St. James…We’ve got a lot of stuff!
I know. I saw it boxed up, loaded, moved and stored. It was hard to see
All those memories, hopes and dreams. Some of them mine. Lots of them yours. Even more from the generations who went before us at St. James.
‘Odd how we didn’t get to go through everything: Throw out. Give away. Organize. Pack. It wasn’t because we didn’t want to or try to. In fact a wonderful group of parishioners worked at it for two days, but then they weren’t allowed to finish. ‘Building Inspector thought it was unsafe.
My personal M.O. when I move is to go through everything thoroughly: Polish, repair, and organize. Then I take only what I really want and need. So this “leaving before the bread had time to rise”, so to speak, was really weird for that compulsive part of me. I keep thinking about how someday someone may unpack an office trash can full of dirty Kleenex and phone messages from July 2008.
It was overwhelming to be there. ‘So overwhelming that the Altar Guild folks, who had permission to be there and to pack up the Sacristy, decided it was probably better just to let the movers do it. I think it was better because it was all just so hard.
Fortunately the crew of six professionals who did our move were really sensitive to how emotional and overwhelming it was for us. If movers can be “pastoral”, I’d say the folks from Billy’s Trucking of Pittsfield were “pastoral”. I will always remember their kindness. I’m still exhausted from this, profoundly exhausted.
But I think today’s passage from Jeremiah has a word of real HOPE for us. An old Credence Clearwater Revival song tells us, “Jeremiah was a bullfrog”, but he was also one of God’s Prophets! ‘One of those extraordinary people God calls to be God’s mouthpiece, to say the things God’s people need to hear, whether they are ready to hear it or not!
In the early part of Jeremiah’s prophetic ministry, he speaks words of JUDGMENT and WARNING to God’s people. He said the people had gotten “too far from the basics” and become too obsessed with ritual and temple worship. In those early days, Jeremiah’s word to the people was to return to the Law of Moses and God’s Covenant. For our day the prophecy might be something like, “Get back to the Gospel and loving God and neighbor. “ Jeremiah’s message early on was to get back to the basics of the faith.
Today’s story from Jeremiah, however, is from the latter part of his ministry. It happens after years of strife. While God’s people were off being overly precious about their temple rituals, they became an oppressed vassal of Assyria. Then after Jeremiah had a little surge of hope that the people might return to basics, the Babylonians took over. They destroyed the beloved city Jerusalem. They desecrated and destroyed the sacred temple. They sent many of God’s people into exile in Babylon. God’s people lost most of what they knew, loved, and cherished. Their identity had been wrapped up in their city and in their temple.
During that horrible time, instead of seeking the relative safety of exile, the prophet Jeremiah chooses to stay back in Jerusalem to try to help a remnant of God’s people rebuild their lives. It was nearly a hopeless situation, and God’s people had little chance of surviving the Babylonians—either in Jerusalem or in exile.
So it’s against these dreadful conditions, against all odds, that we come to today’s story. Jeremiah himself is pretty much under “house arrest” in Jerusalem when the “word of the Lord” comes to him. In the middle of the ruins of his city, God sends a message to Jeremiah. Although life will never be like it was before, God tells Jeremiah to buy a parcel of land…in the middle of a war zone! So, much of today’s story is really the details of a real estate deal!
Now, I doubt the lectionary writers actually had our situation in mind, but today your Vestry and St. James Place are all too familiar with such transactions. And we’re learning the importance of making sure all the “T”s are crossed and the “I”s are dotted! Like Jeremiah, we’ve got to get it right to insure the future. God’s message to Jeremiah to buy the land is indeed a message of HOPE.
Hope that somehow, someday (and although everything would be different), the people of God would be able to live on and enjoy their own land again. It reminds me of that phrase in our BCP Burial Office, “Life is changed, not ended.” Their lives were changed, not ended. Our lives are changed, not ended.
This makes me think of how survivors of natural disasters and war must feel. After seeing their lives as they knew them totally destroyed, could they ever possibly have their own home again? It must seem nearly impossible to hope. And when God told Jeremiah to buy the land in Jerusalem, it must have seemed like a totally crazy thing to do…probably even a bullfrog wouldn’t do that! But Jeremiah does it because God tells him to. And in doing it, he shows real HOPE that life under God’s Holy Laws—although changed—might someday go on…even in Jerusalem.
So at this time of such great crisis in which much of what Jeremiah had warned about had come to pass…at this critical time, Jeremiah has gone from being a Prophet of DOOM to being a Prophet of HOPE. His buying the land is a sign of hope, an investment in an unknown future that God promises the people with these words, “Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.”
As we look at our world, at destructive situations far away and near, and as we look at ourselves at St. James, I wonder if we can hear from Jeremiah a word of grace, courage, and hope for our changed lives. What is the “land we can buy” for our children and our children’s children? What are the things we can do as acts of faith in the future? Certainly our support of Jake in Honduras, of the Heifer Project, of ERD’s rebuilding in areas struck by hurricanes and war, of our mission at Gideon’s Garden—especially with the children from WIC and BRIDGE, and even our support of the parish budget in uncertain times…Certainly all these are signs of HOPE. It’s the Hope God calls us to even when we feel we have little reason to hope and even when the situation is so overwhelming we can’t envision a way out.
At these times of darkness—At exactly these times—God makes lavish promises… "Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.” Life is changed, not ended. Given God’s promises, we are called to be faithful and to live in Hope.
Let us pray.
God, give us Hope for our futures that we might live with Joy each day of our lives. Amen.
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