I realize that people tend to think of the Labor Day weekend as the end of summer, and from a tourist perspective, maybe that’s so.  Not to be picky, but it is at the autumnal equinox.

To the extent that people have feelings associated with the end of summer, they often tend to be of a wistful, melancholy variety—a longing for those warm breezes and carefree nights.  As a kid, I had those feelings, along with a certain dread at having to go back to school.  But I also looked forward to fall, because that’s football season!  Even now, the first days of cool weather remind me of the fun I had playing that game.  Every year, at some point in time, I catch a scent or a feeling that fall really has arrived.  (It hasn’t happened yet.)

I’m reminded of a song by the sixties group the Doors.  They had a song called “Summer’s Almost Gone.”[1]  (And to avoid disparaging the late Jim Morrison, I won’t sing this!)

“Summer’s almost gone, / Summer’s almost gone, / Almost gone, yeah, it’s almost gone / Where will we be when the summer’s gone?”  There really is a tone of gloominess to it.  The song ends this way: “Summer’s almost gone, / Summer’s almost gone / We had some good times but they’re gone / The winter’s coming on, summer’s almost gone.”  (Actually, winter is my favorite season!)

Jeremiah 8 has an expression in which the people, realizing that summer is over, consider it an evil omen.  “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved” (8:20).  Some say this refers to the drought mentioned in chapter 14.  Others see it as a saying that Jeremiah uses to sum up the mood of the people.  Maybe both are true.  One thing is sure: the impending invasion of the Babylonians has people wondering what to do.

We see the prophet’s torment because of all the disaster happening to the people.  Jeremiah utters his laments, his jeremiads.

“My joy is gone, grief is upon me, my heart is sick” (8:18).  “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!” (9:1).  That fits right in with Jeremiah’s nickname, “the weeping prophet.”

He truly loves his compatriots, even though they haven’t shown much love to him.  In return for his desperate hopes and prayers that they’ll listen to the truth, Jeremiah’s been given ample helpings of all kinds of abuse: mockery, beating, and imprisonment.  His words have been twisted to make him sound like the enemy of the people.

There are those who would say that the prophet is a fool to get so worked up over the fate of this bunch.  After the way they treated him, they deserve all the pain coming their way!  Why should he care what happens to people who’ve made his life hell?  Besides, it’s not like his tears are going to do any good anyway.

"Jeremiah" by Marc Chagall (1887-1985)

There are at least two responses to all this.  First, Jeremiah isn’t naïve.  He clearly knows the nature of the people he grieves, both the few who’ve been kind to him and the many who haven’t.  Continuing in chapter 9, we hear his cry: “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” (v. 2).

Jeremiah would like to have a place way out in the wilderness.  It would be nice to separate himself from all the villainous stuff going on.  He would like to get away from it all.  Get some peace and quiet.  Jeremiah needs to get a Land Rover or maybe an ATV.

Still, having said that, the prophet’s care—his sorrow—does accomplish something.  There is a certain wisdom gained.  We do learn from grief things we can’t learn in any other way.  I imagine that’s a class no one’s in a hurry to sign up for!  But if Jeremiah were to harden his heart—if he were to say goodbye to compassion—he would become less human.  That goes along with the call which came to him as a youngster: “Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord” (1:8).

What about us?  From whom do we need deliverance?  From whom do we need rescue?  Could it be ourselves?

Jeremiah wails, “For the brokenness of the daughter of my people I am broken, I mourn, and horror has seized me” (8:21).  For their brokenness I am broken.

We are all familiar with twelve-step groups.  There are Alcoholics Anonymous, Al-Anon, Narcotics Anonymous, Gamblers Anonymous, and others.  I have attended one AA meeting.  Our church in Jamestown hosted a group.  I asked permission to be there for the beginning of the meeting.  I made sure to leave before they started sharing personal stuff.

I will confess I have a bit of a problem with the idea saying, “Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic.”  I understand there are medical, psychological, even spiritual components involved.  It’s not something to take lightly.  But it seems to me if we always refer to ourselves as an alcoholic, we make it part of our identity.  There is a sense in which we can own a disease or an addiction.

I remember when I was in seminary taking a program called Clinical Pastoral Education.  It’s required for ordination as a Presbyterian minister.  For most people, it involves an internship as chaplain, usually in a hospital.  At our first meeting, we began with introductions.  One of our members was a lady who literally said, “I am cancer.”  (Not, “I have—or have had—cancer.”  Or, “I am a survivor of cancer.”)

Now that is a case of making a disease your identity.  She eventually gave us her actual name!

Without a doubt, we are all broken in various ways.  We sin, and we need a savior.  Nonetheless, if we take brokenness as our identity, the defining characteristic of who we are, does that mean we will remain broken?  Here’s an unsettling question: do we come to embrace our brokenness?  Do we begin to love it?

Jeremiah seems to recognize this.  He looks at those around him and concludes, “They all deceive their neighbors, and no one speaks the truth; they have taught their tongues to speak lies; they commit iniquity and are too weary to repent” (9:5).  In the Revised English Bible, that last line reads, “deep in sin, they weary themselves going astray.”

They’ve basically said, “It’s hopeless; we’re too far gone.”  And that bit about teaching their tongues to speak lies can lead to a point where the moral compass is completely broken.  We lose the ability to discern right from wrong.  Thus we have verse 6: “Oppression upon oppression, deceit upon deceit!  They refuse to know me, says the Lord.”

The New Jerusalem Bible puts a disturbing twist on it.  “You live in a world of bad faith!  Out of bad faith, they refuse to know me, Yahweh declares.”

A world of bad faith.

Bryce Dallas Howard in a quirky take on social credit in the episode "Nosedive" on the series Black Mirror.

I would like to suggest one possible example of that is social credit.  For those who don’t know, social credit is a measurement of how good a citizen one is.  It originated in China with businesses and individuals scored on categories like charitable actions, care for the environment, proper online behavior, and many others.  There are some commendable aspects of social credit.  The problem comes with who determines what are positive and what are negative qualities—big tech, the government, our next door neighbor?

We see this system evolving in what have been democratic nations.

Libertarian writer Kristin Tate has commented on this.[2]  “The potential scope of the…social credit system under construction is enormous.  The same companies that can track your activities and give you corporate rewards for compliant behavior could utilize their powers to block transactions, add surcharges or restrict your use of products.  At what point does free speech—be it against biological males playing in girls’ sports, questioning vaccine side effects, or advocating for gun rights—make someone a target in this new system?”…

“Peer pressure, trendy movements, and the ability to comply with the new system with the click of a mouse combine all of the worst elements of dopamine-chasing Americans.  As it grows in breadth and power, what may be most surprising about our new social credit system won’t be collective fear of it, but rather how quickly most people will fall in line.”

It’s a short step, if we haven’t already reached it, for the power of public shaming to take hold.  We could be encouraged (or commanded) to report on each other, in the best tradition of totalitarian societies.  It is surveillance gone wild.  On the plus side, we can finally be excused for using our binoculars to spy on others.  After all, it’s our civic duty.

The prophet warns, “Beware of your neighbors, and put no trust in any of your kin, for all your kin are supplanters, and every neighbor goes around like a slanderer” (9:4).

We are wounded, and we wound each other.  How does one counteract slander, false reporting?  How often is a retraction issued which barely gets the coverage of the original sham story?

Our idols would kill us.  We discover these new shiny things, and they blind us in the glare.  The next thing you know, we have stumbled and fallen into a ditch—or off a bridge!

Still, there is healing.

On that matter, Jeremiah asks with dismay and disbelief, “Is there no balm in Gilead?  Is there no physician there?  Why then has the health of the daughter of my people not been restored?” (8:22).  Gilead was noted for its balm, produced by certain trees.  It was prized for its curative properties.  In the story of Joseph, his brothers sold him into slavery to a caravan traveling from Gilead.  Their destination was Egypt.  (I think we know the rest of the story.)  Among their cargo was the medicinal balm.

There is the beloved hymn which affirms, “There is a balm in Gilead / to make the wounded whole / There is a balm in Gilead / to heal the sin-sick soul.”  That healing is found in our Lord Jesus Christ, the great physician.

The harvest is past, the summer is ended, but salvation is at hand.

[1] www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Fe0UcS2uFw

[2] thehill.com/opinion/finance/565860-coming-soon-americas-own-social-credit-system/

Cosmology.  Cosmology is the study of the origin, evolution, and future of the cosmos.  Cosmologists are the ones involved in doing that studying.  And surprise!  They don’t all agree with each other.  Just like humans in any other field, they have their own starting points and their own approaches.

Some cosmologists speculate about multiple universes—a multiverse.  The idea about multiple universes, parallel universes, might still feel more like science fiction.  That’s no doubt due to the fact that it’s pretty hard to test it scientifically, at least, given our current level of understanding!

There might be many multiverses, maybe an infinite number of them.  There might be versions of us in other universes.  Our universe could be the size of an atom in a much larger universe.  And on the flip side, there could universes floating all around us at the subatomic level.  Some cosmologists suggest our universe could be a program in a computer—or a dream some being too vast for us to imagine is having right now!

What made me think about this business of multiple universes was something I read by Walter Brueggemann about our Old Testament reading in Jeremiah.  (I’ll be honest: I never thought that I would link the prophet Jeremiah with theories about a multiverse!)

Our scripture text is part of a longer passage that runs from verses 9 to 40.  Jeremiah is criticizing the false prophets who are leading the people astray.  According to Brueggemann, “Jeremiah lived [among] a variety of competing ‘truth claims,’ each of which purported to be a disclosure of Yahweh’s will.”[1]  They all have their ideas about what God wants and how the world works.

He continues, “In these verses [against the other prophets] he makes his clearest argument for his version of reality, and makes it against the ‘truth versions’ of others whom he dismisses as false.”[2]  Jeremiah makes his clearest argument for his version of reality, thus my sermon title.

In studying the universe, cosmologists must continually examine and refine their versions of reality—some of which prove to be more real than others.  Jeremiah and the prophets who oppose him also present their versions of reality.  The question is, “Which better reflects the word of the Lord?  Who actually has heard from God?  Who has paid attention to God?”

And to bring this to us, we also have our own versions of reality.  We need to constantly examine and refine our versions.

So let’s see what Jeremiah is up against.

Jeremiah is living at a time in which his country, Judah, is gradually feeling the fingers of Babylon get tighter and tighter around their throat.

Ever since he was called by God to be a prophet, Jeremiah has had an unpopular message.  It’s not one that he’s been eager to give.  Basically, this is his message: don’t think that you’ll escape the Babylonians.  You might tell each other that we’ll get out of this smelling like a rose, but your actions have you stinking to high heaven!

We could look at the political and military aspects of this, how tiny Judah is on the highway between Babylon and the juicy prize of Egypt, like roadkill, but that’s not Jeremiah’s concern.  He’s concerned about the idolatry, the injustice, the wickedness he sees all around.  He’s concerned about the arrogance of his people, the arrogance of the leadership.

That arrogance is based in a version of reality saying it is impossible for Judah to be conquered.  It’s especially impossible for Jerusalem, the capital, to be conquered.  It’s impossible because that is where the temple is located.  Forget about it.  The temple simply cannot be destroyed, because God won’t allow it.

In chapter 7, Jeremiah goes to the gate of the temple and preaches what’s known as the “temple sermon,” one of his most shocking and outrageous acts.  He boldly proclaims, “Do not trust in these deceptive words.”  What is it he calls “deceptive”?  It’s something that seemingly every faithful, loyal person would agree with: “This is the temple of the Lord” (v. 4).  That’s what he says is deceptive.

The Revised English Bible has even stronger language.  “This slogan of yours is a lie; put no trust in it.”

It’s not that Jeremiah disrespects the temple or doubts it is the house of the Lord.  What upsets him is the way people superstitiously believe no harm can come to them.  They do this while ignoring the wishes of the one they supposedly worship in the temple.

Brueggemann says, “Jeremiah, against the other prophets, announced the end of Judah’s ‘known world.’  The prophets who opposed him tried in various ways to soften the massive judgment he anticipated.  Despite their protestations, that world did end as Jeremiah had announced.”[3]

[And unlike R.E.M. in their song “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)”[4] those prophets did not feel fine.]

A week ago at the University of Michigan Medical School, as part of the graduation festivities, they held what’s known as the White Coat Ceremony.  [sorry, my mistake, it is not part of graduation!]  The highlight is a speech given by a faculty member selected by students and peers.  This year it was Dr. Kristin Collier.[5]  Several students walked out due to her pro-life views.  The reporting in the news of the event mainly focused on the controversy but ignored her eloquent words of wit and wisdom.

She didn’t use the term, but Dr. Collier spoke of versions of reality.  A couple of times, she jokingly said maybe she should have gone to business school!  She celebrated the humanities—anthropology, sociology, philosophy, theology, and others—as helping us ask “the big questions,” as she put it, about life itself, with all the gratitude and grief it carries.

She emphasized the danger of treating ourselves and patients like machines.  Beware of “seeing your patients as just a bag of blood and bones or human life as just molecules in motion.”  Dr. Collier said, “You are not technicians taking care of complex machines, but human beings taking care of other human beings.”[6]

She referred to Aristotle’s vision of types of knowledge, one of which is techne.  We get our words “technical” and “technician” from it.  She noted, “Traditional medical education often doesn’t teach health as shalom but health as techne.”  I will admit, her using the word shalom took me by surprise.

(On a side note, I afterwards discovered she had become a Christian, baptized many years after her husband.)

Collier said medical education too often emphasizes the technical aspects, rather than recognizing the patient as a human being, with all that includes.

Technology is well and good and vitally important, but shalom is the all-expansive blessing of peace and well-being pervading creation.  To recognize and to treat each other with holiness—that’s quite a version of reality!

Today’s scripture is less about Jeremiah’s woes than it is about the way the prophets bless what God does not bless.  Think about it: these are people who represent God.  That’s a lot of authority that can be used in either a good way or a bad way.  In their own way, they emphasize the technology of prophecy severed from the shalom which is its heart.

Verse 30 shows us just one way in which they’re being dishonest.  “See, therefore, I am against the prophets, says the Lord, who steal my words from one another.”  They’re engaging in a sort of divine plagiarism.  They’re using their computers to copy and paste—and pretend they heard it straight from God!  (By the way, I will let you know if I’m quoting somebody, as I did with Kristin Collier!)

But this is about more than a violation of copyright.  More is going on here.  And it goes to the heart of what it means to hear from God—and to pay attention to God.  It deals with our version of reality, as well as our willingness to let it be scrutinized by others.

In saying the prophets steal words from each other, we might suspect they’re locked into one way of thinking.  The true word of the Lord is too challenging for them.  It takes their version of reality and just blows it wide open.  But that’s a good and wonderful thing.  We need our versions of reality to be blown wide open!

Do you know why?  I like my version of reality.  I’m comfortable with my version of reality; I don’t want anyone messing with it!  There is within me the temptation to go with inertia, to go with the flow.  It feels safe and easy.

At the same time, I know the Lord loves me too much—the Lord loves all of us too much—to leave us where we are.  The question is asked, “Is not my word like fire…and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?” (v. 29).  Let the fire burn away the impurities; let the hammer chisel away the rough edges.

How does the word blow our version of reality wide open?  It certainly helps when we allow the Spirit the freedom to use the word in our lives.  There’s no better way to break out of a narrow-minded, marching-in-lockstep approach.  We need the Spirit to empower the word to lead us from our comfort zone (being safe and certain) and lead us into a new version of reality (being courageous and questioning).

In Luke 12 someone comes to Jesus, wanting to triangulate him into a family spat over inheritance.  Jesus presents a different version of reality.  Are we possessed by our possessions?  Do not lose yourself, do not lose your way, over something empty and useless.

Jesus pushes us to ask questions.  We can’t grow without them.  Be careful, there are forces that would constrain us, narrow our focus, tell us lies.  Some of them choose us, and there are others we choose.  Let’s keep our versions of reality open.

Is not my word like fire?  Is not my word like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?

[1] Walter Brueggemann, A Commentary on Jeremiah (Grand Rapids:  Eerdmans, 1998), 208.

[2] Brueggemann, 208.

[3] Brueggemann, 209.

[4] www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0GFRcFm-aY

[5] www.youtube.com/watch?v=JE5wAvhr87w  (her speech begins at the 1:46 mark)

[6] www.commonsense.news/p/the-message-americas-future-doctors

We’re all familiar with Murphy’s Law, aren’t we?  It basically states, “If anything can go wrong, it will.”  I did a little bit of research to find out who this Murphy actually was.  There is more than one candidate.  Many people suggest Capt. Edward Murphy, an engineer in the US Air Force.  After a technician had made a mistake in wiring, Murphy claimed, “If there is any way to do it wrong, he’ll find it.”[1]

Others, like me, suspect an origin further back in history.  Understanding that Murphy is an Irish name, some say that the English pinned it on the Irish.  Of course, as a rule, the English have always held the Irish in the very highest regard, so it’s hard to believe they would do such a thing!

Whatever the case: if there’s anybody in the Bible who might possibly believe in Murphy’s Law, it would be the prophet Jeremiah.

Jeremiah lives at a time when the Babylonian Empire is knocking at the door.  People are nervous.  They fear destruction and exile.  And at the same time, injustice is rampant throughout the country.  As the prophet of the Lord, Jeremiah is given the task of opposing idolatry and corruption—speaking truth to power.  As true prophets do, his job is to afflict the comfortable and to comfort the afflicted.

Jeremiah does not have a happy life.  His social life is all but nonexistent.  Saying “yes” to God has meant for him dealing with name-calling and far worse: slander, beating, imprisonment.  After the Babylonians do invade, he’s labeled a traitor when he warns against fighting back.  Saying “yes” to God means that Jeremiah becomes public enemy number one.

One of the things I really love about this book is Jeremiah’s ruthless honesty about his calling and ministry.  In chapter 1, when he is called to be a prophet, we get a little taste of things to come when the Lord says, “Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you” (v. 8).  Jeremiah knows that trouble is in store for him.  It’s not for nothing that he has been called “the weeping prophet.”

There are several poems in the book that are often called the Confessions of Jeremiah.  We have a reading from the first and the last ones.  In these poems, he sounds a lot like Job.  More than with any other prophet, we see in Jeremiah a picture of his inner being.  At times, he verges on the depths of despair.

As our friend Murphy might say, “If anything can go wrong, it will.”

Jeremiah feels like God has betrayed him, and he isn’t shy about letting God know it!  More than once, he decides that he’s had enough; he is not going to do this anymore.  Let somebody else do this job!  But he finds it impossible to stop.  Chapter 20, verse 9, has the perfect example of this.  “If I say, ‘I will not mention him, or speak any more in his 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.”

“The Prophet Jeremiah” by Michelangelo

The Contemporary English Version puts it this way: “Sometimes I tell myself not to think about you, Lord, or even mention your name.  But your message burns in my heart and bones, and I cannot keep silent.”

That’s a confession that only someone who is in love can make!  Jeremiah loves the Lord, but he’s also mad and disappointed.

In chapter 11, we see something that would have anyone wondering what’s going on.  The people of his hometown issue him a warning: shut up or change your tune—or you won’t like what’s coming!  It’s been said that they’re “shamed to the depths that one of themselves should undermine the very foundations of the nation by what he said, and should make himself the most hated man in the country.  So they threaten to murder him.”[2]

Jeremiah laments that he is “like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter” (v. 19).  That’s one of the comparisons people make between him and Jesus.

And at the end of chapter 20, we see him cursing the day of his birth.  There’s a comparison with Job.  He even curses the man who brought glad tidings of his birth to his father!  That wasn’t good news!  Why didn’t he just kill me?  “Why did I come forth from the womb to see toil and sorrow, and spend my days in shame?” (v. 18).

Of course, Jeremiah is far from alone in wanting to just call it quits.

A story is told about John Robertson, a 19th century minister in the Church of Scotland.  Having preached for forty years, he “decided one morning to resign.  He prayed: ‘O God, Thou didst commission me forty years ago, but I have blundered and failed and I want to resign this morning.’  But as he prayed and sobbed, he heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘John Robertson…‘tis true you have blundered and failed; but…I am not here for you to resign your commission but to re-sign your commission.’  He went on to new and greater things in his ministry.  And so did Jeremiah.”[3]

After everything falls apart—after everything crashes and burns—after the Babylonians destroy the temple—Jeremiah has a message of hope.  The exiles, one day, will return.  Rebuilding will happen.  Of course, if he had just quit (speaking of the prophet and John Robertson), he wouldn’t have been able to give that message of consolation.

I want to change gears and look at the value of Jeremiah’s Confessions.  Actually, I should probably ask, “Do we think they have value?”  As expressions of lament, do they have value?  What is the value of lament?  What is the value of giving voice to our grief?

The Confessions are about stuff that happens to more than just one person.  They are about the community, the people of Israel.  And they’re also about us—all of us, in every time and place.  We haven’t gone through what the people in Jeremiah’s time do, but we also know what trauma and disaster are all about.

Clearly, the last two years have taught us a few things about that.

Some people say that we shouldn’t talk about the bad things that happen, certainly not in church.  I wonder, have they ever looked at a cross?

I’m sure none of you have ever experienced this, but sometimes when tragedy strikes, we can offer some unwanted explanations.  Stuff like, “God never gives us more than we can handle.”  Let’s ignore the fact that isn’t in the Bible—it’s an altering of something in 1 Corinthians about God giving us a way out of testing and temptation (10:13).  But aside from that, does that really help anyone?

This is among my favorite unhelpful explanations: when someone loses a loved one, especially if that person was young, I’ve sometimes heard that “God needed another angel in heaven.”  We should understand humans and angels are two completely different types of beings!  Aside from that, something far worse, in my opinion, is the funeral poem claiming, “God broke our hearts to prove to us He only takes the best.”  That seems to say nothing less than God is a monster.

Still, I think we can see that those types of remarks say more about the person uttering them than anything else.  When we’re at a loss for words, we too often offer things that are unhelpful and painful and stupid.  Maybe a better approach is simply to be present.

That leads us to the value of lament in the scriptures, with the example of Jeremiah’s Confessions.  Old Testament scholar Kathleen O’Connor says, “They give voice to profound fidelity because they keep communication with God alive in the midst of destruction and despair.”[4]

When it comes to reflecting on our fears and insecurities versus relying on God, I think it’s safe to choose the latter.  As a result, I think I like her advice better:

“Here is what to do in the pit of hopelessness.  Cling to God, even when God has slipped away from you.  Yell at the top of your collective lungs.  Hold tightly, mercilessly, and, with every ounce of strength, shout and scream at the deity…  Hold nothing back. Complain, protest, resist.  Reach into yourself to claim your experience and your capacity to see and name reality.  Rise up, ‘give God an account,’ and approach God ‘like a prince’ [or a princess] (Job 31:37).”[5]

The good news for Jeremiah is that he doesn’t remain in the pit of hopelessness.  His love of God is what sees him through.  It is precisely because he loves God that he’s able to say the things he does.  His honesty, joined with his love, is what honors that relationship.  It keeps the relationship alive.

It might feel wrong to be angry with God, but that’s okay.  God already knows how we feel, and when something terrible happens, God is saddened even more than we are.  At the time, it might not seem that way, and that’s also okay.  We can be honest with God, and we also can make our confessions of ruthless love.

So it’s important to ask, for those of us here, how can we welcome expressions of lament?  How can we, as the apostle Paul advises, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep”? (Ro 12:15).  It is more than appropriate for the church to do that.  It’s a sure sign that we are on our way to becoming the beloved community.

The Confessions of Jeremiah, as opposed to Murphy’s Law, is a good and faithful road to follow.

[1] www.murphys-laws.com/murphy/murphy-true.html

[2] Klaus Koch, The Prophets: The Babylonian and Persian Periods (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984), 39.

[3] www.directionjournal.org/article/?168

[4] Kathleen O’Connor, “Lamenting Back to Life,” Interpretation 62:1 (Jan 2008), 42.

[5] O’Connor, 45.

Throughout the scriptures, one plant—the tree—is employed over and over again to illustrate, to teach, to make sure things take root.  We see that in Psalm 1 and in Jeremiah 17.  In those scriptures, we human beings are compared and contrasted with our woody friends.

I am far from a botanist.  The number of trees I can identify is not great.  A maple leaf adorns the flag of Canada.  Oaks shed acorns.  Pine trees produce those lovely needles.  As for palm trees, who doesn’t know what they look like?  Just think, the first church Banu and I served was in Nebraska, the home of Arbor Day!  (Arbor is “tree” in Latin.)

Regarding Arbor Day: in most states, it falls on the final Friday of April.  The Arbor Day Foundation website reports, “In the last 50 years, [we have] planted and distributed nearly 500 million trees in more than 50 countries around the world to fight global issues facing humankind.  And we’re just getting started.”[1]  That’s a hopeful reality.

I have a love-hate relationship with black walnut trees.  Those of you who are familiar with them might have similar feelings.  They make excellent shade trees.  It’s really appreciated on those beastly hot summer days.  However, they have a dark side.  Their roots, leaves, and walnut husks contain the chemical juglone, which is toxic to many plants.  It gives the black walnut trees plenty of elbow room!  Plus, when they fall, those walnuts make a huge mess.

If I had to think of a particular tree to compare with humans, it just might be the black walnut.  Like us, they deal in blessings and curses.  (At least, to our way of thinking.)

Trees in general, though, share an important characteristic with us.  Professor of forest ecology Suzanne Simard says they “communicate with each other in cooperative ways that hold lessons for humans.”[2]  They are linked to other trees “by an underground network of fungi that resembles the neural networks in the brain.”  They share information and even warn each other of danger, such as peril from predatory insects.

She says we have much to learn from trees.  I couldn’t agree more.

Moving on, I have often said, “This is one of my favorite psalms.”  The same can be said here.  Psalm number one, kicking off the book, gets things going the right way.  It presents the two ways, the two paths in life—that of the wicked and that of the righteous.

Put in those kinds of terms, it looks like everything is cut and dried; everything is locked in place.  Still, it’s been said, “This most wisdom-like of the Psalms is not claiming that there are no shades of gray in our commitment and walk of faith.  People are complex; life is not so simple.  Rather, this psalm strives to depict the two ways and their consequences for us in all their stark reality.  At any one moment we find ourselves moving in one direction or the other, moving toward an ultimate destination.”[3]

There is always the possibility and reality of correction, of choosing another path.  There is always the possibility of repentance, which as I’ve said before, means “turning back” or “changing one’s mind.”

Now, let’s see what those trees are up to.

Something to notice is that the psalmist and Jeremiah approach those trees from different directions.  The psalmist starts with blessing.  “Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked…  They are like trees planted by streams of water…” (vv. 1, 3).  However, the wicked “are like chaff that the wind drives away” (v. 4).

The prophet does the exact opposite.  He starts with doom and gloom, no doubt reflecting how his life has tended to go.  (He’s warned his people about their own wickedness.  Consequently, they have not been happy with him.)  “Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals and make mere flesh their strength…  They shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when relief comes” (vv. 5-6).

But then there’s a light in the darkness.  “Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord” (v. 7).  And what is their blessing?  “They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream” (v. 8).  Sending out its roots.  Remember how we just learned about the trees, using their roots in that web of fungi, collaborating with each other in sharing life-giving information of an arboreal nature?

However, there is something of consequence here.  As with the trees and their roots, so much goes on beneath the surface.  Can we see that among ourselves?  How much of blessing and cursing goes unnoticed?  What does it take for us to see past the obvious?  How often do we pray for the Lord to extend blessing, to extend shalom?  How often do we see random people and pray for their best?  I wonder how many times others see us and pray for goodness to envelop our lives?  I wonder how many times that has happened for me?

There is a sense of caring for these trees.  Again, in the psalm, the blessed ones “are like trees planted by streams of water.”  And again, the prophet speaks of “a tree planted by water.”  They haven’t simply appeared in what seems to be a lush environment; they have been planted.  They have been transplanted.  The loving, divine gardener is eager to see them flourish.  They’re given all they need.

The wicked are different.  They are left to fend for themselves.  The psalmist says they “are like chaff that the wind drives away” (v. 4).  They are “dust in the wind,” to borrow a phrase from the band Kansas.  Jeremiah declares they are “like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when relief comes” (17:6).  They will live in a land of salt.

Both the righteous and wicked will be exposed to drought.  The dry times are coming.  The shrub won’t see any relief.  It won’t see when the good comes.  It will wither away.  It will choke on salt.

The righteous, however, will survive—even thrive.  That tree has no fear of the heat.  Its leaves stay green; it continues to bear fruit.

We all have our times of drought.  We all experience those hot summer days when we see water in the distance, but to discover it’s only a mirage.

Putting it a different way, Jesus says our “Father in heaven ‘makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.’”  Rain is sent on the just and the unjust.

William Holladay tells us, “It is not a fair world: the signs and rewards of faith are motives for our gratitude when they are present, but we cannot always count on them.  It still makes a difference, Jeremiah says, whether one has a trust in Yahweh or not, even those who trust and those who do not trust may both lack water.”[4]

In case it hasn’t already become abundantly clear, there is very much the element of choice.

When Jeremiah speaks of the unjust as shrubs in the desert, he says, “They shall live in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.”  One translation doesn’t say they “shall live,” but “since” they live in the parched places.[5]  If you want to consign yourself to the great wastelands, you’re welcome to do so.

How often do we insanely choose what kills us?  We often incorporate it into our lifestyles.  Do we eat too much?  Do we drink too much?  Do we spend too much time just sitting around?  Do we avoid exercise?  Do we buy too much?  Do we waste too much?  Do we hurt the environment?  Do we not love God and neighbor?

Don’t worry though, in verse 9, the good Doctor Jeremiah presents his diagnosis.  “The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse—who can understand it?”  Who indeed can understand it?

The word for “heart” is all-encompassing.  It includes the mind, the will, the heart, the understanding, the inner nature.  It is everything we are!  We can be some devious little critters.

And this all-encompassing heart is perverse.  The word in Hebrew ( אׇנַשׁ, `anash) is better translated as “weak” or “sick.”  The New English Bible says the heart is “desperately sick.”  It is the human condition.  We are desperately sick.  We need to be healed.

The apostle Paul has a similar thought.  “I do not understand my own actions,” he confesses, “For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate” (Ro 7:15).  He cries out, “Wretched man that I am!  Who will rescue me from this body of death?”  He is a mystery to himself, as are we all.  Then Paul has a new awareness and celebrates, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (vv. 24-25).

Who can understand our innermost being?  It is the Lord.

That’s a good thing, because like a partridge hatching another bird’s eggs, so are we when we take what is not ours.  We become the opposite of those trees relaying blessing and health and life to each other.  We’re like the emerald ash borer.  We destroy the ash trees which are destined to be chopped down.

Do we deprive others of blessing?  And as I sometimes say, “What would that look like?”

I had a little help envisioning that.  I asked a friend for some reflections.  Depriving others of blessing is similar to cursing them.  It means not encouraging them to share their gifts and abilities.  It means ignoring them.  It could go as far as telling them they’re dumb or ugly or worthless.

How different it is to bless and to be a blessing.  It is to lift the other up.  It is to affirm them in their hopes and dreams.  It is to discover the joy of the Lord together.

“Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord.”

[1] www.arborday.org

[2] www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/05/04/993430007/trees-talk-to-each-other-mother-tree-ecologist-hears-lessons-for-people-too

[3] www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/seventh-sunday-of-easter-2/commentary-on-psalm-1-2

[4] William L. Holladay, Jeremiah 1 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986), 493.

[5] New Jerusalem Bible, Jeremiah 17:6

It was the evening of New Year’s Day.  There was a pitter patter of shower outside.  I decided to go for a walk; I wanted to hear what the rain would say to me.  Upon stepping outside, I realized the droplets were being outvoted by pellets.  A slushy crust was coalescing beneath my feet.  That’s okay, since the ice is making its voice heard, I’ll lend an ear.  So off I went into the night.

Actually, I did not lend an ear.  I was too busy thinking about my determination to listen to whatever precepts the precipitation presented.  Is there a word for me to receive?  It’s difficult to be aware if you’re trying to be aware that you are aware.  You wind up only hearing yourself.

In any event, it was a pleasant walk.

It seems fitting that we would have that kind of weather on the evening of the first day of the year.  I say it seems fitting, in that our reading from the Hebrew scriptures for today, the Baptism of the Lord, is from Genesis—the first five verses of the book.  (You know: “In the beginning,” water, baptism, even if it’s a baptism of sleet.)

At his baptism, as the water flowed down his body, Jesus did hear a voice.  It was a voice from heaven saying, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased” (Mk 1:11).

There are two creation stories in Genesis.  The “macro” story is in chapter 1 and the beginning of chapter 2, the creation of the world.  The “micro” story is the rest of chapter 2, focusing on the creation of the human race.  We’re in the “macro” story and looking at the first day of creation.

With each of the days of creation, we have the repeated statement, “God said.”  God speaks, and something appears, something happens.  God speaks the word in creating.  Over and again, we are told God saw that it was good.  It is the word pervading all of creation, permeating all of the cosmos.

The gospel of John borrows from this: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (1:1).

Summing up each day of creation is the statement, “And there was evening and there was morning, the first day,” and the second day, and the third day, and so on (v. 5).

I want to include a side note.  I imagine you’ve heard it said the Bible isn’t a scientific textbook, or words to that effect.  If we read these words as though they were lab notes from a science experiment, we will miss the wonderful and beautiful truth these words really convey.

For example, on the third day of creation, plants appear.  It’s not until the fourth day that the sun, moon, and stars appear.  To force these images into that system of logic is completely alien to how the ancients perceived it.  Obviously, they knew plants could not precede the sun!  Actually, to force these images into that system of logic is alien to how we ourselves use art and poetry.

Today being the Baptism of the Lord, I would like to focus on the first two verses, which are the reason this text was assigned to this day in the first place.  “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.”

The earth was a formless void.  The Hebrew word for “formless” (תֹּהוּ, tohu) also means “confusion” or “chaos.”  It was a nothingness of chaos.  The word for “void” (בֹּהוּ, bohu) also means “emptiness.”  It was an emptiness without form—an emptiness without shape.  The earth was a real “fixer upper.”

Some might say 2020 was a nothingness of chaos.

What we see is God bringing order to what is the ultimate picture of disorder.  (If it’s possible to have a picture of disorder.)  God is setting boundaries.  “God [separates] the light from the darkness” (v. 4).  In the days following, we see other things being separated, being distinguished.

Sometimes my dear wife Banu will prepare a dish with ingredients carefully portioned into distinct layers.  She often shows me how to eat it, sometimes using a fork to demonstrate.  I am reminded to not mix them together, so as not to deprive, or to diminish, the individual flavor of each element.  I am not to mess up the texture of the various components.  I am forbidden to bring disorder to order.

(Please understand: I’ve never been one to take a utensil and clumsily stir the contents of my plate around until I’m left with a blob-like specimen with the consistency of thick paste.  Furthermore, I’ve never been one to then say, “Hey, it’s all going to the same place anyway.”)

Perhaps my favorite of the prophets is Jeremiah.  The Bible tells us more about him as a person than any of the other prophets.  And he has quite a story.  I mention him because, in a startling passage, he uses the word bohu (4:23-26).

“I looked on the earth, and lo, it was waste and void; and to the heavens, and they had no light.”  The earth is again described as “void.”  He continues.

“I looked on the mountains, and lo, they were quaking, and all the hills moved to and fro.  I looked, and lo, there was no one at all, and all the birds of the air had fled.  I looked, [he’s doing a lot of looking!] and lo, the fruitful land was a desert, and all its cities were laid in ruins before the Lord, before his fierce anger.”

Walter Brueggemann comments on Jeremiah’s looking.[1]

“The fourfold ‘I looked’ is a staggering study of creation run amok, creation reverted to chaos…  [E]ach time the poet looks at the world, he sees more and more of creation being nullified, regressing to the murky condition of Gen. 1:2…”  God’s covenant with Israel “held to the [astonishing] notion that human conduct matters for the well-being of creation.  Working from that notion, the picture of this poem is grim.  Since there has been no obedience, there will be no viable creation.  Disobedience finally leads to chaos for the entire creation.”

Lest we think that’s an exaggeration, our own disobedience in tending the garden is leading to a twenty-first century version of chaos for creation.  We too often ignore God’s covenant, now expressed in the living Word, Jesus Christ, in our dealings with each other.  We foment disorder in each other’s lives.

As I’ve said before, sometimes events happen during the week that simply must be addressed.  The horror at the Capitol building on Wednesday is definitely in that category.  We witnessed a mob storm the building in an effort to disrupt the proceedings of a joint session of Congress.  For a while, the rioters had their way.  Officers were attacked, weapons were carried, windows were smashed, offices were ransacked, and worst of all, there was loss of life: four protesters and one police officer.  To use the Hebrew word, it was tohu.  It was disorder.  It was chaos.  It was an obscenity.

I posted something on Facebook that evening.  This was it: “This morning, aware that today is the Epiphany of the Lord, I wrote in my journal, ‘May the Lord shine today!’  No darkness, no violence, no thuggery can withstand that glory.  ‘The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.’”

Epiphany celebrates the light of Christ shining to all the Gentiles, to all the nations.  The visit of the Magi illustrates it.  When they asked about the one who was born king of the Jews, the powers-that-be in Jerusalem were terrified.  They feared the light shining into their darkness.

We are called to work for justice.  Jesus was all about that.  What happened on Wednesday had nothing to do with justice.  We didn’t see a Spirit-led struggle for justice.  Those folks were not guided by the Holy Spirit, and neither were the ones who urged them on, who planted the idea.

Our “God is a God not of disorder [not of chaos] but of peace” (1 Co 14:33).

I’ve been talking about creation as a process of setting boundaries, of bringing order to disorder.  Light is separated from darkness.  The sky is separated from the ocean.  The land is separated from the sea.

Are there broken boundaries in need of restoration?  Does order need to be brought to disorder?  Are there any things that need to be separated?

It’s important to take notice of something.  When God sets boundaries, it is indeed a creative act.  It isn’t a destructive one.  The boundaries are healthy boundaries.  They are boundaries that protect.  They are not boundaries that harmfully isolate.

So, back to the beginning.  We are nine days removed from New Year’s Day.  Moving into 2021, what word is there for us?  “A wind from God swept over the face of the waters.”  The fresh breeze of the Spirit brings order to chaos; it brings harmony to havoc.

As for me, the story of my nocturnal walk reinforces a lesson I need to heed over and over.  I could do with some restoration of boundaries, so that I can rightly discern the Word from the many words bubbling up in my mind.

So again, do you have any boundaries that need to be restored?  Is there any chaos that needs to be calmed, that needs to be set in order?

Thanks be to God, who speaks the word that creates, and who speaks the word into our lives to calm the storm.

[1] Walter Brueggemann, A Commentary on Jeremiah (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 59.

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance) has been applied to this strange new world of pandemic.  Do an internet search with her name and “pandemic” or “coronavirus,” and you’ll see what I mean.

Quick note: the five stages were never intended to follow each other in some chronological fashion.  They overlap, but I won’t go into detail on that.

It is important to understand that we are in fact grieving.  I think I can relate to all of the stages, some more so than others.  It hits me in so many ways.  It seems so irrational.  We’re not even supposed to shake hands!

We’re familiar, of course, with the refusal to wear protective masks, do physical distancing, sanitize stuff, and so on.  Again, I won’t claim to be immune to those impulses.  It seems so irrational!

We’re also familiar with the ways anger is played out.  For example, when asked to put on a mask while entering a store, many people simply walk by, berate the unfortunate employee making the request, and some even resort to violence.  People have even been killed.

As with so many seemingly random aspects of our society, wearing a mask has become politicized.  I’m a fan of the NHL team Nashville Predators.  Do I wear a MAGA hat, or am I feeling the Bern?  (On a side note, another aspect of grief—one I share with millions of people around the world—is wondering if I will ever again be able to share an arena with thousands of cheering fans.)

The root of anger is fear.  Too often, we don’t recognize how our fear expresses itself, whether we’re boiling over or just simmering.  (On a foolish side note, I remember the SNL skit with Cheri Oteri, “Simmer down now.”)

Perhaps we can relate to the prophet Jeremiah who wailed, who demanded of God: “Why is my pain unceasing, my wound incurable, refusing to be healed?  Truly, you are to me like a deceitful brook, like waters that fail” (15:18).  We might hurl invectives at the Almighty!  Would it surprise you to learn that God can never be the recipient of misplaced anger?  The Lord can take it all.  Hit me with your best shot.

Recognizing that we are in fact grieving helps in entering a healthy process.  Maybe it’s not as irrational as it might seem.

The epistle reading which is the final note of St. Paul’s farewell to the Corinthian church is to a church that has given him plenty of grief.  He’s had to get after them for being too lax, and then for being too strict.  They’ve split themselves up into competing factions; the rich among them have treated the poor with disrespect; they’ve chased after the latest fads; they’ve done these and many other things.  To their credit, one thing they have not been is boring!  But through it all, Paul has consistently guided them in, and to, the love and peace of Jesus Christ.

He starts by saying, “Finally, brothers and sisters, farewell.”  That word for “farewell” usually means “rejoice.”[1]  What would it mean for them to fare well with rejoicing?

The apostle has a list of instructions.  When he says, “Put things in order,” he’s not demonstrating OCD!  He’s not being a neat freak; he’s not commanding them to sort each other out.  But we’ll get back to that one in a few moments.

Secondly, his plea to “listen to my appeal” is a plea to learn humility.  That flows into his request when he says, “agree with one another.”  Paul’s not telling them to act like clones.  He wants them as best they can, to obey the law of love.  This will enable them to “live in peace.”

In verse 12, the apostle adds this: “Greet one another with a holy kiss.”  He says this in several letters.  This is where the “kiss of peace” and our “passing the peace” come from.  And for anyone who’s ever wondered why we usually do not kiss each other—besides concerns about inappropriate contact (not to mention the virus-imposed concern about transmission of disease)—there’s also the fact that fairly early in church history, they had similar concerns.  The liturgical practice of men kissing women who were not their wives, and women kissing men who were not their husbands, was abandoned.

I have a little story along those lines.  When Banu and I were in seminary, I took a worship class taught by a Presbyterian professor.  She gave us an assignment.  On Sunday, we were to attend a church with a worship service very different from the one we were used to.  There was an Armenian Orthodox church about a mile down the road.  (In case you didn’t know, there are a few differences between the Armenian Orthodox and Presbyterians!)

The entire service was in the Armenian language, except for the sermon and the prayer of confession, which were in English.  Included in their liturgy was the kiss of peace, the holy kiss.  The only other people in the pew where I was sitting was a family with a father, mother, and daughter.  She looked like she was about 20.  They started down the line, kissing each other on the cheek.  Then the daughter started moving toward me; I became a bit nervous.  She extended her hand, so a holy kiss turned into a holy handshake.  Potential drama averted!

[Ryan Gosling poses a hermeneutical question]

Paul ends the passage with a Trinitarian benediction, a triple blessing.  That’s why this is a scripture for Trinity Sunday.

What does the Holy Trinity mean in our lives?  There are many ways to go with this.  An image that might be helpful is seeing the Holy Trinity as the perfect community of love.  In this community, no one pushes the others aside.  No one tries to hog the spotlight; no one grumbles in the background.  That has ramifications for all of life, including the call to make disciples.  Then it won’t be just a song: they really will “know we are Christians by our love.”

That community of love has an even greater urgency today.  We’ve noticed how this strange new world in which we find ourselves, courtesy of COVID-19, has brought us to a relative standstill, though some places and some people are standing still more than others.  Each of us has taken notice of that reality, sometimes in quite trivial ways.  (I was alarmed when the NHL suspended its season!  But the alarm has turned to relief since they have decided to have the playoffs!)

Banu and I were discussing certain realities in the church.  We are aware that we are in an in-between time.  (We had interim pastor training several years ago, and never has it been more spot-on!)  What is happening now?  What will happen when “this” is all over?

In my Easter sermon, I addressed this very thing.[2]  “There has been much discussion about getting back to normal (post pandemic) and how long it will take before it happens.  I don’t believe it will ever happen.  If we somehow pretend to go back to the way things were, we’ll be fooling ourselves.  These events are happening; there’s nothing we can do to change it.  The question will be if we learn from this—if we allow the Spirit to teach us.”

Has a reset button has been given to us?  What would it mean to hit it?

Let’s go back to this business of “[putting] things in order.”  It’s probably best to read that as a passive instruction.  “Be restored to order.”  Be restored.  Permit yourselves to be set straight.

Permit me to include what I said in a blog post.[3]

It appears to be increasingly certain that this coronavirus is here to stay.  We need to make long term plans, not simply knee-jerk reactions.  Unless we are prepared for chaos around the globe (okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a little bit!), our economic, our political, and most of all, our spiritual mindsets need to change.

Is there any wisdom we can glean from Paul’s use of a single Greek word, καταρτιζω (katartizō)?  Surely “be restored to order” can be seen as applying, to not just our relationship with other humans (be they in the church or not), but to our relationship with the earth itself.  It better be—no, it must be—if we are to live within our calling to be stewards of God’s good creation.

It looks like global climate change has taken on a whole new dimension.  Planet earth is calling “timeout.”

Maybe hitting the reset button will become a daily exercise.  And to be honest, doesn’t that reflect teachings handed down through the centuries?  For example, the prophet Jeremiah wrote to the exiles in Babylon (who were facing their own strange new world), “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” (29:7).  Every morning, when they woke up, they had to hit the reset button.  They had no choice.  Still, the prophet of God encouraged them.  He assured them that was the way to life.

If human history—if church history—is any guide, the changes we need to make are usually the ones forced on us.

Speaking of changes we need to make, I would be remiss if I neglected to address the killing of George Floyd and other unarmed black folks (especially young men) by the police and others.  Also we can’t ignore the violent opportunists who have turned peaceful demonstrations into acts of wanton destruction, even committing murder, and that includes murdering police officers.

I also can’t ignore what I saw—a man in his final moments of life, calling out for his mama.  In my bold, heroic gesture, I posted on Facebook the three words, “I can’t breathe.”  One of my Facebook friends responded with a series of question marks.  She wasn’t sure what I was referring to, so I said it was about the death of George Floyd.  Her reply: “that is why I am limiting my news exposure.”  I wasn’t sure what to do with that.  (And I have since taken down my post.)

In a way, I understand where she’s coming from.  This happens over and over and over again; it seems to be part of our history.  The names and faces just blur together.

So what can we make of how Paul wraps everything up?  What does it say about being restored to order?  “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you” (v. 13).  Is it just a nice, tidy way to say goodbye?  William Loader says it is “a benediction which teaches us where the heart of the gospel lies—if we ever to stop to think what it really means.”[4]

Each of those terms is filled with meaning, but I want to focus on the third one: “the communion of the Holy Spirit.”

What does that mean?  One thing it surely means is that communion (in Greek, κοινωνία, koinōnia) is provided by the Holy Spirit.  Communion, fellowship, sharing—however you translate koinōnia—is a gift of the Spirit.  It is a gift given when we come together as the one body of Christ.

“The communion of the Holy Spirit” can also mean “participation in the Holy Spirit.”[5]  It means “the Spirit as that which is shared by believers,” being within the Spirit, so to speak.  As we consider participating in the Spirit, being within the Spirit, I would ask, “What are some other things we participate in?  What other realities are we within?  What do we surround ourselves with?”

On the negative side—I’ll start with bad news!  We can participate in cynicism, a world-weary distrust, a feeling that nothing matters anyway.  We can share in prejudice, to literally “pre-judge,” be it by ethnicity, political orientation, some religious conviction, or someone’s favorite food.  We can surround ourselves with tribalism, which leads to fear and loathing of “the other,” whoever “the other” might be.

Okay, how about some good news?  What are some positive forces, life-enhancing atmospheres we can share, we can breathe?  The fruit of the Holy Spirit is a good starting point: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Ga 5:22-23).  We can enter into confident hope, as opposed to a world in which we always have to watch our back.  We can surround ourselves with humor.  I’m not talking about pointing and laughing, giving people derogatory, immature nicknames.

When we can laugh at ourselves, we allow an easy, joyful spirit to flow among us.  It opens the door to a spirituality of a graceful gratitude.  (Granted, some of us provide more material at which to laugh.  I see evidence of that every day in the mirror!)  I often say one of the sure signs we have been created in the image of God is a sense of humor.

We are told “Paul has expanded a traditional farewell to make it match a situation where community and compassion was largely missing.”[6]  The apostle is reminding the Corinthians that they need to get over themselves.  Hit that reset button!

For us here, regarding that reset button: “to hit or not to hit”—that is the question.  Like the exiles in Babylon, in their strange new world, perhaps we need to hit that button every day.  There’s no question we are facing challenges like never before.  Hitting the reset button daily might keep us sane!

Let me finish with a quote from Thomas à Kempis’ masterpiece, The Imitation of Christ.[7]  (With slightly different language in this particular translation.)  Maybe we can say this is his take on hitting the reset button.

“Every day we should renew our resolve to live a holy life, and every day we should kindle ourselves to a burning love, just as if today were the first day of our new life in Jesus Christ.”

That, my friends, is being restored with a triple blessing.

[1] χαιρω (chairō)

[2] www.zebraview.net/2020/04/rich-wounds-yet-visible-above.html

[3] www.zebraview.net/2020/06/hit-the-reset-button.html

[4] wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/AEpTrinity.htm

[5] Victor Paul Furnish, The Anchor Bible: 2 Corinthians (New York: Doubleday, 1984), 584.

[6] wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/AEpTrinity.htm

[7] www.ccel.org/ccel/kempis/imitation.all.html

We’ve noticed how this strange new world in which we find ourselves, courtesy of COVID-19, has brought us to a relative standstill, though some places are standing still more than others.  Each of us has taken notice of that reality, sometimes in quite trivial ways.  (I was alarmed when the NHL suspended its season!  But the alarm has turned to elation since they have decided to have the playoffs!)

[photo by Jason Mowry on Unsplash]

Banu and I were discussing certain realities in the church.  We are aware that we’re in an in-between time.  (Never has interim pastor training been more spot-on!)  What is happening now?  What will happen when “this” is all over?

In my Easter sermon, I addressed this very thing.  “There has been much discussion about getting back to normal (post pandemic) and how long it will take before it happens.  I don’t believe it will ever happen.  If we somehow pretend to go back to the way things were, we’ll be fooling ourselves.  These events are happening; there’s nothing we can do to change it.  The question will be if we learn from this—if we allow the Spirit to teach us.”

Has a reset button has been given to us?  What would it mean to hit it?  One of the scripture texts for Trinity Sunday is the conclusion of 2 Corinthians.  In 13:11, the apostle Paul says, “Finally, brothers and sisters, farewell.  Put things in order…”  It’s probably best to read that as a passive instruction.  “Be restored to order.”  Be restored.  Permit yourselves to be set straight.

It appears to be increasingly certain that this coronavirus is here to stay.  We need to make long term plans, not simply knee-jerk reactions.  Unless we are prepared for chaos around the globe (okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a little bit!), our economic, political, and even spiritual mindsets need to change.

Is there any wisdom we can glean from Paul’s use of that single Greek word, καταρτιζω (katartizō)?  Surely “be restored to order” can be seen as applying, to not just our relationship with other humans (be they in the church or not), but to our relationship with the earth itself.  It better be—no, it must be—if we are to live within our calling to be stewards of God’s good creation.

It looks like global climate change has taken on a whole new dimension.  Planet earth is calling “timeout.”

[Gregg Popovich, awesome coach of the San Antonio Spurs, calls timeout]

Maybe hitting the reset button will become a daily exercise.  And to be honest, doesn’t that reflect teachings handed down through the centuries?  For example, the prophet Jeremiah wrote to the exiles in Babylon (who were facing their own strange new world), “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” (29:7).  Every morning, when they woke up, they had to hit the reset button.  They had no choice.  Still, the prophet of God encouraged them.  He assured them that was the way to life.

If human history—if church history—is any guide, the changes we need to make are usually the ones forced on us.  But so be it.  May the Spirit lead, by any means necessary, the restoration required to live and to prosper in this crazy new age unfolding before us.

When I young, I was very interested in comic books, especially Marvel Comics.  I tended to like their superheroes better than those of the other main publisher, DC Comics.  Marvel placed (and still places) its characters in the real world.  It’s New York City, not Gotham City or Metropolis.

Among my favorite comic books were Dr. Strange (the Sorcerer Supreme!) and the Incredible Hulk.  I admired him for his eloquence, his articulate way with words.  His favorite line was “Hulk smash!”

Probably my favorite character wasn’t a superhero at all.  He was kind of an anti-hero.  He lived in Cleveland, having become trapped on our Earth.  He was simply a duck, Howard the Duck, and he would continually be amazed at how we “hairless apes,” as he put it, ran things on this planet.  You see, on his Earth, ducks are the dominant species.

I really don’t know how deliberate this was, but is it possible that Marvel was making a statement about superheroes?  Is it necessary to be muscle-bound, or otherwise skill-laden?  Is it possible to be merely a duck?  Hold that thought!

In the book of Jeremiah, we see something that we rarely do with the other Hebrew prophets.  We get a quite vivid view of the emotions of the man.  We see much of his psychological makeup.  That’s largely due to what’s called the confessions of Jeremiah.  There are five of them, located between chapters 11 and 20.[1]  These are the poems of the prophet in which he expresses his feelings of pain, of anger, and even his sense of betrayal by God.  These laments are borne of the abuses he’s been forced to endure.

We see yet another example of that unfair treatment in chapter 38.  If there is anyone in need of some heroic intervention, it’s definitely the prophet Jeremiah.

At this point in the book, the Babylonians are outside the walls of Jerusalem.  Jeremiah, who’s been warning about this for years, is seeing his words coming true.  Things are getting very grim.  Having taken position outside the city, the Babylonians have set up a blockade.  They’re cutting off supply lines, stopping shipments of food.  The situation will get so dire that some will resort to cannibalism.  They will eat their own young (19:9, Lm 2:20, 4:10).

Zedekiah, the final king of Judah, has sought Jeremiah for words of wisdom, but he doesn’t like what he hears.  Zedekiah’s biggest problem is that he’s afraid.  He does nothing to prevent his officials from arresting Jeremiah, who claim the prophet “ought to be put to death, because he is discouraging the soldiers who are left in this city.”  They say he isn’t “seeking the welfare of this people, but their harm” (v. 4).

Just how does Zedekiah respond?  How does this sound?  “Here he is; he is in your hands; for the king is powerless against you” (v. 5).  He thinks he’s saving his own skin, but he’s doing the exact opposite.  Jeremiah has tried to tell him, and everyone else, that this war is a lost cause.  Zedekiah can still come to terms with the Babylonians.

But fear can easily overwhelm reason.  The most dangerous people in the world are the fearful.  When people are afraid—when we are afraid—we become capable of stuff we otherwise would never do.  People who are afraid are easier to manipulate, because they aren’t thinking clearly.  They aren’t asking the right questions.  As we sometimes say, they check their brains at the door—or before entering the arena.

As for Jeremiah, he gets lowered into a cistern.  It would be bad enough if the bottom were dry, but listen to the way the Bible describes it: “Now there was no water in the cistern, but only mire, and Jeremiah sank in the mire” (v. 6).

Jeremiah is being buried alive.  He can’t find any solid foothold, which need it be said, has levels of meaning.

Fortunately for the prophet, there is someone willing to intervene on his behalf.  This one goes to Zedekiah and says, “My lord king, these men have acted wickedly in all they did to the prophet Jeremiah by throwing him into the cistern to die there of hunger, for there is no bread left in the city” (v. 9).  Some manuscripts even have him saying “you have acted wickedly”!

Who is this bold advocate?  Who dares to step forward this way?  Perhaps someone from the king’s family?  Not exactly.  He’s a fellow known to us as Ebed-melech.  But that really isn’t his name.  “Ebed-melech” (עֶבֶד־מֶלֶךְ) simply means “servant of the king.”  And what’s more, he’s a foreigner, an Ethiopian.  He’s a nobody, a zero—although truth be told, I might be overstating this “zero” bit.  He would have needed some influence to get an audience with Zedekiah.

What reaction does he provoke from the king?  Punishment?  Rebuke?  No, Zedekiah tells Ebed-melech to find some help…and get Jeremiah out of that well!  Sometimes we need to be asked—we need to be reminded—to do the right thing, to be the person we claim to be, to be the person we want to be.

Christine Pohl has written: “a friend of mine asked if there was anyone who consistently spoke truth into my life.”  She reminds us how important it is that “[e]ach of us [have] someone, or a small community, who will name what is going on and speak a word of truth to us when it is needed.”[2]

But more than being the one who reminds Zedekiah of his moral, and indeed his legal, duty, Ebed-melech is something else.  As I’ve indicated, he is the voice of Jeremiah when Jeremiah has no voice.  It’s hard to plead your case when you’re at the bottom of a muck-filled cistern.

If for no other reason (and surely there is more than one), but if for no other reason than his showing compassion for Jeremiah, Ebed-melech’s actions should be considered heroic.  In my humble opinion, this zero is a hero.  And I’m far from alone in making that judgment.  Jewish legend even goes so far as to say that he’s among those who ascended to heaven.  That seems to be a pretty firm vote of confidence!

Actually, calling Ebed-melech a hero isn’t a tough call, given the message to him in chapter 39.  The prophet is told to go to Ebed-melech and reassure him of something.  The city is still going to be invaded and conquered.  Destruction is on the way.  But it won’t touch him.  And the people he’s angered by helping Jeremiah won’t touch him, either.

So what will happen?  “I will surely save you, and you shall not fall by the sword; but you shall have your life as a prize of war, because you have trusted in me, says the Lord” (v. 18).  Ebed-melech will survive the fighting with his own plunder, that plunder being his life.

He might not be a superhero, but he does a pretty good job as a duck!

Here’s a question.  “Who is the biggest zero of all time?”  (That is, if a zero can be called “big”!)  Who is it?  I would suggest Jesus.  Let me elaborate.  We have a peasant among a people under military occupation.  There are legitimate questions regarding his parentage.  He is an obscure man from an obscure town.  In fact, it was asked, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (Jn 1:46).

The powers-that-be grow weary of his wandering around, spreading his dangerous teachings.  He is executed, though not in a way befitting a political prisoner, but as a common thug on a cross, along with two other thugs.  His followers disperse (with the exception of some of the women!)  The dream, just like Jesus, is dead—dead as a doornail.  A couple of his disciples, reflecting on this utter failure, said “we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel” (Lk 24:21).  We had hoped.

Of course, we know that’s not the end of the story.

Bringing this business of zero into our time, we should note that Jesus was a Middle Eastern Palestinian.  I wonder, between the two of us, who would be more likely to be “randomly” stopped and checked at the airport?

That is the beauty of Jesus as zero.  He takes the lowest possible position.  (Mind you, I’m not suggesting that being a Middle Eastern Palestinian qualifies as being zero.)  Jesus takes utter defeat and transforms it, and perhaps you’ll agree that there’s no greater defeat than being dead!

I imagine some of us have felt like zero.  Some of us, if not all of us, have had the sense that we’re nothing, at least once in our lives.  I would daresay it’s happened many more times than that.   (I would call it part of the human condition.)

Maybe we’ve even felt like Jeremiah in that deep, dark hole.  Earlier I mentioned the anguish revealed by the prophet: he’s been the object of mockery, hatred, unjust imprisonment, torture, just to name some of his mistreatment.  Still, this is the perfect summation of his agony.  He’s been tossed into what must look like a bottomless pit.  There seems to be no way out.

As noted before, it would be bad enough if solid ground were at the bottom.  However, here he is (here we are) sinking in sludge, maybe even to the point of it closing overhead.  The walls are moving in.  One need not be claustrophobic for a sense of panic to take hold.  The light is beginning to fade.

Some might say this is well-deserved.  After all, why does he find himself in this predicament to begin with?  It was no accident.  Many say by spreading his message, he really didn’t want the best for his people.

How often have we seen this take place?  Have we been with Jeremiah in that deep, dark hole and been told, “That’s where you belong.”

Shelley Rambo, who’s written quite a bit on trauma, says “for many people who experience trauma, Christianity has offered judgment, not good news…  The sense that a person is at fault for what has happened to them is often threaded into Christian responses, sometimes unconsciously.”[3]

Have we ever been on the other side of that deep, dark hole and acted like a zero (though not in a good sense!)?  Have we ever shown impatience with someone in the midst of pain and suffering and said, “Okay, this has gone on long enough.  It’s time to move on!  That is, unless you enjoy this.”

{Shelley Rambo}

Still, despite whatever suffering we endure—or whatever suffering we inflict—when hope has almost died, a servant of the king is there.  An ebed-melech shows up.  When we do speak the words of truth and get thrown into the mud, our ebed-melech stands next to us and defends us.

May the Lord raise in each of our lives an ebed-melech, a servant of the King Jesus, the One who became obedient to death and who brings us through the battle, giving us the power to rise from the dead.

[1] 11:18-12:6, 15:10-21, 17:14-18, 18:18-23, 20:7-18

[2] Christine Pohl, “Sin insulation,” Christian Century 118:24 (29 Aug-5 Sep 2001): 12.

[3] www.christiancentury.org/article/critical-essay/how-christian-theology-and-practice-are-being-shaped-trauma-studies

“Into my heart, into my heart, / Come into my heart, Lord Jesus; / Come in today, come in to stay, / Come into my heart, Lord Jesus.”  This chorus is popular with the young ones.  (Or so I’ve been told!)  It expresses the fond and dear desire for Jesus to take up residence within us.

The gospel of John and the book of Revelation each call Jesus the Word (Jn 1:14, Rv 19:13).  Jesus is the Word of God.  Not pushing the metaphor too far, but we can see Jesus as the word who enters into us and dwells in our heart, as the request in the chorus goes.

[photo by Daan Stevens on Unsplash]

Someone who knows about the word being consumed is the prophet Jeremiah.  I’ll get back to that in a moment.  First, I have a story to tell.

Jeremiah was born and received his call to be a prophet during the time that Josiah was king.  Josiah was a good king; it was important for him to be faithful to Yahweh, the Lord.

It just so happens that some of his officials were doing spring cleaning in the temple.  They were digging through some knick-knacks and thingamajigs.  We’ve all done that.  One of them stumbled upon a scroll that caught his eye.  Upon examining it, he announced, “I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord” (2 Kg 22:8).  They brought it to Josiah, and it was read to him.  (On a side note, it’s believed that the book made up much of what we call Deuteronomy, but that’s a story for another time!)

The king was alarmed, because they hadn’t been doing what was written in it.  So they sought the counsel of Huldah the prophetess.  She said, “You’re right, boys, we’ve really screwed up.  We’ve got to our act together, or we’re in for some bad times.”  After hearing that, Josiah instituted a program of ridding the land of all the pagan altars and pagan priests.  That was the world Jeremiah grew up in.  Now back to eating the word.

When he was called as a young man, Jeremiah reports, “the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the Lord said to me, ‘Now I have put my words in your mouth.  See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant’” (1:9-10).  We’ll hear more about that later.

Jeremiah’s life was ery hard—in fact, it was horrible.  We see in the book several times when he bitterly complained to the Lord about his fate.  One time he even accused the Lord of tricking him, of deceiving him, and he said, “Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart” (15:16).  The word of the Lord entered his heart, only to prove to be the source of great misfortune.

Jeremiah had such a crummy life because he was the bearer of bad news.  The Babylonians are on the way, and there’s nothing we can do about it.  We might as well get used to it.  What we can do is to return to the Lord.  (King Josiah’s efforts proved to be unsuccessful.)

Long story short, the prophet was considered an enemy of the state, and he was treated accordingly.  He was ruining the morale of the troops.  He was ridiculed, beaten, tortured, imprisoned.

But finally, Jeremiah has some good news.  After all the mayhem, the land will be restored.  It will be livable for both humans and animals.  And in a fulfillment of Jeremiah’s call, the Lord “will watch over them to build and to plant” (v. 28).  Nonetheless, in the process of rebuilding and replanting, there are some things that have to go.

This is going back a few years, back to the 1970s.  There was a TV show my parents liked to watch, The Flip Wilson Show.  He portrayed a character that turned out to be the one most people liked, Geraldine.  Probably her best-known line was, “The devil made me do it!”

What a great line.  You can absolve yourself—you can forgive yourself—of any deed if you can pin the blame on anything or anyone else, including the devil!

In Jeremiah’s time, there’s a saying the people use that falls into the category of “things that have to go.”  “The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge” (v. 29).  I can’t say I’ve ever eaten sour grapes, but I have bitten into lemons on many occasions.  (When I was a kid and we were at a restaurant, I liked to take the lemon slice in a glass of water and eat it.)

What kind of face do you make when you eat something sour?  One way of describing it is having your teeth set on edge.

The point of the saying is, “We aren’t to blame for our actions.  We had no choice; we’re paying for the sins of our parents and those who came before them.”  If they can’t say, “The devil made me do it,” they still have a good excuse.  They can still shift the blame from themselves.

However, in some sense, they are not altogether wrong.  If we think of a family system, there are things we inherit—certain behaviors, ways of looking at the world.  That can be for better or worse.  Maybe we come from a background in which we were encouraged, we were nurtured, we were allowed to dream.  Problems were dealt with in more or less constructive ways.  It doesn’t mean everything was perfect by any measure.  We are imperfect, incomplete humans, but on the whole, there were primarily positive things to pass on.

Sometimes things don’t go so well.  If our background is one in which violence, abuse (of whatever kind), and pessimism pervaded, we can learn that’s just how life goes.  Though, the negative stuff doesn’t have to be that severe.  There can be unresolved grief, ways in which reality isn’t dealt with, harmful secrets.  So in that sense, our background really can affect our behavior.

But the prophet says, “That’s not good enough!”  “But all shall die for their own sins; the teeth of everyone who eats sour grapes shall be set on edge” (v. 30).  You can’t use that excuse forever.  You are responsible for your own actions.  You have to pay the piper!  That can sound pretty harsh, but the good news is they aren’t left to work it out for themselves.  The good news begins in verse 31.

A whole new world opens up.  A grace not yet known is promised.  “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.”  “The days are surely coming.”  There is wide disagreement as to what that precisely means.  One thing seems clear, though: a new covenant will emerge from destruction and exile.  By the way, this is the only place in the entire Old Testament where the term “new covenant” appears.

As Christians, we obviously see Jesus as the fulfillment, the embodiment, of the new covenant, the new testament.  Still, we shouldn’t jump ahead.  We need to see what that meant to Jeremiah and the people of his time.  The message continues, “It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord” (v. 32).

Something we often do is to regard the Ten Commandments, for example, as a list of rules to obey.  There’s much more going on.  It’s not simply a bunch of “dos” and “don’ts.”  It is a vision of the blessed life, a life lived in the harmony of shalom.  Faithfulness to the Lord looks like this.  That’s the message of the prophets.  It comes from the heart.  But we need help in that!  We need help in persevering.

So here we go: “this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (v. 33).

I will write it on their hearts.  The late Bruce Prewer referred to that as “divine graffiti.”[1]  What will this divine graffiti accomplish?  “No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more” (v. 34).  With God’s word written on their hearts, they will not need to teach other to know the Lord.

It will be from the least to the greatest.  Everyone’s invited!  Here’s how Eugene Peterson put it in his paraphrase, The Message: “They will no longer go around setting up schools to teach each other about God.  They’ll know me firsthand, the dull and the bright, the smart and the slow.”

This is the heart of Jeremiah’s vision.  When God’s word is written on the heart, everyone will understand.

Now, depending on their disposition, there’s a class of people who might not welcome such an arrangement.  They might think it’s a raw deal.  David Rhymer calls this a “dangerous exercise of prophetic imagination.”[2]  Why should it be called dangerous?

Have you ever had a teacher who did not want their position questioned or presented with another viewpoint?  Maybe it was someone whose ego was too bound up in his or her work?  Maybe we could say they were too big for their britches!

I once had a history professor who invited students to ask him about the subject matter, claiming, “I know all.”  Admittedly, he was saying it with a bit of humor, but it was clear he felt he would not have any trouble answering any question.  One student was wondering about something, and it was obvious our teacher didn’t know the answer.  He fumbled a bit and responded, “Well, it would have been such-and-such.”  He was basically guessing.  (Having said all that, I really came to like the guy!)

Getting back to the text, the religious leaders might simply reject out of hand Jeremiah’s word, his assertion of what one day shall be.  It’s their job to read and interpret God’s word, and it’s the people’s job to “simply listen and do as they were told without question.”[3]

Their job is to sit down and shut up.

When God’s word is written on our hearts, everyone is treated with care and respect.  Everyone is treated as the sisters and brothers we truly are.  Everyone is valued.  As the prophet Joel reports of the Lord, “Then afterward I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.  Even on the male and female slaves, in those days, I will pour out my spirit” (2:28-29).

When the Spirit fills our hearts, our petty divisions are erased.  No longer will be build walls.  Going along with verses 35 to 37, with all of those cosmic promises, it will last until the end of time!

So, to recap: following the disaster, the people are promised a new day, but they can’t blame their forebears for their hard times.  It’s true; those who’ve gone before might have set the stage in ways that are difficult, even catastrophic.  Still, it has to be said, there comes a point when it’s time to grow up.  When that happens, the promise is there will be the grace to see it through.  Actually, there is the grace like never before, as said earlier, one not yet known.

When the Lord writes on our hearts, we are forgiven, now and forever.

“Into my heart, into my heart, / Come into my heart, Lord Jesus; / Come in today, come in to stay, / Come into my heart, Lord Jesus.”  It might sound trite and cute, but there is immense depth.  The next step is ours.

[1] www.bruceprewer.com/DocC/C58sun29.htm

[2] David Rhymer, “Jeremiah 31:31-34,” Interpretation 59:3 (July 2005), 295.

[3] Rhymer, 295.