A sermon based upon Jeremiah 20: 7-13
By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership
15th Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 15th, 2018
(7-12) Sermon Series: Jeremiah: Prophet to the Nations
I grew up during the heart of the Cold War. It was a war, perceived to be a struggle between freedom and tyranny, between faith and atheism, between democracy and dictatorship, and of course, between communism and capitalism. One of my favorite stories out of that era tells how a KBG agent enters a Russian apartment where a Christian Bible Study was taking place. He told the group he would give them one last chance to admit their illegal activities, abandon their secret meetings and disband, or they would be reported, which would result in very serious consequences. A few of the group accepted his threat and leave. Closing the door, the KBG agent says, “Now that I know who are real Christians, I’m a Christian too. I couldn’t take a chance to join your group until I knew whose faith was real.”
I love that story because it raises an increasingly important question: What would you do if you were being persecuted for your faith? Would you be able to stand firm and be a witness to your faith? In out text, the prophet Jeremiah is being persecuted, not so much because of his faith, but because his faith demands that he tell the truth.
FOR THE WORD…HAS BECOME A REPROACH (8)
Sometimes, the most difficult thing to speak is the truth. We know that, don’t we? Your friend comes up to you and has bad breath. Do you tell them truth? “Don’t you like my new dress, honey?” Do you dare tell her the truth? Or your child can’t throw a ball, but they try. Do you tell them they don’t have any athletic skills? Of course not, but you say, ‘that was good, honey!’ You encourage them. You complement them, but you don’t tell them the truth. Then, you are in the hospital visiting your colleague. “I just know I’m not going to get better.” You look around at the tubes, the IV’s and the machines. You know what is going to happen. Do you agree with them? Do you tell them the truth? I recall the most wonderful thing the Emergency responder said to me, when, after my accident, I was laying there in my wrecked car, with my left leg nearly amputated. “How does it look,” I asked. “Is it bad?” “Oh, it’s not that bad, we see this kind of thing all the time.” I knew that he didn’t, and he knew he didn’t, but it was a comforting thought.
Any kind of truth, especially the moral truth can be hard to speak and hard to hear too. When the ‘truth’ about Olympic Dr. Larry Nasser was discovered, as young girls started to tell Michigan State authorities about his abusive behavior, school and Olympic officials did not want to hear or believe it was true. I heard one of the girls, who dropped out early say, that Dr. Nasser was their ‘golden boy’. The Olympic gymnastics program at Michigan State was their ‘claim to fame’. When the truth was told by the young girls, no one wanted to hear or believe it. Sometimes even the parents had a hard time believing it, at first. That is how hard the truth can be. It often sets us into denial and defensiveness. Even when we know it is true in our hearts, our minds can tell us that must be otherwise.
The difficult-to-swallow truth Jeremiah told in today’s Scripture passage, was also something the people of Judah and Jerusalem did not want to hear. Jeremiah was sent by God to tell God’s people about their spiritual faults and failures, and to warn them of the soon-coming consequences of that failure, if, that is, they didn’t change their ways.
This “truth-telling” by Jeremiah was most graphically expressed back in chapter 7, in Jeremiah’s infamous ‘temple sermon’. In that sermon Jeremiah told Judah that if the people did not change their ways, the ‘Lord would do to them the same as he did to Shiloh’ (7:14). He specifically warned them not to come to church to pray and think everything was OK: “Do not trust in these deceptive words: “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord” (4). In other words: “Don’t think you are safe or saved because you are here in this sanctuary.” He urged: “For if you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly act justly one with another, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, then I will dwell with you in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your ancestors forever and ever” (5-7). Jeremiah pointed to the failure of the religious establishment in way that later inspired Jesus, when Jeremiah has God asking his people: “Has this temple, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers….? I am watching, says the Lord (7:11). God says, he sees and knows, what is really going on.
If you think this is direct, an even more powerful, truth-telling sermon, was acted out in a parable and was even more direct. This happens in chapter 19, just before today’s text. Jeremiah takes a piece of pottery, perhaps the one from the potters house, goes outside the city gate and deliberately breaks it into pieces in front of a big crowd, announcing to Jerusalem that “the God of Israel” will bring on this ‘city and upon all its towns’ the great ‘disaster’ God has promised because (19:10), as a people, ‘they have stiffened their neck’ and would not listen to God’s words” (19:15).
As you can imagine, this very direct kind preaching got Jeremiah in a lot of ‘hot water’ with the religious and political leadership. In the beginning of chapter 20, we read how one of the leading priests, Pashhur, ‘struck him in the face’ (20: 2) and put Jeremiah into stocks, humiliating him in the public square (20: 1-6). Having to endure such treatment, especially when Jeremiah telling the truth God gave to him, is why Jeremiah says in our text that the ‘word of the Lord became a reproach’ to him (8) making him a ‘laughingstock all day long (7). This was the price Jeremiah had to pay saying and doing what was right, which was, in his case as a prophet of the Lord, to tell the truth, because the truth was what no one wanted to hear.
Jeremiah knew from the beginning that his job would be difficult, but he still never imagined it would be like this. That’s why today’s text today begins with some of the strongest words of complaint found in all of Scripture: ‘O Lord, you have deceived me, and I was deceived; you are stronger than I, and you have prevailed (20:7). It’s definitely not a good way to begin a sermon. You come to church thinking you’d be inspired and encouraged, but you have to start with a preacher beginning his message with words no one wants to hear. “Lord, you deceived me! (20:7, NIV). ‘Lord, you have enticed me!’ (NRSV), that is ‘YOU have lead me into a trap.’ Who wants to hear the truth Jeremiah speaks: God you are a deceiver! God, you are responsible for this. God, this is not what I signed up for. Jeremiah is saying some difficult things, but for him, in this ‘terrible’ moment, it felt like, and it was the truth.
While it may not be as extreme, all of us have been in situations when the truth hurts; it hurts to both to tell it, hurts to hear it, or it hurts to live it. Especially in these days of ‘political correctness’ and ‘fake news’ it’s getting harder to tell the truth, to listen to the truth, let alone to share or live the truth of our faith. How are you going to hold up under these difficult times? How are you going to withstand the pressures to living and sharing the truth no one else lives or believes?
Do you recall that 7O’s song, Rose Garden, sung by Lynn Anderson, that went: “I beg your pardon; I never promised you a rose garden. Along with the sunshine, there’s got to be a little rain, sometime?” The lyrics continue with the husband telling his sweetheart that he could promise her things like big diamond rings, the moon, or the world on a silver platter; but the only thing he can give is himself. He cannot promise "a rose garden," because life is unpredictable and there are certain to be difficult times. No one can promise you that your life will be pleasant, comfortable, free from stress and from aches and pains all the way through. No one can guarantee that your life will be happy, successful or that it will fulfill your dreams. There is an inherent risk in being born and living. Every day’s news underscores the hazards that come with being alive and having
An esteemed professor in a seminary was lecturing to his church history class. He had just described some of the martyrs of the early church; people who lost their lives because of their faithfulness to the truth of the gospel. He closed his book and looked the students in the eye, and said, "You know, things haven’t changed a whole lot in many parts of the world. Some of you may be called on to defend the faith, and to lay your reputation on the line. It is not beyond the realm of imagination that some of you may one day be in the position to suffer or die for your faith." (As told in a sermon by Brett Blair at esermons.com).
God certainly never promised that it would, be easy. All that Jesus could promise his disciples was a cross; a cross that he had to bear and a cross that his disciples would have to bear too. This is one of the core messages of the Christian life, which is also about real life. God has promised to be with us, but God never promised us that it’s always going to be pleasant and sweet. And this is not just a religious reality we are speaking about. In Nicholas Sparks breakout novel, “The Notebook”, there is this incredible quote. Do you remember it? My Secretary in Greensboro introduced me to Sparks. I haven’t seen many of his movies or read his books, but I did see this one. In it, young Noah says to his girlfriend: “So it's not gonna be easy. It's going to be really hard; we're gonna have to work at this everyday, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, forever, everyday. You and me... everyday.” (https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/5402-so-it-s-not-gonna-be-easy-it-s-going-to-be).
Now, of course this isn’t the Bible, but it is true to life, isn’t it? Nothing that is worth anything is easy, and this was certainly Jeremiah’s experience too. Jeremiah lived the truth and told the people the truth and what did it get him? He was ridiculed, made a laughingstock, put into stocks where the public could mock him, and thrown into a pit to die. He was even called a traitor to his country by the political leaders. Jeremiah was probably the most unpopular, hated man, in Jerusalem. This was the personal pain he bore for doing what was right and for telling the truth. What even made it worst, is that he felt God had ‘deceived’ him too.
Such a difficult situation, if we were in it, might make us wonder too: Why be good or do good, put yourself out for others, or champion an unpopular righteous cause when you get nothing for it but abuse, ridicule, suffering, or even death for your pains? Who would want to be a Christian, a whistleblower, an advocate, or activist for just cause, if it means that you would expect rejection, ridicule, rebuke and maybe feel regret too?
SOMETHING LIKE A BURNING FIRE (9)
If there is no reward, not even a thank-you, for speaking the truth, for doing the right thing, or for championing God’s justice and righteousness in this world, then, why do it? If you do, what drives you to be, to live, and to talk like a Christian?
In our text, Jeremiah tells us what drove him to tell the truth. He said, in verse 9 of our text: "If I say, ‘I will not mention him or speak anymore in his name, there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary of holding it in, and I cannot.’ " For some unexplainable reason, there remained within Jeremiah, an inner necessity to speak and serve God and God’s truth, regardless of the cost to oneself. Where does a ‘fire’ like this come from? Is it real? Is it spiritual? Is it moral? Is it God?
Paul had the same feeling when he wrote, "Woe is me if I preach not the gospel (1 Cor. 9:16)." Paul understood, like Jeremiah, that there is a "must" we must obey. Some time ago, I was introduced to Milada Horakova, the Czech lawyer, politician, and woman of faith, who stood up to tell the truth, both when the Nazi’s and when the Communists invaded her country (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4554212/). She was imprisoned by the Nazis in a consecration camp, but liberated by the US Army. Then, when the communists came, she spoke out again. She suffered opposition, threats and persecution again.
In the Czech film made about her life, she apologized to her husband and daughter for what she was putting their through, but she could not stop telling the truth. When Milada finally realized that communist where not going to listen, and that all hope was lost, she decided to take her family and leave the country. But on the very day she was to leave, they came after and arrested her, took her to prison, tortured her, and finally hung her. But in spite of all this, and that she knew it could happen, Milada Horakova never stopped telling the truth, even if it killed her, and it did. What made it all the more tragic, is that when she was preparing to be executed, they would not even let her hug her daughter one last time. It was terrible, awful and appalling, but she stayed resolved.
As I watched that film about Milada Horakova, it reminded me of one of my favorite hymns from my childhood, “I am Resolved.” I used to love to hear the choir at my childhood church when they say that song with so much volume and harmony. The bass line was electric. Perhaps you remember how it goes, “I am resolved, no longer to linger, charmed by the worlds delight; things that are higher, things that are nobler, these have allured my sight. I will hasten to him, hasten so glad and free, (this is where the bass line came in). Then the song ends: “Jesus, greatest, highest, I come to thee.” (Words by Palmer Hartsough, in The Baptist Hymnal, 1975, p. 177).
Do you recall that automobile slogan serval years ago, which said: "We are driven!" I think is was foreign car, but there is truth in it. As an auto is driven, so are we. We are all ‘driven’ by something. What drives a person to be a "pinch-penny" - fear? What drives a person to drugs or alcohol - insecurity? What drives a multi-millionaire senior citizen to seek the presidency – power, ego? What drives a workaholic – the thrill of success? What drives a person to jump out of an airplane at 20 or 90? What makes people tick? Why do we do the things we do? Ever ask yourself that? Why do people put themselves at risk, when they already have so much?
When it comes to doing good, as God’s people, we too are driven. The Bible says we are ‘driven’ from within by God’s Spirit, God’s fire, and God’s wind. So, why be good or do good, put ourselves out for others, or champion an unpopular righteous cause when you get nothing for it but abuse, ridicule, suffering, or even death for your pains?
This was Jeremiah’s experience as a prophet, wasn’t it? He told the people the truth God revealed to him: no peace for the nation, only destruction, death, and captivity. It broke his heart to say it, but he had to say it to be true to his calling as a preacher. And what did it get him? He was ridiculed, made a laughingstock, put into stocks where the public could mock him, and thrown into a pit to die. What hurt him most was to be called a traitor to his country by his countrymen. Jeremiah was the most unpopular man of his day. What made him do this?
Again, we may not suffer to that extreme, but for a Christian, the one who follows Jesus in this world, the expectation of opposition is ‘par for the course’ of life. We have no right to expect anything else. Jesus said in the gospel that “a disciple is not above his master” (Matt. 10:24). If the Master is persecuted, why wouldn’t the same happen to a disciple? Jesus also told his followers that they should “not fear those who can kill the body, but to fear only him who could kill both body and soul.”(Matt. 10:28). Knowing this, it takes a brave person to be a true Christian! Have you ever thought of yourself as a brave person?
If you truly follow Jesus and go against the grain of this world, you are considered brave. If there is no reward in this world and not even a thank-you for speaking the truth, doing the right thing, and championing the cause of God in the world, then why do it? Jeremiah told us what drove him to do it: "If I say, ‘I will not mention him or speak anymore in his name, there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary of holding it in, and I cannot”(v.9). What he means is that there is within him, an inner necessity to speak the truth and to serve God, regardless of the cost to oneself. There is a "must" to obey. We cannot help ourselves. The truth of God must come out. We cannot hide our convictions, and our joy must be released or we will burst! There is a fire in our bones that drives us to be, to do, and to speak the truth of God.
The late Lutheran preacher, John Brokhoff said “it is like an old-fashioned tea kettle with a whistle on the spout. When the fire is hot and the water boils, the whistle goes off like crazy. There is no stopping it until the kettle is removed from the fire.” He continued to explain why it seemed foolish and vain to think that we can get church members to witness or churches to grow by putting on a churchwide campaigns with all sorts of meetings, programs, and gimmicks. If the fire of faith were burning in our souls, our witnessing would be automatic, the fire would be an eternal flame, and people out in the cold of the world want to have their hearts warmed. (From His sermon, “We Are Driven”, CSS Publishing, “Old Truths for New Times”,.).
O LORD, YOU TEST THE RIGHTEOUS... (12)
Knowing what Jeremiah did, and knowing what others who have suffered for the truth, have done, how do we keep living and telling the truth, no matter what. How do we get this flame, this burning, and this ‘fire shut up in (our) bones’?
Well, what Jeremiah finally says, is that it’s not what you’re going through, but who is going through it with you. The ‘fire’ in Jeremiah’s bones; his ‘spirit’ or his ‘heart’ found its strength in his faith that “The LORD” was ‘with him’ like a ‘dread’ or ‘mighty warrior (20:11). Even when everything was going against him, Jeremiah understood all his suffering as a ‘test’, because he understood that the LORD Almighty ‘examines’, ‘tests’, ‘probes’ to prove the human ‘heart and mind’ (20:12). In other words, when Jeremiah was suffering, even when he was suffering for telling the truth, he was affirmed that he was not alone. Even when he called God a ‘deceiver’ (KJV), he was still talking to, believing in, and trusting the God ‘with him’.
I know that this is a ‘stretch’ for many people to accept or believe. Most people want easier answers, or they want to trust in a God who keeps them out of trouble. But the way of faith that kept the fires of faith burning in Jeremiah’s heart, was the knowledge that if you trust God anyway, and you do right anyway, and when you live and tell the truth in love anyway, that no matter what happens, or doesn’t happen, exactly because you keep trusting in this God who is ‘with us,’ you continue to spark and rekindle the ‘fire’ that fuels the heart and spirit. For when we give ourselves to him, and are willing to suffer and die for what is true, right, and just, we come to know more intimately the heart of the God who is suffering love.
When William Booth began his work with the charity that became the Salvation Army, his wife, Catherine, was reluctant to accompany him on the great adventure of faith. Upon having to face the decision to go or not to go, she encountered Christ. She wrote: "He did not smile at me, nor did he chide, but raised his hand, and I saw the nailprints on it." "That is your way," he said, "and there is no other." And she said, "So be it, Lord. Will you go with me?" The LORD answered in her heart: "I will be with you, to the very end” (Also from Brokhoff, ibid).
When the ‘fire’ of faith burns in our bones, we should be bold in our witnessing and work for the LORD. One of the things that astounded the city officials of Jerusalem at the time of the Apostles was how bold they were when they were an uneducated, untrained bunch of common peasants. When the Apostles defied them with those remarkable words: "We must obey God rather than men," (Acts 4: 19, 5:29),the biblical account remarks that it was exactly then, when they were willing to suffer for the truth, that people “took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13). To have God in Christ Jesus with you makes you courageous against the fear of people or even death. Only faith can give us courage and conviction and certainty against all odds. God and his Christ are worth the risk of our lives, for even when you suffer with Jesus, you still suffer for something, rather than ending up suffering for nothing, which is where most people end up.
Not everyone agrees the logic of suffering for the truth of God in Christ. Back in 1982, three years after I began my work as a pastor, a Gallup poll indicated that 43% of the American people said there is nothing worth risking their lives for, while only 13% would risk their lives for religious reasons. If that’s how it was back in 1982, I’m sure it’s much less now. Apparently, many people, even people in the churches, don’t see faith in God or truth, or in what is right, to be truth worth living, sacrificing, suffering, or worth dying for. And though most see this is strictly a problem for the churches, it’s also a problem for everyone, because when the fire of faith is gone, so goes the fire of love, and the fire of hope too.
Like Jeremiah telling the truth to the religious in Jerusalem, when Martin Luther once stood up against the wayward wrongly directed powers of Catholic Rome, a Cardinal thundered at Luther, demanding to know who he was to defy Rome. "The Pope’s little finger is stronger than all Germany. Do you expect the princes to defend you, a wretched worm like you? I tell you, NO! And where will you be then?" "Then, as now," answered Luther, "I will be in the hands of the Almighty God."
In the crucial issues of our day, God asks us only to be faithful to him and his cause, because our cause is God’s cause, and God’s cause is our cause. For this reason, because God is our ‘mighty warrior’ (20:11, NIV) and we don’t struggle and suffer for the truth of faith, hope, and love alone, we rest in knowing that God does not expect win the battle for him, but God expects us to entrust the battle to him. Jeremiah certainly wasn’t successful. He was preaching on a sinking ship. Jerusalem was his Titanic. So, whatever success Jeremiah had, it was up to God, not Jeremiah. What Jeremiah had was to be willing to suffering and to stay faithful to the truth.
A woman in the hospital, facing several weeks of chemotherapy treatments, was in good spirits. She said, "I’ve decided that I can’t carry this load all by myself. It’s in the Lord’s hands. Whatever his will is, is mine also." Even in suffering and dying there can be a relief, and a peace that defies understanding, when you put something in the Lord’s hands. Jeremiah said, "for to you I have committed my cause (12)." One version of the Bible translates it, "I’ve laid my case before you (CEB)." Jesus himself said much the same, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." (Luke 23:46). Even with the whole world against him, Jesus committed his way to the Father in the Garden of Gethsemane, saying "Your will, not mine be done." The Lord has not promised you or me a rose garden, but he has given us a LORD who prayed his way through a very difficult and dark garden. (From William Kilby)
Sometime in life, and in faith, we too will have face a world stands against us, and is not for us, but like Jeremiah, and of course, like Jesus, our hope lies in what the Lord has promised, not in what the world or this life can never promise. God has promised to be with each one of us, no matter what: "I will never leave or forsake you (Heb. 13: 5), God has said in his word. Even in a dying nation, or on a sinking ship, and even when God’s truth turns against us, our God is able to ‘give perfect peace to those who keep their minds on Him in trust (Isa. 26:3, my translation). If we will ‘commit our cause’ to him, he will give himself to us. Have you ‘committed’ your cause’ to him? In Christ, he has already given himself to you. Amen.
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