Jeremiah 32:1-16

32The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the tenth year of King Zedekiah of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar. ²At that time the army of the king of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem, and the prophet Jeremiah was confined in the court of the guard that was in the palace of the king of Judah, ³where 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; ⁴King Zedekiah of Judah shall not escape out of the hands of the Chaldeans, but shall surely be given into the hands of the king of Babylon, and shall speak with him face to face and see him eye to eye; ⁵and he shall take Zedekiah to Babylon, and there he shall remain until I attend to him, says the Lord; though you fight against the Chaldeans, you shall not succeed?” ⁶Jeremiah said, The word of the Lord came to me: ⁷Hanamel 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.” ⁸Then 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. ⁹And I bought the field at Anathoth from my cousin Hanamel, and weighed out the money to him, seventeen shekels of silver. ¹⁰I signed the deed, sealed it, got witnesses, and weighed the money on scales. ¹¹Then I took the sealed deed of purchase, containing the terms and conditions, and the open copy; ¹²and I gave the deed of purchase to Baruch son of Neriah son of Mahseiah, in the presence of my cousin Hanamel, in the presence of the witnesses who signed the deed of purchase, and in the presence of all the Judeans who were sitting in the court of the guard. ¹³In their presence I charged Baruch, saying, ¹⁴Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Take these deeds, both this sealed deed of purchase and this open deed, and put them in an earthenware jar, in order that they may last for a long time. ¹⁵For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.

To begin, a quick summary of the passage from an outsiders view: Jeremiah has been locked up for speaking the truth of what he saw coming. Jerusalem was going to fall, the king would be taken into captivity. The armies of Babylon have surrounded the city and has been under siege for many months. One of Jeremiah's relatives comes to Jeremiah in jail and offers to sell him land that that is currently being occupied by the enemy. Upon completion of the legal transaction, Jeremiah utters words of a world not hoped for, "Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land."

The previous passage that we looked at was a lamentation that was written in the same time frame. It is no coincidence that lamentation and promised hope are so close together. As we talked about last week, God's presence and participation in the lament meant that lamentation would not be the last word. This week we hear that promise, the mercy that God holds out to the Israelites and to us.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German theologian during the 1930s and first part of World War II. During the war he was made aware of what was happening in the concentration camps. Because of this knowledge he became involved in a plot to kill Hitler that was unsuccessful. Once the German authorities discovered that he had been involved in that plot, he was thrown into a concentration camp and was killed a week before it was liberated. Bonhoeffer never pretended that his role in the attempted assassination was a "good" thing, only that it was a lesser evil than doing nothing.

A few months before he was killed he wrote to his fiancee about the passage that we have this week. He writes, "When Jeremiah said, in his people's hour of direst need, that 'houses and fields and [vineyards] shall again be bought in this land,' it was a token of confidence in the future. That requires faith, and may God grant us it daily. I don't mean the faith that flees the world, but the faith that endures in the world and loves and remains true to the world in spite of all the hardships it brings us. Our marriage must be a 'yes' to God's earth. It must strengthen our resolve to do and accomplish something on earth. I fear that Christians who venture to stand on earth on only one leg will stand in heaven on only one leg too."

How do we prevent from being one legged-Christians? By not tying ourselves to those things that cannot save us. Paul’s letter to Hebrews speaks at great length about wealth and how it can chain us to those things that take up space but do not satisfy. But more importantly it speaks of wealth as a gift from God to become rich in good works. “Take hold of the life that really is life”: This phrase from Timothy one that pushes us beyond the expectations of what God can do in our lives. Real life is not made up of riches, but is open and vulnerable to the world around us.

Just as Jeremiah spoke of a time of peace and “normalcy” in a time when it could not be
imagined, just as Bonhoeffer speaks of God’s "yes" in a time when humanity’s "no" was so deafening, we are called to listen closely to God’s word of unexpected hope that will push us outside of our own narrow vision of what is possible into the vision of God’s future. This doesn’t mean we ignore the reality of the pain in the world around us. On the contrary we are called to
approach that pain embrace it and allow the hope that God gives us through Christ change it into
something new. By encountering the pain, but responding out of hope we bear witness to the kingdom of God and help bring it into existence in the here and now.

Jeremiah 8:18-9:1

8 ¹⁸My joy is gone, grief is upon me, my heart is sick. ¹⁹Hark, 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?” (“Why have they provoked me to anger with their images, with their foreign idols?”) ²⁰“The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.” ²¹For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt, I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me. ²²Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of my poor people not been restored?

9O 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!

The historical situation that Jeremiah lived in was a dire one. The small kingdom of Judah was caught between two of the superpowers of that time: Egypt and Babylon. Judah had submitted to Babylonian control with great reluctance. Zedekiah, the king of Judah during this time, eventually rose in open rebellion against the Babylonians and with this rising the Babylonians marched out against Jerusalem determined to put a stop to this small troublesome nation once and for all.

This is not a story of where the little guy wins.

Scholars believe that this lament was written during the time of the Babylonian siege, as the people see the armies that are encircling them close around them, cutting off hope, prosperity, and life.

There are debates about who it is that is lamenting. Undoubtedly the people are lamenting as they cry out that God is not present with them. God and Jeremiah lament over the people's idolatry and yet still refer to them as "my poor people". There is a "cacophony of lamentation" from all corners. The judgment and and horror that is unfolding pains everyone, even God.

This, I think is an important point that needs to be made. No one, not even God rejoices in judgment, as this text makes abundantly clear. I think sometimes when our lives are not going in the direction that we think they should that God is hovering over us rubbing his/her hands together saying, "This will show you!!!" This vindictive image of God that is in our minds does not pay attention to the reality that is shown here. God takes no joy in the suffering that has happened or that will happen. Rather it is another painful reminder of the shattered covenant relationship between God and the people of Israel.

We do not raise our own voices in lamentation very often. To give voice to our sorrow fundamentally scares most of us because it means that it is true. When we admit that we are in pain we become vulnerable to other people and to others. Think of it: to say, like the people of Judah did that God was not present with them in the holiest of places would have been terrifying to admit. To say, as the prophet does, that there is no balm to bring healing to his broken people is a honest, yet brokenhearted cry. And in the midst of this there is a burning question: Why does it matter if God is sorrowful in the midst of judgment and not happy or satisfied with it?

It matters because it should remind us that God will not leave those who raise up their voices in lamentation alone. As Old Testament scholar Terence Fretheim writes in his commentary on Jeremiah, "For God to so enter into the mournful situation means that mourning will not be the last word spoken." Rather than leaving the people and their pain, sorrow and suffering, God has not disengaged with the situation, but is still passionately involved.

In our own lives this is true as well. We are called to be honest in our relationship with God because honesty is what builds trust, and trust as John Calvin reminds us is the essence of faith. By trusting God with our sorrow we invite God's presence into the most painful aspects of our lives so that these painful moments will not be the last word spoken.

Jeremiah 18:1-11

18The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: ²“Come, go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words.” ³So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. ⁴The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him. ⁵Then the word of the Lord came to me: ⁶Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? says the Lord. Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. ⁷At one moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, ⁸but if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it. ⁹And at another moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, ¹⁰but if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will change my mind about the good that I had intended to do to it. ¹¹Now, therefore, say to the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: Thus says the Lord: Look, I am a potter shaping evil against you and devising a plan against you. Turn now, all of you from your evil way, and amend your ways and your doings.

Much of the time, those who are Christians shy away from passages like this one. While the imagery here is one that I think many people like (God the potter, the people of God the clay), most of us are a little reluctant to go beyond this image and actually deal with what God is saying about the clay, and what is going to happen to it. Judgment is something that most of us are uncomfortable with.

The reality that God portrays here is that the clay (the people of God) is being stubborn, shaping itself in a way that God is not pleased with. What were the people shaping themselves into? If one continues reading in this chapter it becomes apparent that idolatry, the worshiping of other gods, was foremost among Israel's sins at this time.

As I read and pondered this passage, it occurred to me that as Christians we need to be conscious of what shapes us. We all know that there are far too many things to distract us from those things in our lives that are more important. We live in a society and culture that teaches us that we have should always be happy. But so few of us are. We allow our expectations of what our lives are supposed to look like to be shaped by other forces around us.

I can't list all of these forces, but some could be: work expectations, family expectation, church expectations, personal expectation, prosperity expectations, and security expectations. Each of these is probably a sermon in and of themselves. None of these are inherently evil. But if we place any of these priorities above our love and worship of God, then we create our own idolatry.

There is some amount of debate among most Christians about how active God is in bringing judgment against people who work against God's shaping work. Some believe that God simply allows the consequences of people's actions play out; that this is judgment enough. But here God works directly against Israel shaping a plan. But this shaping is not the end word of this passage. God summons the people to turn from evil and make new lives for themselves.

This is our summons to. Some may say, "We have no idolatry in our lives, that there is nothing that separates them from God. Just let us go on with our lives the way that they are." Personally I know that I cannot say this, and am somewhat mistrustful of such statements. Within the reformed tradition, we say that we are the reformed church, always reforming. We are constantly on the potter's wheel, asking God to shape us and our lives. If a vessel is left on a spinning potter's wheel without the potter to hold its shape, it soon begins to wobble and will fall or be thrown off the wheel. As soon as we presume that we no longer need God's hand to shape us, the same thing happens.

We, as God's people are called to lean into the hand of God so that we might more fully bear the marks and shape that God has in store for us. May we be so faithful in this shaping that we allow ourselves to bear the fingerprint marks of our creator so that they are visible to all who we meet. In doing so we walk in the way that Jesus lays out for us and walked before us. Let us follow.

I would like to invite anyone to comment share. Please observe the guidelines listed in the first post.

Here are some of the sculptures that we had from our service

First Blogging Attempt

Hello Friends,

We at the Elwood Community Church have started this blog as a way of doing some interacting between myself (Pastor Jason) and the rest of the community. Each week during our evening service, people will have time to reflect on the scripture passages and the sermon. If people feel led to write or share observations and or questions, this is the place where it will be posted. I would like to set a few ground rules.

1) Claim what you write. If you have something to share, please don't do so anonymously. While there are places where anonymity is important, this blog should not be one of them.

2) Follow the rule of Love: If there is disagreement over thing that are written, that's fine- in fact there probably should be seeing as how we aren't the Borg (Sorry, Star Trek reference). However when we do so, it needs to be in a respectful and humble way. ABSOLUTELY NO NAME CALLING.

3) If anyone has any concerns about how this is run, please talk to me about it, not someone else. I can't change formats or discussion rules until I know what needs to be changed.

I'm looking forward to doing this. I hope that you read and join in the discussion.