A sermon based upon Jeremiah 32: 1-15
By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership
19th Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 12th, 2018
(11-12) Sermon Series: Jeremiah: Prophet to the Nations
What does it take to run a good business? I grew up in the grocery business that my father ran, but it’s nothing like the grocery business today. In fact, it was the changes in the grocery business, from small to large, from retail to discount, from store to warehouse, that basically ran my father out of business. This kind of cut-throat competition is still happening today.
Recently I watched Jeff Rossen of NBC News, compare the new, up and coming way of selling groceries. He was comparing Amazon home delivery with another lesser known challenger in the home home delivery grocery service. After ordering certain items, they reached the his home ( in the big city), within 5 minutes of each other. The challenger got there first but left out one item. Amazon’s groceries arrived a few minutes later but left out an item too. Amazon refunded the money and added a coupon for 5 dollars. The challenger didn’t mention the missing item, also credited the amount for the missing item but gave no coupon. The items from both stores were in good shape, but because of their size, Amazon’s could sell for a little less. The real loser in this new war, will probably not be the large retailers, but will be the smaller convenience store around the corner.
One thing I found interesting is that Amazon and its challenger, by establishing a home delivery grocery service, are attempting to go back to what I observed my Father doing in his business long ago. He too had ‘home delivery’ way back in the 1960’s and 1970’s and then finally in the 80’s too. He had a personal touch and also knew the people he served and had established a relationship with them. He couldn’t give the discounts the big stores did, but his grocery business gave personal service and knew you by name. Unfortunately, in this highly competitive world, it’s hard to run a business like this anymore.
So, what makes a good viable business model for our changing times? Is it about the saving people money? Is it about the quality of service or the guarantee that comes with the products that are bought and sold? Is it about the options or choices you have? Do we have to kiss goodbye the world where ‘everyone knows you by name’? Are we really getting a ‘good deal’ when we get what we want, but we don’t really know where it came from, who made it, or who helped us get it into our hands? These are the kinds of business questions our world continues to discuss, which will be decided either the laws that are passed or questions which the markets will answer in their ‘business wars’.
AT THAT TIME…. (2)
Today, in this Scripture text, we see business deal taking place. It’s a business deal that goes against what makes for good ‘business sense’. What Jeremiah did raises a question that is still important for the church, because church business is not like any other kind of business. Remember, Jesus said that he had to be about his ‘father’s business’ (Lk. 2:49). But what kind of ‘business’ did he mean? In fact the word ‘business’ does not even occur in the original text. The Greek actually should be translated more like, ‘Don’t you know I must be about what my Father is about?” In my earthly Father’s store there were, of course, certain business rules I observed my father following, unspoken rules like, the customer is always right, you’ve got to sell what the customer wants, and most importantly, you’ve got to make sure at the end of each month, that you end up ‘in the black’, rather than ‘in the red’. That’s the way business works, but is what Jesus meant being about what His Father was about? Did Jesus mean that he must be about the success of the church with human business skills, or did Jesus mean something else?
Certainly the church can’t continually run ‘in the red’, and is an earthly body, but my Father, who was not only a business man, but was also a church leader, knew that the church was not merely an earthly business. He certainly did not believe at church that ‘the customer was always right since we are all sinners, or that you should simply ‘sell’ what the customer wants, because he believed we should strive to seek God’s will. This kind of thinking doesn’t make business sense, but then again, the church does not exist like any earthly business. And even though my father had a great math mind, was very conservative in this business practice, he did not believe that it was the church’s calling to make or hold on to its money. While he did believe that church should be fiscally smart and responsible, he was also sure the church had a higher purpose, it existed to love God more than money and the church existed to give its self away and to serve others to the ‘glory of God’ by giving away whatever it took in. He did not think the church was a bank or should be run like any other business.
As far as I know, the prophet Jeremiah never studied business, because the business deal we observe in today’s text doesn’t make any kind of good ‘business sense’. But before we can understand what Jeremiah was doing, and why he was doing it, we need to understand once more, what was happening in Jeremiah’s world. Those were stressful, even dreadful and confusing times in Jerusalem. It was wartime, too. And it was in this ‘wartime’ that Jeremiah had been preaching the opposite message of all the other prophets and what the people hoped. Whereas all the others had preached that Judah and Jerusalem would win the war currently being waged against Babylon, Jeremiah preached the opposite. Jeremiah advised, as God counseled him, and also, we might add, as the situation also dictated, since armies had the city surrounded for weeks;, that the city of Jerusalem should give itself up and surrender to their enemy. Can you imagine some preaching saying such a thing today? Can you imagine someone saying that America should stop fighting and surrender to its foe? For such treasonous talk, Jeremiah had been ‘confined’ in ‘the court of the guard’ (2) being considered a traitor, even though he was obviously speaking the truth.
Jeremiah had preaching the difficult truth of God’s judgement all along, but it was the truth no one wanted to hear. We wouldn’t want to hear it either. No one wants to hear the sad truth about themselves, about their country, about their leaders, or about their military. As good citizen’s, we like to take pride in our patriotism, and we don’t like to have to criticize or examine ourselves or our viewpoints too closely. We like to live in denial of what is really happening. We like to pretend it isn’t true. We like to find a way to avoid and escape reality. Millions, if not billions of dollars are made helping us find ways to escape and be entertained. It was much the same in Jeremiah’s day. Even King Zedekiah questioned Jeremiah’s logic. “Why do you preach and say,….THE LORD will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon…. (saying) that the King…will not escape….and will be taken to Babylon…? (3-5). In other words, why do you speak against us, when you should be speaking for us? Why do you have to tell us this ‘God-awful’ truth? Why can’t you be positive and optimistic like everyone else, who knows, it might turn things around?
If we learn anything about the truth from the book of Jeremiah, is that the truth, that is ‘God’s truth’ can sometimes be a very ‘hard pill’ to swallow. The truth can hurt. The truth can threaten. The truth can be something we want silenced. The truth can be something we want to sweep under the rug and pretend isn’t real. That’s how it was in Jeremiah’s day. It would have been one thing if King Zedekiah challenged Jeremiah when the armies were far away, but now they were marching around Jerusalem at that very moment. ‘The hand-writing was on the wall’, but no one, except for Jeremiah and maybe a faithful few could see what was really happening and be willing to face it for what it really was. Facing reality is still a very rare skill, but it is very necessary for life. In this point, God’s business and human business agree.
Are we willing to see what is really happening around us, or are we first in line to deny the truth that is as plain as the nose on our faces? Not long ago, Teresa was substituting in a very difficult school. There was absolutely no discipline in the classroom. Children were acting out and refusing to follow the teacher’s rules. It was frustrating and difficult. What strikes you in such a situation was that in this kind of pain, chaos, and struggle, is where the future of our culture might go, if change doesn’t happen. These children are really helpless and hurting, just as the teachers and administration are helpless and hurting, because there was no community consensus about what should be done to restore discipline, order and hope. If this continues, and changes doesn’t come, it will soon be, if it isn’t already, too late for some of these children. And you can’t run from this, or escape this either. If it happens somewhere in America, it will eventually everywhere in America. The pain and hurt in our culture that is going unanswered, will one day, if it isn’t already, rise up, bring a ‘dark change’ or bring a dreadful end to the wonderful world we have known as a land of ‘freedom and justice for all’.
Think about the many ways our own culture is coming unraveled: fears of terror, school violence, broken homes, undisciplined students, the lack of faith, hope and love and the decline of our communities and churches, along with the bullying, hazing and addictions. Where will it end? We know where it will end, but who wants to admit it? We know what is going to happen, but who can do anything about it? Most of the good teachers want out? Most feel their hands are tied and it’s a no-win situation. Most would rather be doing something else, and they do. And folks, this is the situation of working with young children in certain pockets of our country. What about working in other areas of society? How will what happens in some places that are ignored, turn out to affect life everywhere?
Since we’re going to talk more about business, let me tell you how the decline of ethics, discipline and morals is already affecting life in the mainstream. I was in a store right around Christmas looking for some new speakers for my sound system. While I was looking for the best speakers at a good price, I noticed that the item I was considering, was being falsely advertised. They had put one set of budget speakers on the advertisement, but then pushed a higher priced and higher quality speakers up front on the display, pretending that you would get this quality for the cheaper price, but it wasn’t true. If you purchased these budget speaker, thinking they were good quality, if you didn’t know what you were doing you’d get home with the lesser quality ones, which they would did not even allow you to sample. I had done my homework, so I knew the difference. When I told them sales person that I wanted to change the wiring and hear the cheaper speakers so I could compare the difference, they told me I needed to talk to the manager. When the manager came, he told me I couldn’t touch the wiring, because the Vendor had set it up and he had no responsibility for it. I commented that it was in his store, how could he say he wasn’t responsible for it? I also explained that this was ‘false advertising’. He told me I’d have to call the Vendor, who would be impossible to reach.
I decided to go with another company altogether, but what I really got that day was another lesson in what is really going on all around us in our culture, in our free country, where fear of God is missing and doesn’t matter, so that most anything is permissible if you can get by with it? WHERE IS A WORLD LIKE THIS GOING? HOW can this be good business practice? Do we see ‘who’ and ‘what’ we are falling into the hands of? Do we notice the bursting seams in our moral fabric and notice the cracks in our moral armor of a nation once pledged as ‘one nation, under God’?
THEN, I KNEW THIS WORD WAS FROM THE LORD (8)
So, what do we do, when the world around us is falling apart? Do we all go home and hold on for dear life? Do we stick our head in the sands, and pretend we see nothing? Do we try to build a fortress around ourselves with our guns, our security devices, our stock options or our bank accounts? What do we do in a world that is socially, spiritually, and morally coming unglued? Will we face it? If so, how do we face it and what should we do?
Jeremiah’s situation was even more desperate, but what happens next is most hopeful, as the text tells us that it was in this kind of darkness that the prophet heard ‘the word of the Lord’ (6). And this ‘word’ that comes to him, is not what you would expect. God tells Jeremiah that he should go and buy his cousin’s property, and make a future investment even in this declining, downward, even dying market. God tells Jeremiah to make, what looks like, the worst business deal in his life, which would also be the best spiritual deal he could ever make. God tells Jeremiah to ‘go and buy the field’ which would give him all the rights to someday ‘redeem’ the value of that field, when in the future, the property values come back.
Of course, this looked like a very bad deal when he made the purchase; buying land when the value was sinking. But this is best way to do faith, and if you are thinking what I am, it’s really not that bad of a way to look forward in business either, if you are able and willing to wait. But don’t misunderstand. What is going on here is not the business wisdom of buying low and selling high, but this God’s business, going against the grain of this world, investing in life and giving to what is good, even when the times are hard or the days are evil. It goes against convention, and it is certainly not easy to do, because it demands faith from us, but when you keep buying, keep investing, keep giving, keep loving, keep hoping, and keep on caring, especially when things are down and difficult, you are willing to wait, trust, and sacrifice for the future that only God can bring, the value of life can go back up and will one day return .
When I think about what Jeremiah did, I can’t help but recall Jesus’ parable of the talents in Matthew 25? Who got into the big trouble in that story? Do you recall? A wealthy man needs to leave town, and leaves his investments in the hands of three different people. To one he gives 5 talents, to another he gives two, and then to one he leaves only one talent. Now, in that day, a talent value of money in silver and gold. One talent would be worth a little over a million dollars today, thus we can translate the talent as large investments of 5 million, 2 million, and 1 million.
Now back to the story which you all know. It wasn’t the one with 5 talents, or 2 talents who got into trouble, because both they both invested them and doubled the investments for their boss. The one who got into big trouble was the one who because he was ‘afraid’ buried his talent and when the master returned, and showed no gain whatsoever. But what is often forgotten, but is most to understand about this famous parable is that Jesus didn’t tell this story in good times either. It was a time when Israel was under occupation by a foreign ruler and they were about to fall apart too. But exactly in these very difficult, dark, and depressing times of decline, Jesus was challenging God’s people are to continue to ‘invest’ for the day to come. Jesus was challenging those who would stick their money in the bank, live in fear, or who were doing nothing to ‘endow’ the future with hope.
Can we do this? If we did, what would it mean? I think it means something like that ministry we witnessed with Solus Christus. In a world where women are becoming addicted, these folks established a ministry, not to lay blame, but to reach out and to make a difference in their hurting lives. Isn’t this what we are also supposed to do in difficult, dark, and depressing times? Aren’t we supposed to be salt on the earth and light in the world? Aren’t we challenged to keep investing in the good for our children and for the future which belongs to God alone, but also depends upon the ‘talents’ God has put into our hands?
I SIGNED THE DEED… (10)
A couple of months ago, I ran into a pastor friend of mine who pastor’s a small town church in North Carolina. I can’t remember how our conversation went into this direction, but after we spoke about our families, we started talking about church ministry, and he shared how his church was touching the lives of senior citizens, which is where there church was growing. He said our congregation visits each other, and the seniors need and know this. Of course, you know that investing and building your church around seniors means that your church might have a limited future, since ‘we’, and I mean we, aren’t going to live that long. But since the younger group like the louder, impersonal, ‘leave me alone’ style, this personal, visiting, caring, and relational style church doesn’t appeal to them, but it does to seniors, and there church is growing, at least for now.
Why am I telling this story? It’s because of what he told me next. He said had a senior lady in their congregation who lived in a very small, modest house in town. Knowing she was not well physically, the pastor visited her and told her that if she needed any help, with money, with chores around the house, and upkeep, please let them know, so the church could organize some of their youth to help out. But in response, the lady said, “Oh, Pastor, I’m fine. I can manage. I can hire out most of the things I need, don’t worry about me, but help someone else.” It wasn’t long until after that, that the lady died. Shortly after the funeral, her lawyer called to let the pastor know that “Mrs “B” had left all she had to the church. “Really, the pastor, answered.” “Yes, we have valued her small little bungalow house at about $38, 000 dollars, and adding that with the rest of her savings, we it comes to about 1.2 million dollars that she have left to the church to ensure and invest in the church’s future work.” The pastor couldn’t believe that this humble, sweet, modest living lady had so much money to leave, but she had two other relatives how had no one to leave their money to, so they left it with her. Thinking that money was not hers to spend, she put it away and now added to what she had, she is leaving it to your church. She wants to invest in the future of God’s work.
Now back to Jeremiah’s own investment in the future. In this account, even at a time when the land value had plummeted, and when the future was most unsure, God instructed Jeremiah to buy a field, sign the deed, seal and save the note as proof that hope and value would one day return to his land. God wanted Jeremiah to show God’s people that they should not lose hope, even in difficult times, because the future belongs to God.
Could we too, find ways to invest in hope, even in these deadly and destructive times? Could we even dare to be part of investing in what only God can do? This is certainly not immediately good business sense, but it can make good, spiritual, biblical sense, because it is the same way God was also ‘investing’ in the world, even when the world arrested, tried, and murdered his only son. God was at work in Jesus, loving, planting seeds of faith, hope and love, even giving the best he had to give, because God wanted us to also keep believing, trusting, waiting, and hoping, even when everything looks dark and dismal around us.
Many years ago, the great reformer Martin Luther called this ‘other-wordly’ logic, the ‘theology of the cross”. Luther made the point that God’s style of working in this world is revealed in the Cross, which is God’s way of doing ‘business’ that still continues in the present time. Luther said, just as God confronted the world and its wisdom on the Cross (1 Cor. 1: 17-25) , so that today we must learn to treat the world’s wisdom, even our own wisdom, with suspect, and not to rely on our own insight alone. Why? Because, quoting Scripture, Luther said: “the works of God are can be unattractive and can appear wrong”. God works in this very hidden and unsuspecting way to humble us by confounding our wisdom. Then, in the end, we will learn how foolish and sinful we are and become totally dependent on him (1 Corinthians 1:20-29). Commenting on Psalm 30, Luther claimed: “We must not judge by what we feel or by what we see before us. The Word must be followed, and we must firmly hold that these truths are to be believed, not experienced; for to believe is not always to experience at least, at first. …Faith is to precede experience. Faith comes first. And the Word of God must be believed even when we feel and experience something different.” (As quoted from a sermon by Mark Ellingsen “Even Our Business Belongs to God” from Luther’s Works), Vol. 31, p. 39., 44, and Commentary on Psalms, Vol. 40, III, pp. 370f).
Luther has helped us to understand why the God’s ‘business’ strategies seem so much in tension with our usual everyday business sensibilities. It has to do with God’s style of confounding our worldly wisdom in order to make us recognize our total dependence on him. Isn’t this what we really need, not just to conduct good business, but to learn to depend wholly on him?
What we depend upon God for was really what is being decided when Jeremiah bought that worthless land from his cousin in Anathoth. It’s something like that that was being decided when a woman named Cynthia stood before her church to speak. She told the story of her faith in her successful struggle against cancer and death.
She explained how doctors told her chances of survival with the kind of cancer she had were so slim, that it was not worth the misery she would have to endure, but she decided to invest in the struggle anyway, and do you know what, she opened her Bible, and after reading about what Jeremiah did when he invested in worthless land, she decided to fight anyway . At this point, she lit the candle she was holding as a sign that she decided to trust God like Jeremiah did, and invest in the future, even against the recommendation of her doctors. She became very sick, almost died, but she invested, she lit her candle in hope, went through with the treatments and she survived, is in total remission and now lives her life fully to give all the glory to God.
After this powerful testimony, a man in the back stood up and celebrated with Cynthia for a moment, but then explained how he and his wife lit a candle and invested in the pain of chemotherapy and great prayer and hope, but that his wife died. He asked her, and the church honestly, ‘what does Jeremiah’s investment in hope mean for my wife?’ Cynthia did not know how to answer? Do we? How do we take on the theology of the cross, of investing in the good, and investing in life, when death and destruction is all around us, and it does not always turn out like we want it too? Even Jeremiah died, before he got to see his land value return. How can we say there is anything ‘real’ to God’s way of doing business?
Thomas Rogers, who told this true story about his church, went on to tell about another woman named he names Pamela. Pamela had a very rare eye disease. She was a very successful CPA in her mid-30s and she was going blind. Pamela tried everything. She went from doctor to doctor and they put her on special diets and gave her special treatments, but nothing seemed to stop the steady loss of vision. Finally an eye specialist told Pamela that she had one last option open to her. There was a very complicated surgery that could be performed. If it was successful she would be able to save some of her vision. If unsuccessful, she would go completely blind immediately rather than gradually with the disease. Pamela chose to have the surgery. She emerged from that operation with no sight at all and no hope for that to ever change.
Pamela's pastor went to see her in the hospital. The pastor took Pamela's hand and said, "I'm so sorry. Is there anything that you would like me to do for you?"
Pamela said, "Yes, there is."
The pastor said, "Just name it."
Pamela said, "I would like a candle."
The pastor was considerably surprised by the request, but said, "Fine, I'll be sure to bring one when I come next time."
Pamela said, "No. I want one now."
The pastor said, "Don't you even want to talk a little bit first?"
Pamela shot back, "If you really want to do something for me ...."
The pastor interrupted, "Okay. I see that it is important to you. I'll go get one right now."
It was a 15-minute drive back to the church from the hospital, but the pastor made the round trip and returned to Pamela's room with a candle in hand. Approaching her bed the pastor asked, "Do you want me to light it for you?" Pamela answered, "Oh, no. Just hand it to me." She took the candle in her hands gripping it tightly. She then clutched the candle against her and said, "During these last months I have often thought of myself as a candle about to go out. I thought that everything I am is tied up in being able to see. I expected that when blackness came then there would be nothingness." She then said, "Now I'm blind. It's dark." She held the candle tightly. "But the candle is still here. I'm still here. I'm still me. God is still God. It's going to be okay somehow."
Perhaps in her blindness Pamela was able to see something in her candle that eluded Cynthia when she held up her lit candle before the group. Cynthia saw the flame of her candle as a symbol of hope. The flame was the symbol of light in darkness -- God helping us out of bad situations. This can be a powerful symbol for people who have passed through darkness on the way to better times. But it did not speak to the man in the back row. And there may be times when this will not speak to us either.
Pamela, however, experienced the candle in a different way. She discovered that a candle is more than a fragile light. Flames come and go on candles. But, as Pamela discovered, a flame doesn't make a candle. It's the candle itself that makes a candle a candle. For her, the candle proper was a symbol of hope, because, regardless of whether there is a flame or not, her hope came in the promise that hope is not grounded in what will happen to us, but hope is ground in God’s love for us, because of who we are.
Each of us have our own terrible times. You know what yours have been. Perhaps you are in the middle of some pretty bad times right now. Yet, when things go badly for us that is not a time to despair, but a time to invest ourselves in the future. It is the same way in our world, and in our church life too. We have to keep investing in the future, because of who we are and because of who God is, whether we see immediate results or not. We must keep living, loving, investing, doing, and caring, because ultimately, because God gives life, live has value, we have value, and the future too has value, because it all belongs this God who loves and created life.
When Jeremiah bought the plot of land, he invested in the future. In the middle of terrible times he made a symbolic purchase -- a statement of hope grounded in God, who gives everything value. Yet, ultimately, Jeremiah’s and Judah’ hope too, did not rest in whether or not good things would happen to them, but in who they were, a people grounded in a covenant with their God. Yes, the land was important issue, but its importance lay in the fact that it was a part of the promise of God. Their hope came not in what would happen to them, but in who God had made them to be the people of his promise..
We, like Jeremiah, are called to invest in the future. We do so not because we are certain that God has something better in store for us, but because we know who God has made us to be. The flames of life may flicker, and some will go out, but ultimately this does not matter. Our hope is not grounded in the promise of good things happening to us. Our hope is grounded in the fact that we have become and are the children of God.
Our hope comes not from who we are, but who God is and who God has created us to be. We are a people who need God, and need to keep investing in good, even in evil times. We are people who are called to be church, and a living, loving, faithful community that serves and does justice, even when the days are evil. That is what we do, not because of what is happening, but because of who we are in God. Our identity is in Jesus Christ and in his body, the church. Come hell or high-water, this is who we are. Even in the worst of times we can invest in the future, for in the love of Jesus Christ, God has invested everything in us. AMEN.
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