Risky Business
Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15
The 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.
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.
We return to the book of Jeremiah this morning not because things are
looking any better for Judah than they did last week. Last week, we heard Jeremiah weeping a fountain of tears over
a people who had pretty much messed up in every way it is possible to mess
up. Today, Judah’s future is
looking even more bleak.
For more than 20 years, Jeremiah preached to the careless and
forgetful people. He preached
judgment because the people kept turning to the many false idols that they had
created for themselves. Jeremiah
called the people to turn back to YHWH for their security. Jeremiah warned them over and over
again of doom and gloom, telling the leaders and the people of Judah that if they
kept going in the direction they were going, they would most certainly lose
everything dear to them -- their
land, their independence, their very identity as a nation of God’s chosen
people. And despite Jeremiah’s prophetic tenacity and fervor, nobody wanted to
hear what he had to say.
And in today’s text, it’s all coming to a head. It is the end for Judah, just as
Jeremiah had warned them. The army
of Babylon is beginning its siege of Jerusalem. Very soon, most of the people who
either hadn’t heard or completely tuned out Jeremiah’s warnings will be exiled
from the land and dragged into captivity.
The nation of Judah has no foreseeable future. The land they had cultivated for generations will be
worthless. The temple will
fall. Everything Jeremiah foretold
has come to pass.
And in this moment of national crisis, where is Jeremiah? The great prophet is in jail. Jeremiah told King Zedekiah something
that no ruler ever wants to hear – that his power is worthless and his enemies
will prevail. Such talk tagged the
prophet as a traitor. Zedekiah had
quite enough of Jeremiah’s nay-saying and threw Jeremiah into prison. Unfortunately, for the king and
everyone else in Judah, Jeremiah’s predictions are unfolding before their eyes.
And then the strangest thing happens.
Out of the gathering storm clouds, Jeremiah’s cousin
Hanamel emerges. Hanamel comes to
see Jeremiah in prison to ask him if he would be willing to buy a piece of
family property in Anathoth.
Jeremiah seems to have foreseen this offer from his cousin coming – in
fact, Jeremiah prophesizes that his cousin is going to come to him and offer to
sell him this property. But
Jeremiah’s response to his cousin’s offer is really very strange.
Because this is Jeremiah, after all. This is the guy who has been preaching
doom and gloom for years, a prophet who sees nothing but ruin in Judah’s
foreseeable future. And yet,
Jeremiah does something very strange.
Jeremiah not only agrees
to buy the property, but also agrees to pay full price for land that is most
certainly going to be worthless within a matter of hours, days or weeks. Hanamel looks like a total genius in
dumping the property and Jeremiah’s decision to buy it seems utterly foolish.
After all, it’s not like God directly told Jeremiah to agree to the deal. God did give Jeremiah advance notice
that his cousin would be coming with the offer to sell the land to Jeremiah. But notice, the word of the Lord
doesn’t include instructions on what Jeremiah is to do. The word of the Lord only tells
Jeremiah that the opportunity will present itself.
And this raises a very interesting question for all of us. How do we discern what God would have
us do when it seems as though the smartest, safest, most intelligent option would
be to say, “no?” What would
God have us do when we are presented with something that seems, on its surface,
totally reckless and foolish?
Jeremiah’s decision to
purchase the property from his cousin is like someone paying full price for a
piece of uninsured beachfront property on a barrier island off the coast of North
Carolina when a category 5 hurricane is roaring toward shore. It is like saying yes to buying a house
next to a vacant field that is slated to become a toxic waste dump. In other words, Jeremiah saying “yes”
to his cousin is probably the most spectacularly stupid thing that Jeremiah
could possibly do at that moment. Given
what he knew was going to happen momentarily, the smartest, sanest thing for
Jeremiah to do would be to keep the shekels he had and get ready for the coming
invasion. Who could blame Jeremiah if he had said “no way” to his shrewd cousin’s blatantly self-serving plan to dump a soon-to-be-worthless real estate holding into Jeremiah’s lap for seventeen shekels of cold, hard, silver cash money? Buying a piece of
land in a war zone was about the dumbest thing Jeremiah could do.
And it is exactly the kind of stupid thing that the people of God are
called to do ALL THE TIME. God is
always calling God’s people to do things that look like utter and complete
foolishness.
Think about Abraham
and Sarah leaving a pretty sweet and stable gig in Ur to follow the voice of
YHWH. Think about Moses taking on
the most powerful man in Egypt just because a burning bush told him to do
it. Think about a young, unmarried
girl named Mary being asked to take part in this incredibly bizarre plan presented
to her out of nowhere by an angel.
I could go on and on with these examples of ordinary people agreeing to
do blatantly foolish and sometimes even dangerous things in response to God’s
call. But God has a
history of calling out ordinary people who just sitting around, minding their
own business. And God trusts that at least some of them will say “Yes” to God’s
crazy plans which frequently require them to do something that most people
would consider very, very ill-considered.
If fact, it is rather astonishing that God ever gets anything done
with any of us at all. We’d all
rather look wise than faithfully foolish.
We’d much rather hedge our bets than go all-in the way Jeremiah goes
all-in on God’s vision for the future.
Given what was going on all around Jeremiah, he had more than enough
reason to say no to his cousin’s offer.
He had ample evidence to just take what was left of his shekels
and go on to Babylon and spend the rest of his days telling those faithless
people of Judah that he told them so.
That’s what I would do.
Maybe that’s what you would do.
That’s what a lot of people do.
At one time or another, we are so stressed out about what looks like an
absolutely hopeless future that we are ready to just give in, give up, put our
money in the mattress, stock up on guns and bottled water, and hunker down to
protect what we have.
But not Jeremiah. After
all those years of preaching nothing but doom and gloom, God gives Jeremiah a
brand new sermon to take to the people of Judah. After years of despair, Jeremiah is given a tiny glimpse of
something that looks an awful lot like – dare I say it -- hope. In the midst of Judah’s past and
present crumbling all around him, Jeremiah decides to engage in the risky
business of investing in God’s future.
Jeremiah catches a glimpse of God’s deep desire to begin again. Even with feckless, faithless
Judah. Somehow Jeremiah spies a future lying
beneath the nation’s dismal present.
A future with houses, flourishing fields and verdant vineyards.
What I find most poignant about this story is that Jeremiah is
investing in a future he will never see.
And I think Jeremiah knows this, which is why he instructs Baruch to take
the paperwork involving the transfer of the property and put them in an
earthenware jar so they can last for a long time. Jeremiah makes this foolish investment in a future he will
never see, but there is one thing he knows for sure. The future for him, for the people of Judah, for the people
of God in every time and place is always in God’s sure and loving hands. Jeremiah’s strength is not in his power of positive thinking
or Pollyanna optimism. Jeremiah’s
resilience is rooted in his willingness to be so honest about the darkness that
he can also perceive the light that is beginning to creep back
in.
One of my favorite things to do when I am alone in the church is to
walk around and look at the old pictures hanging on the walls. I especially love the pictures of the
old Sunday school classes and the pictures of the church building when it was
newly constructed. I realized this
week that we are only two years away from the 150th anniversary of
the founding of this church as well as the 120th anniversary of the
building.
I sometimes look at those pictures of people who invested their time
and money and energy into that new church in the 19th century and I
wonder – what did they envision for the future? What would they think if they saw us now? Would they be dismayed that the church
is no longer filled to bursting or would they be amazed that we’re even still
here? Did that investment of 150
years ago pay off in the way they imagined it would?
At the presbytery meeting this week, we learned that Dormont Presbyterian Church will soon sell their building to Northway Christian Community. You probably know something about Northway
– it is a huge mega-church with satellite campuses all over the Pittsburgh
area. Dormont Presbyterian Church was once one of the largest churches in
Pittsburgh Presbytery with a membership in the thousands. Nearly every person I’ve run into has a
Dormont story. Nearly everybody in
the presbytery knows somebody who was a member, baptized, married or confirmed
in the Dormont Presbyterian Church.
It has been a sad, hard time for that congregation. Selling the building was a painful, but
necessary step in their life as a community.
Yet, there will still be ministry happening on that corner in Dormont,
but not a Presbyterian ministry.
There will not be the sort of traditional worship services that have
been there for the past 100 years.
What will be in that space is nothing at all what the original founders
of that church could have possibly imagined. A coffee bar?
Computer screens?
The Dormont Presbyterian congregation has a future, although it is a future still unfolding. Without the idol of a giant, expensive
building weighing them down, the people of Dormont Presbyterian have been set
free to turn toward God’s future for them, wherever that may lead them.
From that perspective, I do not see what is happening in any of the
churches in this presbytery or in this denomination as a cautionary tale to
hunker down and stop making investments in the future. If anything, I think the prophet Jeremiah
calls us to go all-in on the investment our ancestors made on our behalf long
ago. I think Jeremiah tells us
that we should be confident and crazy enough to invest our souls, our spirit,
our energies, our creativity and, yes, our money into something that even I
will admit doesn’t look entirely promising – the PCUSA. But we can take chances and dream big
knowing that God has a future in mind for us, as Jeremiah says in chapter 29: “For
surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare
and not for harm, to give you a future with hope (Jer. 29:11).
Jeremiah’s risky and seemingly ridiculous real estate transaction is a
radical act of hope for the people of Israel.
The war and destruction they see around them will not have the final
say.
The failure of the political system and religious structures will not
have the final say.
The death of a denomination or even death on a cross is not God’s
final judgment on God’s people.
God’s final judgment is forgiveness. God’s final judgment is grace. God’s final judgment is not the church visible with all our
flaws and foibles and fiascos, but the church triumphant when we will finally
see exactly what God has had in mind for us all along.
We can say no. We can say
yes. We can say no to God’s future
and stick with the idols that will drag us down. Or we can say yes and make a deep
commitment to a future that we can hardly imagine and may not live to see, but
can trust as God’s good plan for God’s people. Deep commitment brings deep healing, and deep healing
brings deep generosity. Commitment allows us to take the lids off the earthenware
jars that are our lives, and helps us to embrace change.[1]
Thanks be to God. Amen.
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