Is it something we can measure? Does it have some kind of substance? Can I compare my faith, for example, with the great saints of the church? Better yet, can I compare my faith with that of the faithless, a better option since then I might come out ahead on the comparison?

The statement I delivered didn’t attempt to answer any of these questions. And, interestingly, the committee wasn’t interested in them either. The statement of faith is important to the committee, because when I am ultimately called to a church, I will have to recite the statement in front of an entire assembled Presbytery. My committee was deeply concerned that I be able to address any “questions” my statement of faith might attract.

Faith, though, isn’t something easily committed to paper. And it isn’t something that you can measure. It just is. And that is the key to understanding the first two verses of today’s text.

The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” The Lord replied, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you. (Luke 17:5-6 NRSV)

On their way to Jerusalem, the apostles ask the Lord for an increase in their faith. The text implies that they already have faith, but that somehow the amount of faith they have is somehow insufficient for the task that awaits them, or at least insufficient for extreme extent to which Jesus expects them to forgive those whom have sinned. Right before this text, Jesus has told the disciples in verse four, “And if the same person sins against you seven times a day, and turns back to you seven times and says, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive” (Luke 17:4 NRSV).

The disciples appear to misunderstand the nature or character of faith, and so Jesus gives them some helpful guidance. Faith isn’t a quantitative thing to which you can add more faith. The request for additional faith implies that whatever faith one has is somehow insufficient. In a way, it’s like someone coming up to you and saying that they are “kind of” pregnant. There is no in between when it comes to faith. Neither is there insufficiency. Faith just is.

Because faith isn’t a measurable thing, Jesus tells us a few things that should give us cause for celebration.

First, faith is a function of being a created being. For all those God claims as his own, faith, like everything else we’ve been given, is a priceless gift. It exists in us before we are even aware of it. I also believe that faith can be present even when we don’t want it or when we reject it. Among other reasons, this is why we have the understanding that there are no atheists in foxholes. Our human need to connect at a spiritual level is in large part due to the fact that faith is inbred into us. It’s part of the fabric of being a human being. To ask for more faith is to say, in a rather awkward way, that God’s gift of faith is somehow inadequate.

And that brings me to a second point about faith. Because it comes from God, faith can be a very valuable weapon against all of the powers and principalities of this world. Listen again to the words of Jesus:

The Lord replied, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you. (Luke 17:6 NRSV)

Faith is power, the power to withstand and to overcome the worst things that life can throw at us. I don’t think we usually think of faith as a form of power. But it is. Think about it with me for a moment. It is through faith that we dare to approach Almighty God in worship. It is by faith that we are able to muster the courage to get out of bed in the morning and come into God’s presence. It is by faith that we are sustained through illness, financial difficulties, and damaged relationships. Faith can sustain us when nothing else can. Faith gives us the power to forgive someone when they have sinned against us time after time and come to us for forgiveness time and again. It is faith that keeps us alive during those intense dark nights of the soul, when we feel as if we might be swallowed up by fear, anxiety, and worry.

Living into the faith given to us by God can liberate us from everything that keeps us from truly knowing what it means to be a human being.

And while faith gives us great comfort and sustaining strength, faith is also the gift that keeps on giving. It is through the tremendous power of faith that the church goes out into the world in mission. It is through our faith that the hungry are fed and the sick comforted. It is through faith that we welcome the stranger into our midst. And it is by faith that we are able to remain obedient to our Lord Jesus Christ. Faith is power, the kind of power that can uproot the tree from the ground and plant it into the waters of Nueces Bay where it will flourish. That bizarre image is meant for a purpose: To disclose to Christ’s disciples the full extent of the power of faith.

Warning – Don’t Let It Go To Your Head

With such a power in faith comes, as you can imagine, great responsibilities. Faith is not a mark of special membership in a club. Faith is a gift from God. The proper posture when we reflect on this fact is prostrate in front of our Maker.

Jesus illustrates this through the next story in today’s text.

“Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, ‘Come here at once and take your place at the table’? Would you not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink’? (Luke 17:7-8 NRSV)

I remember back when I was a consultant and it was time for the annual review. The process was standard – everyone was evaluated using similar criteria and scoring. I remember working so hard to try to achieve a good evaluation each year. I took on travel assignments, special work projects and the like. I once even flew all the way to Paris, France to fill at a meeting that my supervisor could not attend. I sat in a crummy Paris office in the industrial part of town as a “content expert” while two other consultants, one a Partner in the local Paris office, and the other a potential client, spoke in rapid French, a language of which I was totally ignorant. After about two hours, we left. I remember later that year going into my annual review and thinking: This is great, I did some good work this year, and I even went to far away places at the last minute, leaving behind family and friends, to attend meetings I couldn’t even understand. Clients like me and say good things about me. What a year!

Inevitably, though, the evaluations always used the same lingo. “Great performer, but could do more of X, Y, and Z.” Average or above average ratings were common for me, as they were with everyone else in a culture that demanded overachievement from everyone. I remember wondering what, if anything, I could do to earn a higher rating? After 10 years of this, I concluding there was nothing I could do about the rating, I simply had to do my best, as all employees are expected to do. You see, you don’t get “props” or approval from doing what you were hired to do.

Similarly, if we are people of faith, we are not rewarded for recognizing that fact that we have faith, and we’re not accorded special honors for responding to God’s grace by extending his mission into our community and the world. Our attitude, as people of faith, ought to be one filled with humble gratitude. Here we see one of the great biblical truths of Christian ministry. Faith is, in fact, a gift we don’t deserve to begin with because of our rebellion and our sin. So in faith, when we do everything expected of by our Lord and Savior and Master Jesus Christ, our proper response should be similar to the one we read in verse 10. We remember our unworthiness, Lord, as your servants. We have done what you have asked us to do, and we are grateful for the privilege, particularly given that we are a sinful people.

Conclusion

God’s gift of faith is powerful, but that gift does not make us better or worse than anyone else. It simply makes us faithful servants of our Lord.

The next time you’re anxious about something, remember your faith and that God loves you and has given you that precious gift. Focus on that. Reflect on that. You will find that your anxiety will start to melt away. Remember also, as a person of faith, that we are given a powerful tool that does not give us special privileges over anyone else. Instead, by faith we assume responsibilities of humble servants. There is only one being who is great, and that is Almighty God, who through the gift of faith in His Son Jesus Christ grants to us eternal life at the heavenly banquet table.

Soon, we will recount God’s many blessings and gifts at the Lord’s Table, together with Christians all over the world during this World Communion Sunday. As we come to the table in this Sacrament, remember these things: Remember that by faith we are joining in the Passover feast Jesus shared with the twelve over 2,000 years ago. Remember that by faith we are united by the Holy Spirit with one another here in Portland and with those in congregations around the world. And remember that by faith we are join share the divine meal with those saints who have gone before us and who, with us, await the joyful banquet in the halls of the heavenly kingdom to come at the end of things. By faith.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Given at First Presbyterian Church, Portland, Texas.

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A Spectator

Meet Princess.

The Big Garage Sale

The big annual garage sale is today. This successful event raises much needed money for the church and its mission. If you happen to be in Portland, Texas, stop by First Presbyterian Church for some sweet deals!

Certified!

I'm pleased to report that the Presbytery of San Francisco's Committee on Preparation for Ministry has certified me to accept a call. The certification became official as of about 12:00 noon, yesterday.

This most happy news finally puts me on the same page with my spouse, Sara, who was certified by her presbytery last December.

Whoo hoo!

Technorati Tags: Presbyterian Church USA, PCUSA, Presbytery of San Francisco, Call

A Title of Hope

A Title of Hope
Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15
September 30, 2007
26th Sunday in Ordinary Time

© 2007 by Christopher D. Drew

Sermon Focus: This is a sermon about God’s faithfulness and our hope for the future. This isn’t an empty vain hope of human presumption. This is a hope in God’s faithfulness that has been fully and completely revealed to us in Jesus the Christ.

Sermon Function: To teach others that we can live out our hope for the future by making choices that conform to their status of disciples of Jesus Christ. How do we live out the hope we have in Jesus Christ?

[Click to Show/Hide Sermon Text]

Introduction

Those of you who remember last week’s sermon will remember that we talked about Jeremiah’s lament for the fate of Jerusalem and his people. Today’s sermon is about faithfulness toward us, even when we’re not faithful, and about how we express our hope for the future.

Jeremiah exemplifies his hope through the completion of a real estate transaction, which seems very appropriate for today, given the recent disturbances in the home mortgage, real estate, and home building businesses.

Let’s listen now for God’s word.

[Read Scripture - Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15]

Introductory Illustration

The big story on the front page of my Wall Street Journal has been pretty consistent for the past several months, and it’s been front and center even in local news broadcasts – in the midst of some pretty significant economic growth and low unemployment, real estate markets been hit pretty hard over the past year. We seem to be moving from a sellers market to a buyers market. Home prices in many places across the country have been falling. Banks and other lending institutions have been struggling with a growing number of mortgages in default in the so-called “sub-prime” market. Other financial institutions are suffering from plain-old financial mismanagement, offering cheap money and making the bet that interest rates would stay at all time lows. Banks were making loans to people who could not pay, and people were taking out loans for significantly more than they could afford. The result has been a credit crunch, making all kinds of borrowing more difficult for both homebuyers and even for corporate financial managers. The crunch has introduced a big, fat question mark into what has been a series of plus signs and exclamation points about the state of our national economy.

The purchase of a parcel of land or a home is a big deal in the lives of most of us. Anyone who has negotiated such a purchase knows the stakes. Even in the best of times, there is risk associated with buying a home. Risks associated with one’s job. Will I have the same job for the next 30 years? Will my salary go up, so that I can continue to afford my mortgage payment while starting a new family? Lots of assumptions go into the purchase of a home. Sometimes these assumptions pan out. Sometimes they do not.

And here we are today talking about Jeremiah and his purchase of a piece of land. The economic situation in Jerusalem, I will declare with some confidence, is much worse that the major hiccup we’ve seen in our contemporary mortgage markets.

In Jail, Under Siege, Predicts the King Will Be Exiled

To begin with, the buyer in question, Jeremiah, is in what we might call a form of house arrest.¹ Jeremiah was

“Confined in the court of the guard that was in the palace of the king of Judah, where King Zedekiah of Judah had confined him. Zedekiah had said, “Why do you prophesy and say: Thus says the LORD: I am going to give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it.” (Jer 32:2-3 NRSV)

King Zedekiah is leading a land under siege by the Babylonian army. As we can imagine, he’s none too pleased with Jeremiah’s bold statements that the kingdom of Judah, and its King, would be handed over by God to the Babylonians. In order to keep Jeremiah for eroding further the morale of the people, Zedekiah had Jeremiah confined to the court of the guard, right in the palace.

Many biblical scholars place this story right at 587 B.C., a good date for all of us to remember, because it is the date of the destruction of God’s house in Jerusalem, the temple. The siege itself would have been horrible. No one would have been able to enter or leave the city. Supplies would have been cut off. Water would be scarce or non-existent. The prospect of starvation and death by thirst was a very real possibility.

In this midst of arrest, siege and possible starvation, and the prophetic knowledge that God will be sending the Judah’s king into the hands of the Babylonian enemy, Jeremiah hears a word from the Lord:

Hanamel son of your uncle Shallum is going to come to you and say, “Buy my field that is at Anathoth, for the right of redemption by purchase is yours.” Then my cousin Hanamel came to me in the court of the guard, in accordance with the word of the LORD, and said to me, “Buy my field that is at Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, for the right of possession and redemption is yours; buy it for yourself.” Then I knew that this was the word of the LORD. (Jer 32:7-8 NRSV)

In the middle of all of this chaos and possible death, the word of the Lord comes to Jeremiah and announces that his relative will be coming over to conduct a business transaction involving real estate! The place where the land is located, Anathoth, was about three miles northeast of Jerusalem. The communication from Hanamel that affirmed God’s word to Jeremiah most likely came at a time when the Babylonian siege was temporarily interrupted by the presence of Egyptian forces. Communications might have been temporarily possible, and families struggling survive would be looking perhaps to make just such a transaction. In this case, Hanamel’s offer comes to Jeremiah in accordance with the rules set out in scripture, Leviticus 25:23-25. The land was considered to be God’s possession, so the right of “redemption” required that when a family experienced some kind of hardship, “the next of kin shall come and redeem what the relative has sold” (Lev 25:25 NRSV). In this way, the land, ultimately the possession of God, was retained within the nation of Israel and God’s chosen people. Given the law, Jeremiah must have been the one in the family who was willing to consider making the transaction in a time of tremendous uncertainty and fear.²

Revealing a Faith that Is Real

Jeremiah buys the land. The agreed upon price is weighed on the scales. Two copies of the purchase deed are created, and both are signed by the necessary number of witnesses and by everyone else who was sitting in the court of the guard with Jeremiah. The first, “sealed” deed would be the official copy for posterity. The unsealed copy was for administrative, day-to-day purposes. Jeremiah charges his scribe, Baruch, to take both copies and put them into an earthenware jar, so that they might last for a “long time.”

Jeremiah is making several big points here about God and our future hope.

First, the history of the people of Israel is tied very closely to the land. The land has a tremendous theological significance because it was the land of milk and honey that was promised by God to the people of Moses. With the knowledge that Jerusalem would fall to the Babylonians, Jeremiah is making the theological point that God is steadfast in his promises. “For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land” (Jer 32:15 NRSV).

Second, Jeremiah’s future hope was grounded in a very practical way – in the consummation of an otherwise ordinary real estate transaction. By putting the deeds into a container that will last, Jeremiah is making it pretty clear that his hope extends all the way to final deliverance, at the end, when his prophetic statement is fully realized.

I believe that what Jeremiah is saying is this: God is steadfast and God is faithful. He’s doesn’t just jettison his people when they are disobedient. God’s judgment might come upon us, but despite our constant faithlessness, God remains faithful. God always fulfills his end of the covenant agreement, even if we do not. And this faithfulness reveals a truth that God loves us and seeks to be with us. This is the basic truth that Jeremiah is proclaiming with his purchase of the land.

This faith becomes a concrete expression of hope when Jeremiah makes the financial commitment for the future. He’s taking what might be the last remains of his financial security and putting it at risk, because he has the hope of a steadfast God who, out of his utter love for his people, remains steadfast. He chooses a basic, concrete way to express that hope, and puts that hope on display to all those who witness the transaction, including those who happened to be watching in the court of the guard. This is Jeremiah’s witness to a hope in the steadfast love of God Almighty.

Our Hope Is In Jesus the Christ

My friends, we too have a share in this hope, because we have in our Lord Jesus Christ the full expression of God’s steadfast love, of his desire to be with his creatures. Jesus Christ gives us hope, because he is the total forgiveness we need to be saved. He is “the way, the truth, and the life,” (John 14:16), the means by which we are able to be in communion with God. Through his death and resurrection, and by his faith, we are able to fully understand what it means to have hope. Hope finds expression in a variety of ways. In fact, one way of defining hope is this: Hope is faith put into practice.

I was watching an interesting movie trailer the other day for a film called “The Call of the Entrepreneur.” The film features three people who view their entreprenuerism as a response to a call. Jimmy Lai was one of those people, and he had this to say about the risk involved with starting a business. He said this: “Taking risk is dashing into hope.” It’s a tangible expression in the believe that something new and rewarding will be created. And we are challenged today to ask ourselves how we dash into hope. What are the visible, tangible ways that we, like Jeremiah, can express our hope?

One way we express that hope when we show up for worship. If we do not have the hope of salvation in Jesus Christ, then there really is no point showing up at the door of the church. The church gathered in worship is one of the significant ways we express our hope and our longing for communion with Jesus Christ and his church. That hope is enlivened and sustained right here, around Word, Font, and Table – all of these things are tangible expressions of that hope for us and for the world; tangible expressions like the purchase of some real estate.

We demonstrate our hope when we invest the time to visit someone who is sick, or is homebound. Hope is demonstrated when we participate in the mission activities of the wider community, like Mission 911.

This church has proclaimed its hope for the future in tangible, ordinary ways. For example, the replacement of our sewer lines to be an expression of hope, because we all hope they’ll be needed for the foreseeable future. The formation of a Pastor Nominating Committee, and the accumulation of funds for the support of a full-time pastor, is additional clear-cut, demonstrations and proclamations the hope be have. It is interesting to stop and think that some people in the church make donations like this with the knowledge that they themselves might not be present when a particular hope realized. And that is probably the clearest, most concise proclamation of the hope we have in Christ that I can image.

We don’t make blind speculative bets for the future, we respond to God’s call to the kingdom in the sure knowledge that God will remain steadfast to his promises.

I can imagine that some people thought Jeremiah was quite foolish with his land deal. Many in the world will call us foolish for placing our trust in Jesus Christ. But hope isn’t a blind bet. Hope is the clear knowledge and subsequent proclamation of God’s faithfulness and love. Jeremiah proclaimed this hope to a struggling people by buying his cousin’s land. In Jesus Christ, God has given us the full measure of hope. I’m staking my life on this hope. And no matter what happens to me, or to you, I share the Apostle Paul’s conviction that “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:38-39 NRSV).

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Given at First Presbyterian Church, Portland, Texas.

¹Clements, R.E. “Jeremiah.” Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching. Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1988, p. 194. ↩
²Ibid., p. 194. ↩

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Font, Table, Pulpit

Font, Table, Pulpit
Originally uploaded by whatnext

The interior of First Presbyterian Church, Portland, Texas, where I currently serve as Temporary Supply Pastor.

Copyright © 2007 by Christopher D. Drew

Technorati Tags: Presbyterian Church USA, PCUSA, Font, Table, Word, Baptism, Lord's Supper

Where Are You?

Where Are You?
Jeremiah 8:18-9:1
September 23, 2007
25th Sunday in Ordinary Time

© 2007 by Christopher D. Drew

Sermon Focus: The people are at rock bottom now, and so is their prophet, Jeremiah. The nation faces further loss and famine. It seems that God has not come through, and that all is lost. Jeremiah 8:18-9:1 is one of the most poignant texts of either the Old or New Testaments. This text tells us what it can be like when everything we think God should do does not come to pass.

Sermon Function: To teach listeners that our will for God is not necessary God’s will for us. God, who lives in relationship with his people, hears the lament like any other prayer. This text gives us permission to cry out in frustration in the midst of our unexplained agonies. And the text teaches us that when he hit rock bottom that an earthy remedy won’t help us. Only the love of Christ can heal the brokenness of our hearts. And only Jesus Christ can restore us when we have broken away from God and cannot find the way back ourselves.

[Click to Show/Hide Sermon Text]

Introduction

This is now our fifth week of six in the prophet Jeremiah, can you believe it? We talked about God’s divine prerogative as supreme judge over all, and how we can be assured that God’s judgment is just, merciful, and loving. As Christians, we know, through the testimony of Holy Scripture and the witness of the Holy Spirit, that our Judge will be Jesus Christ, who was himself judged and found worthy of all glory, laud, and honor.

This week, we turn to yet another subject that weighs heavily on the minds of many people. What does it mean when God seems not to respond to the cries of the faithful for relief? What does it mean for us when we hit rock bottom? How do we respond? What does this tell us about God, and what does tell us about our understanding of Him?

Let’s listen now to God’s word.

[Read Scripture - Jeremiah 8:18-9:1]

Opening Remarks

I’m going to get right to the point today: Humans beings, right from the beginning, suffer from a singular temptation: To replace the God who is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, the God who judges us justly and with mercy, the God who out of his boundless love created us, with a different god, the god we want God to be. This is a problem with a long and extensive history. Adam and Eve were not content to live in the glorified reality of new creation. They were tempted by the serpent, who slandered God by claiming that he was withholding something from them that they deserved to have, the knowledge of good and evil, the knowledge of God. They were tempted with all the trappings of God’s office, and because of that illusion, they fell.

We are all prone to this temptation. No one is exempt, because there is this sinfulness in us that persists, even while we still have in us a remnant of God’s divine image in us. With everything we know about God, and about Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, we are still tempted, when things don’t go our way, to throw out the whole idea of the Triune God in favor of an idol we have better control over. A God created in our image, rather than the other way around.

You and I have stories we can tell to one another, stories about the times when we felt like God was not around, when God was AWOL, when God was absent. Usually, these stories come at the major crisis points of our lives.

Some of us have stories about struggling with disease. Some of us must contend with destructive addictions that control us and prevent us from reaching our full potential. Some of us are placed into the situation where we have to face our own mortality or the mortality of a loved one with whom we cannot bear to be parted.

Our trials our not limited to our individual struggles, either. Our nation has undergone its own cultural struggles. Revolution, civil war, world wars, and now wars in response to terrorism. It has become impolite to talk about some of these things from the pulpit. But I will today. Who cannot say that they wondered where God was when those magnificent, beautiful towers fell down in Manhattan. I had stood on the top of one of those towers, overlooking the hum of the big city as the sun set over the waters. Who could do this kind of thing? Where was God? When those towers were destroyed on September 11, I wasn’t even in the country. Separated from friends and family, I tried checking every internet news website I could think of. Nothing. Internet traffic was out of control. I called my sister in Salt Lake City to see if she had any news from her desk at KUTV, a local network affiliate. I heard sobs and felt her tears over the phone. The nation was experiencing a tragedy of such proportions that all you could feel, besides the anger, the fear, and sadness, was the loss of something profound in our society of individual achievement – we lost of sense that we actually were in control of what was going on in our lives. And it is that loss of control that today’s serpents know how to exploit.

What amazed me about that experience was how, for a time at least, people recognized that the social fabric was critically important. Expressions of faith actually found increase in the weeks and months to come, before the illusion of our control began to reassert itself, as it always does, when the patterns of daily living slowly calm themselves in the standard rhythm, the rhythms that give us that illusion that we can somehow, if we simply will it enough, control our own lives to the point where we don’t have to even acknowledge, on a regular basis, our own individual mortalities. That is for another time, for someone else.

Text Transition

Our faithful prophet Jeremiah is experiencing a crisis. He warned the people of Judah and Jerusalem repeatedly, and in the strongest terms, that their idolatrous view of God would lead them to destruction. He was ignored. The people relied on their status as the elect of God to save them. Having rediscovered the Law of Moses, they now hoped that their blind obedience to legal regulations would save them. But God demands more from us, he demands our love and faithfulness. And now judgment has come to the people, and there is chaos, destruction, and tears of lament, that the jewel of the people, Israel, and its seat of public worship and the presence of God among them, the temple, has been destroyed.

In response, Jeremiah penned these words, some of the most poignant in either the Old or New Testaments:

My joy is gone, grief is upon me, my heart is sick. Hark, the cry of my poor people from far and wide in the land: “Is the LORD not in Zion? Is her King not in her?” (18-19)

Where are you, God? Why have you not intervene to save your people? Why is this happening to us. Are you no longer living with us, in your house, the Temple?

The reason for this is offered by God: “Why have they provoked me to anger with their images, with their foreign idols?” (Jer 8:19 NRSV). The people have turned to their own ways, and have rejected God. How can this path not lead to ruin?

Jeremiah has a sense of foreboding now that the worst is coming. “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved” (Jer 8:20 NRSV). The harvest is past: Nothing came forth. The summer has ended: None of the expected summer fruits have come forth. The prospect is for famine.

Jeremiah then expresses his profound sympathy for his people. He is a member of the body who is suffering this judgment. “For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt, I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me” (Jer 8:21 NRSV). The prophet here gives us an example for those of us who are called to help others in the midst of suffering. We are a member of the human family, and when a member suffers, we join in that suffering. We are not called to deliver empty platitudes when someone is experience the worst trials of life. We are called, instead, into solidarity with them. To be present with them as representatives of God’s people.

“Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of my poor people not been restored?” (Jer 8:22 NRSV). Gilead was incredibly fertile, and produced plants that were used to make highly valued balms for medicinal purposes. The illness of Israel’s sin is, as we see here, beyond the power of earthly remedy.

“O that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears, so that I might weep day and night for the slain of my poor people!” (Jer 8:23 NRSV). Yes, indeed. A fountain of tears is shed over the loss of what we think we control. I remember when this happened to me, years ago, when I felt totally alone and abandoned by everything and everyone. Tears of despair. Tears of depression. Tears of anger and frustration at what was happening to me. Who has not shed such tears? Even Jesus Christ himself shed tears at the sight of Lazarus’s mourning family. One wonders if perhaps Jesus had this passage from Jeremiah in mind when, he wept over the city of Jerusalem.

And in the face of this tragedy, Jeremiah longs for escape. “O that I had in the desert a traveler’s lodging place, that I might leave my people and go away from them! For they are all adulterers, a band of traitors” (Jer 9:1 NRSV). Get me out of here. Get me away from this faithlessness, and hypocrisy. Give me a way out of this illness that pervades my body, or my mind, or my soul. I want it to stop, but it can’t stop, so I want to escape. Good God, help me to escape this torment in my soul, this tragedy afflicting my people, who have become traitors, blind to your steadfast love and your just judgment.

Good Lord, where are you?

Disillusionment from Our False Idols

Yes, it is during the crises of live that we are sorely tempted just to jettison the whole faith “thing.” Some already have and make try to represent this as a step toward finally achieving psychological normalcy. If you don’t believe me, take a look at the “Religion” section of Barnes and Noble the next time you visit. You’ll find an astonishing variety of titles in the “Religion” section that are about the wonders of atheism, book that preach against that final “illusion” of faith that prevents us from being fully human. This is additional evidence of our temptation to idolize ourselves. It’s so much easier for us to try and kick God out of our lives than to contend with the question of who God is, how God works, and how God loves us. Suffering, which used to be thought of as a sign of an opportunity for displaying spiritual discipline, has now been cast in the role of devil.

But all of this is just further evidence that we need to look deeper, to seek further the God who loves us. Because all of our false idols about God eventually crumble when we discover that they don’t accord with the reality of our lives. And that can make us very angry with God.

This passage from Jeremiah, then, teaches us two significant lessons.

First, Jeremiah shows us that it is okay to lament and complain to God when we are in the midst of suffering. Our relationship with God is infused with Joy when we realize that we can come to God both in thanksgiving for everything we have been given, but also when we realize that we can come to God when we have need to complain and beg for forgiveness and healing. Jesus Christ, the perfect revelation of God, who lived with us and gave us the full measure of what it means to be loved by a God who wants to save us, himself cried out in agony those famous words on the cross, from Psalm 22:1, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” My friends, if Jesus himself could cry out for deliverance, so can we. And we should at all times cry from deliverance, because we need it more than ever, in a culture that encourages idolmaking of the self.

The second thing we are taught is to jettison many of our preconceived notions about God, which we then turn into idols we worship. Barbara Brown Taylor, in her book The Preaching Life, writes about the death of Christianity in Europe and about the rejection of God during the 1960s in the wake of the Kent State and Mai Lai massacres, wrote this about the prevailing environment:

“God was not good. God did not answer prayer… All bets were off. Human beings were free to construct their own realities from any materials at hand and to express themselves any way they pleased. When lightening did not strike, their confidence grew along with their fear: that perhaps they really were alone in the universe after all.”¹

We live in an similar era of disillusionment and spiritual discomfort. But that can be a good thing, because, as Taylor writes, “in the place where all of our notions about God comes to naught – there is still reason to hope, because disillusionment is not so bad.” Why is that? Here’s the reason: “Disillusionment is the loss of illusion – about ourselves, about the world, about God – and while it is almost always painful, it is not a bad thing to lose the lies we have mistaken for truth… Disillusioned, we find out what is not true and are set free to seek what is – if we dare.”²

For us, each time God declines to follow our rules and to yield to our expectations, this is, as Brown writes, yet another of idol that we’ve propped up that now must be set aside. It is a lifelong journey, one that sanctifies us, because we become close to God the more we seek him. But we are unable to go the full distance because of our sinfulness, our tendency to raise up yet other ideas for who God is. The issue is this, God is way above what we can possibly imagine.

And that is why we require a Savior, one who is the full expression of God’s love and desire to be with us. One who Himself, while fully God, yet condescended to live with us, as he does today, right here, and right now, in the exhibition of that love and desire for fellowship that we rehearse and lay open for the world in our worship, in the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and in the love we show to one another, when things are going well, and especially when we find ourselves in the midst of suffering.

What encourages this preacher is that I can see you present with those who suffer, witnessing to God’s love in your ministry. You visit the sick. You take care of each other when you need help. You prepare meals for those who cannot. You sit with those who are lonely. You deliver communion to those who cannot be with us. And you pray constantly through the ministry of prayer quilts and in your faithful attendance at worship here in the church. Keep up this sanctifying mission of the church, my friends, because you will find that it will yield within that peace that surpasses all understanding, so that when you are called to bear witness during a time of suffering, you will be able to do it, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Given at First Presbyterian Church, Portland, Texas.

¹Taylor, Barbara Brown. The Preaching Life. Cowley Publications: Cambridge, 1993, p. 5. ↩
²Ibid., p. 8. ↩

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