I know I had threatened not to hold this service in January of last year. It seemed a service that was needed for a few years but had run its course, in terms of participation by Adventers and those in the community around us. That was, of course, before the Covenant shooting happened, Hamas’s attacks of October 7, and Israel’s response to those attacks. Those who were here back in late March/early April might remember that we used this service to pray for the victims of the shooting and their families, to pray for the Covenant community, our neighborhood, and the family of the shooter. If my follow up conversations with those who attended are any sign, not only was it needed, but it was very well received. Many Christians in our area think it a sin to complain to God, and a few were worried that laments were unworthy of people who have great faith. If nothing else, we had a chance to teach some in other churches that God encourages to come to Him with our pains, our hurts, our fears, our doubts, our angers and frustrations, and even our hopelessness. In light of all that, we decided to observe this feast, the Feast of the Holy Innocents, again this year.
For many of us
outside the liturgical traditions, such an observance this week seems out of
place. We just celebrated the Feast of
the Nativity on Sunday, a few of us went to church on Christmas Day to give
thanks to God for the birth of Jesus, and it seems to me that many in the wider
Church are realizing that Christmas is a short season, and not just a day. I confess I love it when people confess they
have “never heard of such a thing,” and I get to remind them that of course
they have, and then I see the light bulb start t brighten as the realize the
carol, Twelve Days of Christmas, has been teaching them that all their
lives! But I do understand the seeming
whiplash. Those of us who grew up in
non-liturgical churches are unaware of the rhythm of the Church and how that
rhythm reinforces much of the teaching about the Incarnation and our Lord’s
purposes of Holy Week and Easter. FWIW, this
is NOT the first martyrdom we remember in the Church this week. The Feast of St. Stephen, one of the first
deacons in the Church and the first martyr, is celebrated on December 26. Imagine attending a church named for Stephen
and celebrating his feast day the day after Christmas! But, as I said, all of this is to remind us
that Jesus came into the world of darkness and would be rejected by those whom
He came to save. Though the Gospel ends
on an amazing note of power and hope and promise, we are constantly reminded of
the sin and death and evil that permeates the world.
Such an
observation and realization should not be shocking t God’s people. The prophet Jeremiah had the wonderful
God-appointed task of declaring the Exile to God’s people. Prophets, as most Adventers have heard now
for nine years, were supposed to be honored in Israel’s culture. God was a speaking God, and He chose to speak
through individuals such as Jeremiah.
The prophet was the only real check on the king. If a king determined to do something, and the
prophet said “Thus says the Lord, Don’t,” the king was supposed to listen. Unfortunately, neither Israel nor her kings
listened to the prophets very much.
Worse, they refused to be guided by God’s torah and stone those
self-declared prophets whose prophesies did not come true. For their part, all Israel recognize that
Jeremiah was God’s prophet. They just
refused to listen to him, really to God.
In fact, the king tossed Jeremiah in a cistern to imprison and silence
God.
Our reading
tonight begins with the recognizable formula.
Jeremiah is declaring that these words are the words of Yahweh. “A voice is heard in Ramah.” Where is Ramah? Literally, the word could just suggest a
height. But as so often the case, poetry
allows for a number of interpretations.
Ramah was the place where the first prophet, Samuel, was buried and
where Rachel, the beloved favorite wife of Jacob, was buried. The Lord is calling to memory through
Jeremiah’s prophesy a great deal of history and imagery. Those of us who do not pay close attention to
the OT might not remember Rachel’s struggle with infertility. Her sister Leah kept having children for
Jacob, but she was unable in the beginning of their marriage. Part of what we remember tonight is the grief
and frustration and anger of the death of the oppressed or innocent. Imagine what it was like for Rachel to lose
Joseph when the brothers reported they found his coat torn and bloodied. Some among us have no need to imagine
it. A few among us have lost children or
even grandchildren to untimely or unexpected deaths. That feeling of rage and impotence and who
knows what else was experienced by them just like Rachel. And God is using that image to prophesy how
all Israel will feel about their upcoming Exile.
That prophesy of
Exile allows for yet another interpretation of Ramah. Guess where the people of Israel were sorted
and assigned as they were dispersed throughout the kingdom of Babylon? That’s right, Ramah. As Jeremiah will remind us in just 10
chapters or so, families and clans were divided in Ramah and dispersed
throughout the empire as a way to protect the empire against future uprisings
and revolts. Imagine the grief and
shame.
Jeremiah goes on
to describe the lamentation of Rachel.
Indeed, he instructs us that she cannot be comforted because her
children are no more. This wonderful
poetry reminds us of the grief and rage and frustration we all have toward
unjust suffering and death. In fact, the
Hebrew itself, when pronounced correctly, is not unlike the sound of sobbing we
make when we are inconsolable. Imagine
the emotions at work and the sobbing in Israel when the words of Jeremiah
proved true. God swore His Covenant with
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God promised
that their descendants would be numerous and a blessing to the world. What made Israel special was that God chose
them to be His People. They had been
instructed, through the torah, what it meant to live in relationship with a
holy God. They had been instructed that,
when they went astray, He would send a prophet to speak correction and warning
with His voice. They had been instructed
that signs would be given them by Him when they were straying from the
Covenant. Most of all, He promised them
that if they failed to repent in spite of all these warning, He would cause the
Land He gave them to reject them, to spit them out. Jeremiah had the unenviable task of telling
his brothers and sisters that God’s patience had been exhausted. His people were going to be carried off into
oppression. And God’s people responded
by ignoring Jeremiah’s warnings and tossing him into a cistern in
Jerusalem. We can all imagine that
bitter shame as it came true.
In many ways,
some of our stories are just as tragic.
All of us wrestle with disease and death. Heck, as a nation we are into our third year
of pandemic living. We have experienced
deaths in our community and in our families.
Worse, many of us are uncomfortable when challenged by others in our
lives as to why God allowed the pandemic or death, if He is so powerful. All of us live with more anxiety about war, right? A couple years ago, none of us probably gave
the “rumors of war” a second thought, unless family was serving in the
military. But now . . . how many of us
are giving thoughts to nuclear war for the first time since we hid under our
desks in school? How many of us are
genuinely worried about WW3? A wrong
move by Putin or Iran could turn regional conflicts into worldwide conflagration. And let’s not forget about our favorite
little dictator in North Korea, who seemingly shakes his fist and throws a
tantrum whenever he thinks the world is not properly fearing his might and
power. Who among us can stop such
escalations? How can we really protect
ourselves against such oppression?
Speaking of
oppression, how many of us, and our loved ones, have been battered by economic
forces beyond our control this year?
Inflation has gone crazy. Oil has
spiked, yet again, thanks to these wars.
As badly as we have been hit, and let’s be honest, most of us are
economically privileged, the real economic oppression has been felt by those
least able to deal with it in the world around us. Some of those whom we serve through Body
& Soul work three and four part-time jobs trying to make ends meet, and
they cannot.
Locally, of
course, we have all experienced more oppression. I have already reminded us of the Covenant
shooting that took place late last March.
Many of us did not give mass shootings and school shootings much thought
until they happened here. But at least
we have our politicians working to solve all these problems, right?
And what of
those untimely deaths? As a community,
we have all grieved the loss of MC and Jim, and many of us mourned with Gregg
and Lynn as they buried a grandson, a grandson some of us fed or taught as a
child in this parish. How many of us
complained they did not know what to say to them or ourselves over those
tragedies?
Lastly, but
maybe more important to us, what of those individual oppressions, traumas, and
tragedies we have experienced but I have not named? Ladies among us have suffered
miscarriages. Many among us have lived
through cracking and breaking relationships.
Many among us have had dreams replaced by anxieties through personal
traumas. Other diseases besides COVID
have plagued us. Cancer has not taken a
break. Neither has shingles. I won’t bother to ask who is recovering from
injuries, but you know who you are. Some
of us are dealing with heart problems, vision problems, and attacks by our
immune systems. What of all those? Where is God in the midst of those?
Thankfully, and
mercifully, God’s words through Jeremiah ends with hope. Jeremiah promises them that one day they will
come back from the land of their enemy.
One day, Israel will be restored.
Though these various oppressions will happen, God will not forget the
promise He made to their fathers and mothers.
One glorious day He will restore.
That same
promise of hope and freedom from oppression is proclaimed to us, as well. Even as we hurl our complaints and laments at
God in this liturgy, you and I should also hear that still small voice
reminding us of His promise of redemption and restoration, that we will one day
dwell with Him and He with us. Even as
we struggle with worldwide, national, local, and personal oppression, we are
reminded by His covenant with us that nothing will separate us from Him or His
purposes, that nothing we suffer is beyond His power to redeem. Though this event, the deaths of the toddlers
at the command of an enraged, unfaithful king of God’s people did not take
place for some two years after the birth we celebrated Sunday night, we
celebrate it in the season of the Incarnation to remind us both of the evil
that we face and God’s Will to redeem that evil in the lives of those who
proclaim Him Lord. We are reminded in
this season of God’s incredible love for each one of us. We are reminded in this season that God
become fully human, that we might see and know Him clearly in the flesh, that
we might see lived out a pattern of holy living in our midst, and that we might
begin to see our need for a Savior. We
are intentionally reminded in this season that even though we ignore, reject,
betray, and mock Him, still He loves us enough that He wills Himself to hang on
that Cross for our sakes. The Incarnation,
without that reminder of Easter and the path that led to His death, is
meaningless. But because God
demonstrates His power over suffering and death in Christ Jesus, you and I know
that no oppression, no suffering, can separate us from God’s power, love, and
Will to redeem. Such is His promise to
us.
So, my friends,
my brothers and sisters in Christ, hurl your complaints at Him. Sob your lamentations in His ears. If you are so inclined, lay the complaints
and anxieties of those whom you love at His feet. But also remember His promise to you that He
made at your baptism and confirmed in the life and death and resurrection in
our Lord Christ as you are anointed for healing or eat of His flesh and drink of
His blood. Know that your cries do come
to Him. Know that it is His Will that
His Light shines in the shadows that oppress you. Know that it is His Will and promise that one
glorious Day in the future, all will be restored. All our hurts, our pains, our bruises, and
even our deaths will be wiped away. I
cannot imagine how such promises can be fulfilled to make any of us not shed
any tears for our sufferings, but such is His unending promise to each one of
us gathered here tonight.
Or, to put it
more simply, none of us can assuage our sufferings and complaints. None of us can assuage the sufferings and
complaints of those around us.
Thankfully and mercifully, though, we know the One who can, Lord Jesus
Christ! Him we serve and Him we
proclaim, trusting in His promise and His redemptive power!
In His Peace and Power!
Brian†
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