Sermon, "The Story, Part I: Exile and Restoration," Jeremiah 10:17-25, 17:7-8, 31:31-34

Sermon 10/13/19

Jeremiah 10:17-25, 17:7-8, 31:31-34

The Story, Part 1: Exile and Restoration

Today in our journey through the Story of the Bible, we find ourselves in the Book of Jeremiah, one of the many books of prophecy in the Bible. As I’ve shared before, although we sometimes think of prophecy like fortune-telling, predicting the future, it’s really more about truth-telling. Here’s what’s going to happen if you keep heading down the path you’re on. Most of the books of prophecy in the Bible are centered around one particular narrative of warning about a painful future: With some speaking to the kingdom of Judah and some to Israel, with some warning and correcting decades before events unfolded and some writing from the center of the storm, so to speak, almost all of the writings of the prophets are warning Israel and Judah that if they don’t repent and return to God with all their hearts, they will be conquered by foreign rulers and exiled from the Promised Land. There are a few chief complaints that God has with God’s people. The most persistent is idolatry - people keep putting other gods, other things, before God. They’re not being faithful to their covenant with God. They said that God would be their one and only God, but they’re putting other things first in their life. That’s the main, worst offense. And related to that: when they stopped putting God first, they also stopped making care for the marginalized a priority. They’ve been disregarding the poor, the widow, the orphan, the stranger. Through the prophets, God tells people God has had enough of their rejecting the covenant. They have opportunity after opportunity to repent, to change their ways and turn back to God, but they don’t. And so what starts as warnings from the prophets turns into declarations of what will be: God is going to exile them. 

That’s what we find in our readings from Jeremiah today. We get three sections of text from Jeremiah, and the first is all about the coming exile. The language is bold and clear. Through Jeremiah, God says, “I am going to fling away the inhabitants of the land … and I will bring distress on them, so that they feel it.” God expresses deep pain because of being rejected by God’s own people. “Woe is me because of my hurt,” says God. “My wound is severe.” I think sometimes we forget that - that God can hurt, that we can cause God pain. Jeremiah describes a God who is brokenhearted. Jeremiah pleads on behalf of the people: “Correct us, God, but if you use all your anger on us, with all your power, we’ll be nothing.” But Jeremiah imagines he hears a noise, a commotion coming - the armies arriving who will make their homeland a desolation. 

In the second short excerpt, Jeremiah says, “Blessed are those who trust in the Lord.” Those who trust God, he says, are like a tree that’s planted by the water, that sends its roots out into the stream. They’re like a tree that doesn’t fear when it gets very hot - doesn’t wither or yellow in the extreme weather. They’re like a tree that doesn’t worry or get damaged even in a year of drought, but continues to bear fruit all the same. That’s what it is like for those who trust in God. 

And then, in the third section, God is looking ahead, looking forward already to the joyful time when God will make a new covenant with God’s people. “The days are surely coming,” God says. God says this time, the covenant will be different, not like the covenant the Israelites broke. This covenant, God says, will be put right within God’s people. God will write it on their hearts. People will know the covenant because it lives with in them, from the greatest to the least in a society. “I will be their God, and they shall be my people … I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.” 

I’ve been thinking about exile this week. Being pushed out of your home - banished from your home. In some ways, I think it is hard for us to relate. It is not a typical punishment, anymore, for crimes, at least not in the US. My mom might tell you that on one of her favorite shows, Survivor, you can get voted off the island - “The tribe has spoken.” But mostly, we don’t worry about being conquered and exiled - ourselves, or certainly as a whole society. I think of Romeo and Juliet, and Romeo’s punishment for killing Juliet’s cousin - not death, but banishment. To be separated from his love felt like death to Romeo. Today in other parts of the world, political dissidents, ousted national leaders, and war criminals - sometimes they are banished, exiled from their countries, kept on house arrest in some far off land. How can we relate to the pain, the gravity and devastation of the exile if it is so far removed from our experiences today? 

When I brought this up at Bible Study this week, the class quickly thought of ways people experience a sense of exile today. As we lifted up the Kairos team that next weekend will seek to share the hope of Christ with men who are in prison, we talked about how prisoners experience exile. They’re often very far from home and family. They’re often in prison in a place like Gouverneur that couldn’t be more different culturally than the place they’re from. It’s a kind of exile, certainly. We talked about those who are homeless, who are on the fringes of society. However a person came to be living in such poverty, they exist in a kind of exile, shut out of the rhythms of a working, consuming culture. People experience a kind of exile when relationships end badly, making even casual contact impossible where there once was a marriage, or a friendship, or a family bond. We talked about people being alienated from faith communities, either from feeling disconnected from the patterns and language and teaching of church, or from feeling unwelcome by church members, or afraid that there is no place for you in spaces considered holy and sacred. The truth is, when we start digging, prodding, the experience of exile is not so far from us after all. 

When have you felt exiled? Banished? Cut off from a place or a relationship or a situation that was home to you? Have you ever needed to banish or exile someone from you life? I’ve experienced having to break bonds with abusive family members. Necessary, but painful nonetheless - for those sent away, and for those doing the sending. Exile is hard. In exile, we are saying, perhaps, “Your behavior is so hurtful, so unacceptable, so destructive, that the only path forward for a meaningful change for me and for you is radical action: you can’t be here anymore. Moving forward with you is no longer one of the options we have.”      

Imagine, then, what must unfold, what must take place, and what must be felt by the kingdoms of Israel and Judah when it is God who exiles them. Sure, they are conquered, and foreign armies and rulers are the ones who drag them away. But the prophets, Jeremiah included, let us know that this is God’s judgment on them. It is God who is sending them away, God who is saying, “You can’t be here anymore. We cannot have the same relationship anymore.” Have you ever felt exiled from God? “For thus says the Lord: I am going to fling away the inhabitants of the land … and I will bring distress on them, so that they shall feel it.” Have you ever felt that? Flung away from God? 

I suspect most of us have. Don Schuessler mentioned in class, how Mother Teresa talked about a ten-year period in her life where she didn’t feel the presence of God. She wrote, “Where is my faith? – even deep down, right in, there is nothing but emptiness & darkness. – My God – how painful is this unknown pain. It pains without ceasing. – I have no faith. – I dare not utter the words & thoughts that crowd in my heart - & make me suffer untold agony. So many unanswered questions live within me – I am afraid to uncover them.” (1) John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, had some “dark nights of the soul” too - and he wondered if he’d ever really been a Christian, or if he was just a fake, and he wrote to his brother Charles expressing that he didn’t know what else to do in the midst of his doubts except just keep on preaching. This wasn’t Wesley as a young man, but Wesley in his 60s, already the leader of an international movement of reawakening faith. Maybe you think, “Gosh, if even Mother Teresa had doubts, what hope do I have?” But I think, “Oh good - even Mother Teresa had doubts! And yet look at her great faithfulness!” However we find ourselves in the strange land of exile, I think we all encounter seasons of feeling far-flung from God’s presence. Sometimes we know exactly how we got there. We can recount our sins, our failings, we know how we’ve broken covenant with God, and we understand how we ended up just where we are. Sometimes, our journey to exile was inch by inch, and we didn’t realize that we’d gotten so far from God until we looked behind us and couldn’t see God’s face anymore. Sometimes, we go for a season, for a decade, without feeling God’s presence, and we’re not even sure why. 

But friends, there is always restoration with exile when it comes to our relationship with God. Exile, our experience of exile, is never the end of the story. Because God’s promises endure, always. Even when God’s people are in exile, even in the worst time in their collective lives, God is with them there, too. I’ve been reading through the writings of the prophets for the past several months as part of my devotional time. The major prophets - they’re just the ones with longer books in the Bible, and now the minor prophets. I’m almost to the “end” of this section of scripture. And reading them all back to back, I’ve noticed some themes, some patterns, some repeated ways that God speaks through the prophets. 

My favorite “pattern” of God’s is this: practically before God is done saying what the consequences are for the sinful behavior of God’s people, practically before God is done describing the coming exile, God is already also imagining restoration and reconciliation with God’s people. God says, things like, “You’ve been awful, and I am so upset with you, and I’m so hurt, and so frustrated, and so angry, and I am so going to punish you, FOREVER! But then I am so totally going to relent, and forgive, and things will be awesome between us again and I can’t wait because I love you and you’re my people and I’m your God.” God never leaves us in exile. That works in two ways: God never leaves us - we’re never without God, even in exile. But also, God never leaves us there - exile isn’t permanent, not with God. There’s always a homecoming. The lost sheep is always found. The lost coin is discovered. The prodigal son is welcomed home. God can’t wait to forgive us. God can’t wait for our relationship to be healed. God is so anxious to says, “Let’s renew that covenant.” God can hardly stay mad long enough to not be eagerly describing how joyful it will be when we are reunited, when we return to God with all our hearts. 

If you find yourselves in exile, however you got there, I want you to remember those middle verses about the tree by the water, the tree that trusts in God. Even when you can’t feel God’s presence, even when you feel utterly alone, even when you feel like the world is a blazing sun that wants to cause you to shrivel up, or when you feel like your life has been in a long season of drought, dry and parched, seek to be like the tree by the water that trusts in God. Eventually, Mother Teresa, John Wesley, they felt God’s presence once again. And I think they were aided in part by the fact that they had practices of faith that sustained them even when they felt alone. They couldn’t feel God, but they still studied God’s word. They will prayed. They still shared about God’s goodness, about Jesus’s good news. And eventually, those words meant something to them again. We have to establish those practices of faith in the times when we feel God right by our sides, so that we can lean on them in times when we don’t. They’ll help us find our way again. 

And if you find yourselves in exile, remember this: God’s promises are written on your hearts. See, even though in Jeremiah, in that last section we read God says God will make a new covenant with the people, it probably sounds pretty familiar to you - because it is really the same covenant as always: I’ll be your God, you be my people. That’s always what God wants. A relationship with us. But remember in Deuteronomy, we read how God wanted us to remember by putting God’s words on our heads and arms and doorposts and gates, so we’d never forget? This time, God says, “I’m putting the covenant directly on your heart. My covenant will be within you. I’m writing it on your heart. Everyone will know it then. You’ll barely have to teach it - because you’ll know it already, young and old, greatest and least. My covenant on your hearts.” 

If God’s covenant is on our hearts, then there’s nowhere we can go, no where we can be sent, no place we can hide, no place we can run, no place to which we can be exiled, no state of sinfulness that is too much, no separation that has lasted too long, no circumstance of any kind where God cannot reach us. It can’t be done. “They days are surely coming,” says God. Like trees by the water, let us trust in God, wherever we are. Amen. 

1. https://www.smmsisters.org/who-we-are/sister-stories/86/the-doubts-of-a-saint

Sermon, "Voices from Prison: Paul and Silas," Acts 16:16-40

Sermon 7/15/18
Acts 16:16-40

Voices from Prison: Paul and Silas

Of the many folks we hear about who end up in prison in the Bible, the apostle Paul probably spends the most time there. As I mentioned last week, some of the epistles in the Bible, the letters, are letters that were written by Paul while in prison. Philippians, Philemon, and Colossians were all written by Paul while he was in prison, although we’re not always sure which of Paul’s multiple times in prison is the setting for each letter. It’s not surprising that he ends up in jail so frequently. He’s a Jewish man, preaching about this person Jesus Christ, and wherever he goes, he’s sharing a message that is in stark contrast to those who hear him. Many of his fellow Jewish leaders don’t appreciate his understanding of Judaism and how he speaks about Jesus as someone who both fulfills and transcends the law, and the Gentiles - the non-Jews to whom Paul preached most often don’t understand his or appreciate his Jewish identity or why because of Jesus they should become a part of this faith tradition. Everywhere, people find Paul’s words or practices upsetting, and so everywhere, he’s getting into trouble with the authorities in town, sometimes beaten, sometimes being called on to defend himself, sometimes ending up in prison. Eventually, although we don’t know Paul’s fate specifically, it is believed Paul was beheaded by the Emperor of Rome, Nero, famous for his persecution of religious minorities, including Christians. 

I knew, then, that I wanted to include Paul in this series on Voices from Prison, since I believe his experiences in prison shape his faith and his understanding of the freedom we experience in Christ significantly. His letters are littered with the language of captive, imprisoned, and freedom, and he both calls himself a prisoner of Jesus Christ, and speaks about how Christ sets us free. So what does Paul experience in prison that shapes his understanding of faith? Today we turn to a reading from the Acts of the Apostles, written by Luke, the gospel-writer, to delve into one of Paul’s trips to prison.  

The beginning of chapter 16 of Acts tells us that Paul and Silas and a group of other disciples in the early church are visiting Philippi to share the gospel there. Philippi is the community to whom Paul writes the letter that we know in our Bible as Philippians. At the beginning of the chapter, they meet a woman named Lydia, a business woman, a cloth dealer, and she and her whole household are baptized after learning about Jesus. Lydia urges the missionaries to stay at her home - she’s a woman of some wealth and can provide for everyone - and she persuades them. When our text for today begins, the apostles are using her house as a home-base, and from there each day heading out to preach and share the gospel with others. As they’re doing this each day, they encounter a girl who is a slave who brings her owners a lot of money by telling people’s fortunes, because, we read, she has a “spirit of divination.” When she sees Paul and the others, she starts to follow them and yell out, “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.” She does this every day. Like many who have what the scriptures call “unclean spirit” or are in some way “possessed by spirits,” she’s not saying anything that’s not true. But her following Paul and the gang around also doesn’t seem to be helping them find the nice introduction to talking about Jesus that they’re hoping for. Paul, Acts tells us, is “very much annoyed.” And so prompted apparently by his annoyance rather than a desire to heal the girl, Paul orders the spirit to come out of her in the name of Jesus Christ. And it does. 
And suddenly, this slave girl has lost her money-making capacity for her owners. It doesn’t sit well with them. They seize Paul and Silas, drag them to the local magistrates, and accuse them: “These men are disturbing our city; they are Jews and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe.” The crowds join in with the accusations, and the local authorities have them stripped, beaten and flogged, and thrown in prison. The prison guard puts them in the innermost cell and fastens their feet in stocks. Prisons in biblical times were not nice places at all. “Prison time” wasn’t a typical sentence - prison was merely a holding place for those awaiting trial, and sometimes release, but often another punishment, or execution. Prisons were overcrowded. They were dark, and the inner cells, which Acts is careful to note to us is where Paul and Silas are held, would usually be entirely dark. Chains to bind prisoners were heavy, iron chains, which were particularly painful to bodies that had just been beaten and flogged. Hygiene was pretty lacking. Food was minimal - most prisoners had to rely on visitors to sustain them with food and drink of any substance. Many prisoners would be kept together in one cell. It’s a dreadful situation.* 

          Somehow, though, Paul and Silas find the strength to spend their time in prison praying and singing hymns. It’s midnight, and the text says that other prisoners are listening to them. Imagine them all in the stifling darkness, but Paul and Silas are lifting up words of hope. Suddenly, there’s an earthquake. The quaking causes the doors of the prison to be opened, and the chains of all the prisoners to fall off. The jailer wakes, sees the chaos, and gets ready to take his own life, despairing at the complete failure of his job. But Paul and Silas have not escaped - and neither have any other prisoners, for whatever reasons they might have been there. Paul speaks to prevent the jailer from hurting himself, and the jailer rushes in with lights, falls down before Paul and Silas, and asks what he must do to be saved. Apparently, he knows enough about what Paul and Silas have been arrested for to know they seem to have some compelling message to share. 

           Paul and Silas tell the jailer about Jesus. They share the good news of God’s grace not just with him, but with the whole household. And the jailer and his family decide to be baptized and to become Jesus-followers without delay. They feed Paul and Silas, and care for their wounds, and keep them in the house instead of the prison. When morning comes, the authorities send word to release Paul and Silas, and send them away. You’d think they’d rejoice at this news, but Paul instead responds: “They have beaten us in public, uncondemned, men who are Roman citizens, and have thrown us into prison; and now are they going to discharge us in secret? Certainly not! Let them come and take us out themselves.” He wants some accountability for the way they’ve been treated, for what we might call the lack of due process they’ve endured. Paul’s status as a Roman citizen gives him special rights, and his words grab the attention of the authorities, who indeed come and apologize. Still, they want Paul and Silas out of town now. So Paul and Silas are officially freed. They say their farewells to Lydia and the other Christians there, and leave town. 

There are so many layers of imprisonment and freedom in this passage. It’s about more than just Paul and Silas. First, there’s the slave girl. She is not free - she is a slave, and she’s bound up by this spirit that has especially made her a pawn of her masters. Something makes her call out to Paul and Silas day after day, shouting for anyone who will listen that these people have a message of salvation. Notice that we don’t hear anything else about her after Paul releases her from the spirit. We only know that Paul’s actions in her left her owners very, very angry. Paul didn’t seem to be motivated in healing her by a desire to help her, did he? He just wanted her to be quiet, I think! But Paul’s actions, though they free her from a spirit that apparently consumed her life, did nothing to free her from her slavery. Instead, they make her worthless to her owners. I’ve heard people use the phrase “freedom isn’t free.” We talk about this when we’re weighing the costs of “freedom,” and noting that rarely does what we name freedom come without some kind of price. Freedom has consequences. Paul acts on this girl’s life and bestows on her one kind of freedom. It is not for her benefit, unfortunately. Sometimes, when we’re “freeing” others with whatever actions we think are best, we’re not thinking about the consequences. When it comes to working to fight against injustice, against harm to others, against oppression, against wrongdoing, how can we make sure that what we think of as a gift of freedom to others is actually setting them free? I hope Paul had a chance to think of that slave girl, and wonder how her life unfolded after his actions. 

There is, of course, the imprisonment and freedom of Paul and Silas. They’re beaten and bound and in prison, and yet they possess within themselves a well of faith that they draw on that leaves them seeming free, even though they are in physical chains. Their trust in God leaves them with a deep contentment. They seem free from worry about their fate. I don’t mean to say that they don’t care if they live or die. I believe Paul had many plans about all the people with whom he wanted to share the gospel. I mean that he’s not anxious for the future. He’s with God when he’s in prison or out of prison. He’s a disciple of Jesus in prison or out of prison. There’s no external forces that seem to shake Paul and Silas’s faith. They’re singing and praying in prison. Even when the doors are unlocked for them by the earthquake, and their chains are loosened, they don’t rush to escape. This, I think, is the freedom in Christ that Paul talks about. His faith makes him secure in whatever he experiences. I just finished reading Braving the Wilderness by Brené Brown last week, and she returns in her book again and again to a statement from Dr. Maya Angelou from a 1973 TV interview. Angelou said, “You are only free when you realize that you belong no place - you belong every place - no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great.” (5) I love that. I think Paul and Silas embody that. They belong to Christ - to no place, and every place. The cost of their freedom in Christ is high. Eventually, Paul pays with his life. But the reward is great. Paul wouldn’t trade his experiences for anything, after experiencing new life in Christ, after accepting God’s unwavering, unconditional love and grace. 

And then there is the jailer. He’s the one that seems to have the most freedom in this story. He’s no slave girl, and he’s not locked up like Paul and Silas. And yet, when the earthquake happens, we immediately see how bound this man is. He exists in a system that makes it seem like taking his own life is the only possible solution. He exists in a system that would apparently punish him for the escape of prisoners even though it would have been due to circumstances completely beyond his control. He seems free, but he’s bound, chained to this punitive system that means his life can come crashing down around him with one unexpected earthquake. He has power, but he knows his power is tenuous and can be snatched away at any second. He should be calm and in control, but it is Paul and Silas who have to comfort him. Power and status, wealth and position - these things give us the illusion of freedom. But the hidden costs are deeply soul-crushing, meaning this man, this jailer feels his life is worthless without his position. How easily we can become chained by these external things that promise to give us value, promise us freedom, and leave us feeling more bound than ever! 

         When we talk about freedom, I want us to ask ourselves two questions: Free from what and free for what? Christ offers us new life, and sets us free. But I want us to know what we’re being set free from. What is binding you up? What has you chained? What has your soul imprisoned? What are you so reliant on that if it came crashing down you’d think your life was no longer of value? Christ sets us free from sin, free from the power of that which seeks to separate us from God, free from the endless quest to earn the love that God has already offered us. How does your faith make it so external chains can’t prevent you from singing hymns and witnessing to your faith, because you know who you are, who you serve, who loves you? How can Jesus set you free? 

         And what will Jesus set you free for? In our traditional United Methodist communion liturgy, there’s a prayer of confession that precedes the sharing of communion, one that you’ll find adaptations of in many Christian traditions. I invite you to share in it with me (UMH page 12): “Merciful God, we confess that we have not loved you with our whole heart. We have failed to be an obedient church. We have not done your will, we have broken your law, we have rebelled against your love, we have not loved our neighbors, and we have not heard the cry of the needy. Forgive us, we pray. Free us for joyful obedience, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” I am so struck by this phrase: Free us for joyful obedience. Paul and Silas were free to serve God with their whole hearts and their whole lives. We are too. We’re free to joyfully follow in the footsteps of Jesus. We’re free to do God’s will, follow God’s way, embrace God’s love, love our neighbors, and hear - with compassion, not annoyance - the cries of the needy. We’re free in a way that gives life - true, abundant life.  The price is high. The reward is great. In Christ Jesus, we have been set free. Let’s live like people who know it. Amen. 


*Insights and information on first-century prisons found here: Derrick G. Jeter, 
https://www.insight.org/resources/article-library/individual/doing-time-in-a-first-century-prison, and here in these class note: Simón Apablazam, https://www.scribd.com/doc/14354155/Life-in-Prison-in-1ad

Sermon, "Voices from Prison: John the Baptist," Matthew 11:2-15, Mark 6:14-29

Sermon 7/8/18

Matthew 11:2-15, Mark 6:14-29

Voices from Prison: John the Baptist

We almost didn’t hear about John the Baptist today. Last week, as I started thinking about Jeremiah, and about this whole sermon series really, I realized that most - not quite all but most - of the people who we read about who are detained, jailed, or imprisoned in the Bible are people whose law-breaking included some form of speaking up, speaking a truth, speaking out that was not allowed, or seriously not appreciated by the leaders of the day. Remember, Jeremiah was imprisoned multiple times for saying things that the King didn’t want to hear - namely that the war would fail and the King himself would be captured. Well, John the Baptist also ends up in jail for speaking out in ways that the King does not want to hear, and I was worried I would have two sermons in a row on the very same themes. But as I started digging in more to the text last week, I felt the real message I wanted to share was about God’s redemption and our struggle to accept it for ourselves and others.

That leaves us free to talk about John this week, thankfully, and spend time with one of I think the most fascinating figures in the Bible. We have two texts today that focus on John and his time in prison. In our first reading, we find John in prison already, and Matthew tells us that he has heard “what the Messiah was doing.” What Jesus had been doing was teaching, sharing parables, healing, and sending out disciples to do the same, announcing the good news: God’s reign was at hand, here on earth right now. So John sends his disciples to Jesus to ask, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” Remember, when John was doing his own preaching, when he kept talking about this coming Messiah, he kept describing someone very different than Jesus seems to be. John talked about the wrath to come. He described a Messiah arriving with a winnowing fork, ready to separate good and bad, tossing what wasn’t needed into the fire. And then Jesus arrived showing compassion at every turn, spending time eating with them, visiting in their homes, showering people with love. John needs to ask: Are you really the one? Or is someone else, someone with a little more fire and brimstone going to come along soon? I think this question is critically important for John. He’s in prison. He can’t do the preaching and calling for repentance that he had been doing. But if Jesus is the Messiah, as John hoped, then it is ok. His task is complete: he prepared the way. If Jesus is not the Messiah, then being in jail is not something John can endure, because his work would not yet be done.

Instead of answering directly, Jesus describes the results of what he’s been up to. He says to John’s disciples, “Go and tell John: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.” Jesus’ words are practically lifted from the prophet Isaiah describing a messiah, and so John can be comforted: Jesus is the one, even if he has not arrived quite as John was expecting.

Once John’s disciples leave, Jesus talks about John to the crowds. He calls John a prophet, likening him to Elijah, a most-revered prophet. John is more than a prophet, Jesus says. He’s the one who announced the way of God’s salvation in the Messiah. No one is greater than John. But, Jesus says, “The least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” What a verse - powerful and confusing! See, John marks the transition from one time to the next. All the prophets were setting the stage for the arrival of God’s reign on earth. But with Jesus, God’s reign on earth is here, and what we can do knowing that we live in God’s kin-dom right now is even more wonderful than the work of the prophets.

Then, in our reading from Mark, we hear how John ended up in prison in a flashback scene. King Herod is hearing reports about Jesus, and some of the reports suggest that Jesus is really John the Baptist, back from the dead. Indeed, Herod, who ordered John’s execution, believes this too. John was in prison for very publicly criticizing the king: Herod had married his brother’s wife, Herodias, after Herodias divorced him. This was not allowed according to the law of Moses, and for someone as important as the King to blatantly disregard the law was setting a very bad example, and just further illustrated how Herod was nothing more than a pawn for the occupying Roman government, not a spiritual leader for Israel. If it hadn’t been this particular bold speech, though, something else John said or did would have landed him in prison. John stirred people up, and the leaders didn’t want anyone causing unrest, anything that might challenge their power and authority.

Still, Mark tells us that Herod is taken with John. Herodias wants him put to death, but Herod protects him. Herod knows that John is righteous and holy. He’s confused by the ways John calls him and others to repent and change their ways. A man who is as ostensibly successful as Herod feels like they’re doing everything right, and to be told in fact they need to change everything is not welcome news. But, Mark tells us, he likes to listen to John nonetheless. Then an opportunity comes for Herodias to get rid of John at last. At his birthday banquet, his stepdaughter comes and dances for the guests, and in thanks, Herod promises her whatever she wants. Working with her mother, she seizes the opportunity, and asks for the head of John the Baptist. Herod, we read, is grieved, seeing too late the trap that’s been set. But, he’s made an oath in public, and he can’t - won’t - refuse it. A guard goes to the prison, and beheads John.

Do you think John believed, given his time in prison, and whatever moments he had to reflect on his impending execution, that raising his voice was worth it? That he would have spoken out still, given the chance to do it again? Why do you think John felt so compelled to speak things that had such potential dangerous consequences? Are there issues or events or people who would inspire you to speak up or speak out in ways that might be dangerous? Risky? Maybe your words might not land you in prison, but they could still have consequences, for your friendships, your job, your standing in the community. When is speaking up worth it?

It is risky still sometimes, speaking up and speaking out. We take warranted pride in in this country in the right to free speech. This 4th of July week we might be thinking about the law-breakers whose acts of protest and stirring words laid the foundation for the revolution that formed our nation! Their words and actions had big consequences, didn’t they? We prize free speech. But, we also have a history that shows there are limits on just how that speech can be delivered. Thankfully hate speech can have consequences - sometimes limits are needed. But I’m thinking of protest actions - from our quest for independence, to movements for women’s rights and Civil Rights, to people today who are marching to bring attention to causes for justice.

Throughout the course of history there’s been a tradition of prophets and political prisoners speaking from prison - writing letters, sharing messages. We’ll be hearing about the apostle Paul next week, and some of our scriptures in the Bible are letters that Paul wrote while in prison. I find Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail to be one of the most powerful pieces of writing there is. You’ll notice in your bulletin worksheet a link so that you can read the whole thing. King was writing particularly to white clergymen in Birmingham, because they had refused to support his cause in the Civil Rights movement. They agreed, in theory, with his quest for equal rights, but they didn’t like his techniques. They didn’t feel like King needed to break the law, or encourage others to do so, to achieve their aims. If they were just more patient, they argued, change would eventually come without all the “upset.” King responded with this letter.

He writes, in part: My Dear Fellow Clergymen:

While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities "unwise and untimely” … I think I should indicate why I am here in Birmingham, since you have been influenced by the view which argues against "outsiders coming in." … I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond the boundaries of their home towns … so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town... Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly…

Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily…We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied." …

I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws … I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all." …

And now this approach is being termed extremist. But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." Was not Amos an extremist for justice: "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream." Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther an extremist: "Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God." And John Bunyan: "I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience." … So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love?” (https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html)

Prophets, it seems, are not fans of lukewarm responses to injustice. John the Baptist was definitely an extremist for the cause of Jesus. Are we? I ask us again: What issue or event or person would inspire you to speak up or speak out? What is it, who is it that is so important that you would break some rules, or at least push at some boundaries, suffer some consequences? As we look at John the Baptist, speaking boldly to share the message of Jesus, I’d like to suggest some guidelines that might help us discern when God is calling us toward risk-taking action.

Sometimes, we know it is time to speak up when we see injustice because God won’t leave us alone! When you find that you’ve seen the suffering of others, and you just can’t get the images, the stories out of your head, God may be urging you to speak and act. When God answers your prayers by putting before you again and again ways that you might get involved in advocacy and action, when you find your heart stirred, when you feel yourself responding with that gut-churning compassion that always moved Jesus to action, God may be urging you to speak and act.   

Sometimes, we know it is time to speak up and take action when we realize that we might have a unique platform. When our voices can amplify voices of people who aren’t being heard, we might have a responsibility to take risky actions and speak up against injustice. I think about our United Methodist history, when women were first given the right to be seated as delegates to General Conference, our highest decision-making body. Before they won that right, men had to speak up for the rights of women, because women had no rights to a voice there. The men who were delegates had a platform that the women did not, and so the responsibility to speak up for what was right was on them. How can you use your voice to amplify the voice of others?

Sometimes, we know it is time to speak up and take action when the risk to us for speaking up is discomfort, or being disliked, but the risk to others when we don’t speak is life-threatening. Is our discomfort when we have to speak up boldly more important than ending injustice? No. I’ve told you before that I’m a conflict avoider. I struggle with this. I want everyone to get along, and let’s be honest: I want everyone to like me too. But does that mean I shouldn’t say things that might be hard to speak or hard to hear? My discomfort is less important than the suffering of others. We know it is time to speak when by speaking up we’re embodying the commandments to love God and neighbor. As much as Jesus recognized John the Baptist as the greatest of prophets, we who find our place in the reign of God have more potential power, more potential greatness, when we’re workers in embodying God’s reign on earth. With our place in God’s heart secure, how can we but speak up for truth and justice? Friends, let us be bold. Let us use the power, the voice God has given us. Let us speak the values of extreme love we know to be true through our life-saving relationship with Jesus Christ. Maybe there will be consequences. There always are, when we speak and act, and when we stay silent and still. But Jesus, the one we waited for, has come, and is with us always. Let speak and act in his name. Amen.   

Sermon, "Voices from Prison: Jeremiah," Jeremiah 32-33

Sermon 7/1/18

Jeremiah 32-33

Voices from Prison: Jeremiah

A couple of years ago, a colleague of mine was posting on facebook about his sermon series, which was centered around biblical figures who had been in prison. He didn’t post the sermons; I never got to read what he wrote or hear his particular perspective, but I filed the concept away in my mind. It’s an occupational hazard for clergy - constantly filing away experiences, things we read, conversations we have into our “future sermons” mental drawer.

It seemed right in this time and place to preach a series about Voices from Prison. We have a prison in Gouverneur, and we have an active prison ministry that we support - Kairos - where a team of men, including some of our own folks, visit the prison and prepare to lead inmates in times of learning, worship, Bible study, and faith development, bringing the good news to folks who really need some good news. It seemed right, too, because I think sometimes it is easy to think about prison as something that happens to other people. But in reality, we - we right here in this congregation - have been touched by the reality of prison. Some people in the congregation, including myself, have family who have been or are in prison. Some people have themselves been in prison. It is a part of our reality, our experience. And I believe that our faith always has something to say to the experiences that make up our lives.

What does our story of faith have to say about prison? Certainly, the Bible touches on prison and prisoners, on crime and punishment for crimes, and on reconciliation - how are folks restored to the life of community after they have broken the law and been set apart from the whole? Joseph, Samson, Jeremiah, Micaiah, Zedekiah, Daniel, John the Baptist, Peter, James, John, Silas, Paul, Epaphras, Aristarchus, Junia, and Jesus himself spend time in prison, accused of or convicted of crimes, punished for breaking laws. When Jesus reads from the scroll of Isaiah in the synagogue at the beginning of his preaching ministry, he shares that the good news he fulfills includes “release to the captives.” When Jesus talks about where we see his face in the gospel of Matthew, when he tells what we call the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats, Jesus mentions visiting those who are in prison as a way that we serve, a place we see Christ. We cannot read the scriptures of our faith without encountering voices from prison.

In our United Methodist tradition, our statements of social beliefs speak to criminal justice systems, and what our hope is as followers of Jesus. Each week on the bulletin worksheet you’ll see some links to resources and action items related to criminal justice reform. I want to share with you aloud though an excerpt from our Social Principles and the Book of Resolutions, our resource for social action as United Methodists. Our statement says, “A justice system must be first and foremost about humanization since God’s justice always works to bring reconciliation. Systems of retribution breed only violence and isolation. Indeed, “we can- not punish our way to a healthy society” (Laura Magnani and Harmon Wray, Beyond Prisons: A New Interfaith Paradigm for Our Failed Prison System. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press [p. 5]) … Most justice systems do not seek healing and restoration for the people affected by crime or for those who commit crimes.” “A justice system that reflects God’s desires for the world is one that is healing and restorative.” (https://www.umcjustice.org/what-we-care-about/civil-and-human-rights/criminal-justice-reform)

“God’s justice always works to bring reconciliation.” Do we believe that? God is always working for reconciliation, and always hopes for us to work with God for reconciliation too. On Friday, I shared the message with the kids at Vacation Bible School. They spent the whole week learning about forgiveness - the whole of VBS was focused on knowing more about God’s amazing forgiveness, and how we’re called to share this message of forgiveness with others. VBS takes an offering every day for a mission project each year, and this year the offering went to a scholarship fund for children whose parents are prisoners to attend camp. What a perfect connection for a week spent talking about forgiveness! The kids had been talking earlier in the week about Simon Peter, and how he denied even knowing Jesus, who had been his dear friend and teacher, right as Jesus was at his most vulnerable - arrested, on trial, about to be put to death. So I asked them to think about a story they knew - Frozen. How many of you have seen the movie Frozen with Anna and Elsa and the song you can never unlearn, “Let It Go”? At the climax of the movie, Anna is frozen, and a kiss from her beau does not, in fact, save her life as expected. It seems that hope is lost. And that’s where the movie ends, right? That’s what I asked the kids, and they groaned and yelled, “No, that’s not the end!” Of course, in the end, it is Anna’s sister Elsa who saves her with the true love of sisterhood, and they experience, naturally, a happily ever after. That worst part, when it seemed hope was gone, was not the end of the story. And Peter’s denial of Jesus, we learned, was not the end of the story. A resurrected Jesus gave Peter the chance to affirm his love for Jesus as many times as he had denied knowing him, and Jesus entrusted Jesus to share the message of God’s grace and forgiveness with the world. Peter was devastated when he denied Jesus. In that moment, could he have imagined what God would make of his life? That the world would remember him mostly for being the leader of the newly birthed church, a most faithful of disciples? I bet he couldn’t see it. But God saw it. Jesus saw it in him. There was more to Peter’s story, and through Jesus, Peter was reconciled, redeemed, ready for a hopeful future.

Last fall, when we were talking about Theology at the Theatre, and we were managing to talk about Harry Potter and Les Miserables all in one sermon, I shared with you all that I thought redemption stories were our favorite stories. “Our hope in redemption,” I said, “our hope in this idea that someone, something, can save us from our sinfulness, save us from the evil path we sometimes choose instead of the path of good” is our favorite story. And at the same time, we talked about how even though we long for redemption, we sometimes struggle with receiving the God’s grace for us, God’s redeeming of our lives as a gift, and we have trouble sometimes letting others receive redemption as a gift, constantly feeling like none of us are worthy enough, like we are always needing to earn what God wants to offer us without price, and never measuring up, never letting others measure up.

When we think about prison and prisoners, do we believe in God’s redeeming power? Do we see people in prison as people of sacred worth? God’s precious creations? People whom God loves unconditionally? People for whom God has hopes and dreams? For the next three weeks, as we hear some of the stories of people in the Bible who spent time in prison, as we listen to their voices, I hope, too, that we think about the people who are in prison today, and how we are called to respond as people who follow a God who dreams, always, of reconciliation.

Today we turn to the writings of the prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah was writing during the time of the Babylonian exile. Judah, the southern kingdom of a divided Israel, had been conquered, and many Jews were sent to Babylon, but this happened in waves. Judah still had a “king” - a puppet-king Zedekiah, a nephew to the former king, who was put in place by Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon as someone Nebuchadnezzar could manipulate and control. Still, Zedekiah didn’t comply with everything Babylon wanted - he tries to work with the Egyptians, hoping they will be better for Judah than Babylon. The result of his maneuvering is that Babylon is now simply seeking to conquer Jerusalem, rather than letting it remain a vassal of Babylon.

The chapters we read from Jeremiah are a flashback of sorts. The whole book jumps back and forth in time, and it’s a little confusing!  But here’s the gist of what we need to know: It’s the tenth year of the reign of Zedekiah, and the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign. Jeremiah is in prison, something that amounts to a kind of house-arrest. He’s confined to the court of the guard in the palace of King Zedekiah. Jeremiah was arrested because he was accused of being a deserter during the war, accused of going over to the enemy side. Initially, he is beaten and left there alone for days. Finally, though, King Zedekiah sends for him. He threatens to turn Jeremiah over to Nebuchadnezzar, but Jeremiah pleads his case, and is put on house-arrest instead.

Zedekiah is displeased with Jeremiah because Jeremiah has prophesied that Jerusalem is going to fall to Babylon, and that Zedekiah will be captured and taken to Babylon as a prisoner. He wants to know why Jeremiah would say such a thing. Jeremiah is accused essentially of undermining the war effort. He’s discouraging the soldiers, the leaders say, by proclaiming that Jerusalem will fall, and Zedekiah and the other leaders don’t want him doing that. Thus, Jeremiah spends a lot of time imprisoned.  

Jeremiah offers evidence that he is truly hearing God’s word, and tells Zedekiah about buying a field from his cousin at Anathoth, something God has said would happen. God says Jeremiah’s ownership of these fields is a symbol of hope: someday, Israelites will build on this land again. Someday, they’ll plant fields and have vineyards. Someday. But first, God reveals through Jeremiah, first Jerusalem will fall to Nebuchadnezzar. God is upset because the Israelites have been worshiping other gods. They’ve turned away from God’s path. “They have turned their backs to me, not their faces; though I have taught them persistently, they would not listen and accept correction,” God says.

Still, Jeremiah spends more time sharing about the hope God has for the future of Jerusalem. Even as Israel is punished for turning away from God, even as God is filled with anger about the faithlessness of God’s people, already God is planning for how to be merciful and forgiving once Israel has paid the penalty. We read God saying, “I am going to bring it recovery and healing; I will heal them and reveal to them abundance of prosperity and security. I will restore the fortunes of Judah and the fortunes of Israel, and rebuild them as they were at first. I will cleanse them from all the guilt of their sin against me, and I will forgive all the guilt of their sin and rebellion against me. And this city shall be to me a name of joy, a praise and a glory before all the nations of the earth who shall hear of all the good that I do for them; they shall fear and tremble because of all the good and all the prosperity I provide for it.” It is amazing to me what a future of blessings God imagines for Judah even in the midst of, at the moment of Judah facing the consequences for breaking God’s commandments. How merciful, how forgiving, how gracious is God, who even in anger and disappointment cannot wait to get to the time of redemption, reconciliation, and rebuilding!

I think Jeremiah’s message about God’s longing for redemption is all the more powerful as it comes from Jeremiah when he himself is in prison. He is being punished - even if we feel unjustly - even as he speaks about the punishment Jerusalem will face. From prison, in the midst of various punishments, being handed from place to place, Jeremiah proclaims the good news of God’s persistent grace. What he’s saying about Judah’s hopeful future seems impossible. And it is a long way off. Seventy years off in fact. There is work to do, consequences to face before redemption arrives. But it isn’t impossible. In fact, redemption is the promise God gives.

As we think, friends, about those who are in prison, however they came to be there, and as we think about the ways that we have been imprisoned spiritually by our sin, by our disobeying God, by our self-destructive ways, by our brokenness, let us continue to be people who love redemption stories. Let us continue to be people who know that the story hasn’t ended with heartbreak. Let us be people who hope for the reconciliation of all of us to the heart of God. Let us hear and heed Jeremiah’s voice - calling us to faithfulness, calling us to accountability, and calling us to trust in the God of all hopefulness. Amen.