Jeremiah 11:18-20; James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a
Presented September 20, 2009, by J.D. Kline
The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost
It’s a tough task, proclaiming an unwelcome message. Centuries ago, the prophet Jeremiah felt compelled to proclaim insistent words of judgment against the people of ancient Jerusalem who had lost sight of their calling from God to be a light to the nations. Those Hebrews of old, cried the prophet, had turned their backs on the call to be a peculiar people proclaiming a new way of living, to be a community of God’s faithful people modeling hope in a sea of despair, compassion in a world of injustice and oppression, gracious inclusion in a climate of exclusion, peace in a world of suspicion and fear, in a world ever seeking security through political intrigue and military might rather than trust in God. Indeed, on more than one occasion Jeremiah laments that there are competing voices in his day who “have treated the wounds of my people carelessly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace” (6:14; 8:11).
It was a message the people of Jeremiah’s day did not want to hear, and what’s more, it was a message the prophet frequently did not want to deliver. This morning’s lesson from Jeremiah, chapter 11, is one of a series of laments or complaints against God. On another occasion Jeremiah cries out to God, “O Lord, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived; thou art stronger than I, and thou hast prevailed. I have become a laughingstock all the day; every one mocks me” (20:7 RSV). And in this morning’s text the prophet laments, “I was like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter,” so aware was Jeremiah of his opponents’ efforts to isolate him, seeking to render his voice totally silent. The verbs used in the lament are intense; his foes, asserts the prophet, intend to “destroy” him, to “cut him off,” to ensure that “his name will no longer be remembered” (11:19).
I’ve been reading a novel entitled The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry, the story of Roseanne McNulty, now nearing her hundredth year, reflecting back on her life, much of it lived in a mental hospital. “I am completely alone,” asserts Roseanne. “No one even knows I have a story. Next year, next week, tomorrow, I will no doubt be gone, and it will be a small size coffin they will need for me.” It’s that tragic line, No one even knows I have a story, that caught my attention. For is that not what Jeremiah’s opponents wanted to have happen to this troubling proclaimer of an alternative vision for life? They wanted Jeremiah silenced; even more, they hoped that his name—his very identity, his life story—would be eradicated.
It’s no easy task, being the proclaimer of unwanted news—news considered by many to be treasonous, by others, mere idle dreaming. It’s not surprising, then, that Jeremiah would have times when his call to ministry seemed overwhelming, far more than he could handle. And yet, the same Jeremiah later asserts, “If I say, ‘I will not mention God, or speak any more in God’s name,’ then within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot” (20:9).
Indeed, the prophet continues to speak, no doubt because he understands that a key task of the faithful is to offer alternative possibilities, to challenge others to take hold of a new way of living based upon compassion and peace, justice and mercy, servanthood and every-flowing grace. Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann suggests that this is the power of prophetic ministry, to help us imagine new possibilities. In the aftermath of the prophet’s proclamations, nothing may have changed, asserts Brueggemann—“except that everything has now been changed by this poetic utterance.” It’s as if the prophet’s words, pointing to a radically new vision for life, “cannot be unsaid.” Contends Brueggemann, “The word has been uttered and the juices of alternative possibility have begun to flow.”
The poet Mary Oliver puts it this way: “Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.” That’s precisely what the prophet encourages the people of his day to do, to keep some room in their hearts for that which would stretch them, that which would enrich their life and witness together as the people of God. Sadly, they little grasp what Jeremiah is saying, until the unthinkable happens—until life as they have long known and experienced it is no more. Only when life is detoured—only when their beloved city of Jerusalem is destroyed and the people are forced to live in exile in the enemy land of Babylon, only then do they begin to listen to alternative possibilities.
Joan Chittister, Benedictine sister and a powerful voice in our day for God’s vision of shalom, reminds us that difficulty and struggle are sure to come our way in life. Writes Chittister,
Everyone is struck down by something in life. It is the detour that determines the definition of the journey. We can lose our way then and there, stay stuck in unfamiliar territory, stall and give up. Or we can take the new direction confident that in the end we will end up exactly where we were meant to be whether we can see how that is possible right now or not.
The exiles, cut off from what they had long known and loved, were inclined to lose their way. But Jeremiah, the one who had preached judgment, now reminds them that, for God, judgment never carries the final word. Instead, judgment exists only to open up new possibilities for healing, redemption, and new life. And so the prophet encourages the people to embrace their new reality; rather than words of judgment, Jeremiah now speaks words of promise; instead of expressions of despair, Jeremiah now encourages hope for a new and recreated future; instead of disgust for the people’s unfaithfulness, Jeremiah now exudes compassion for their plight and proclaims a future with hope.
One could well imagine Jeremiah speaking words similar to those found in the letter of James, words that urge a higher level of wisdom, what James defines as “wisdom from above.” “The wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. And a harvest of righteousness,” asserts James, “is sown in peace for those who make peace” (James 3:17-18). Eugene Peterson paraphrases these profound words from James 3 this way in The Message: “Real wisdom, God’s wisdom, begins with a holy life and is characterized by getting along with others. It is gentle and reasonable, overflowing with mercy and blessings, not hot one day and cold the next, not two-faced. You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor.”
Both Jeremiah and James offer voices to guide us in the face of life’s detours. All of us face them—those times when life throws us for a loop, those times when our knees buckle under us and we feel lost in uncertainty and despair. But the promise of the gospel is that God is with us even through life’s unexpected detours, those disturbing events that may well force us to consider new ways of living and acting in the world around us. It’s one thing to understand ourselves as partners with God when things are going smoothly in life; it’s quite another to live a life of faith and trust when life seems utterly out of control. Yet it is at those very times of profound uncertainty that God’s grace, God’s peace, God’s strength may most surprise us.
For Jeremiah, it was at the very time he felt as if he were like a gentle lamb being led to slaughter, assailed on all sides by those who resisted the call to a new way of living—at that very time of seeming aloneness, the prophet could nevertheless proclaim, “To you, O God, I have committed my cause” (11:20).
In a poem entitled “To Begin With, the Sweet Grass,” Mary Oliver puts it this way:
Look, and look again.
This world is not just a little thrill for the eyes.It’s more than bones.
It’s more than the delicate wrist with its personal pulse.
It’s more than the beating of the single heart.
It’s praising.
It’s giving until the giving feels like receiving.
You have a life—imagine that!
You have this day, and maybe another, and maybe still another.
Partnering with God is celebrating the promise that, in the very midst of life’s unexpected and often unwelcome detours, we have this day, and likely another day yet to come—a new day—and perhaps still other new days beyond that. Days that will be enriched as we place our trust in the God who loves us with a love that will not let us go. Days when we embrace the call to proclaim an alternative way of living, to raise our voices for peace in the midst of a world that is far more likely to choose ways of violence and militarism and fear. Days when we raise our voices for justice in a world of oppression and ever deepening disparity between the rich and the poor. Days when we raise our voices for hope, proclaiming God’s new reality, the coming of that time when justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream, when nations no longer teach the ways of war, but instead learn to dwell together in peace. Days when the juices of alternative possibilities have begun to flow. Days when the faithful embrace anew the call to be light for all nations and all peoples.
May it be so for us! Amen.