This was one of those weeks where I composed my sermon backwards. For those of you new to the parish, I typically begin praying over the readings on Monday, trying to discern which message I think God wants me to share with you. Once I am settled on that, I start trying to figure out how to relate that message to us in our own context. As I have tried to teach Funmi, it is challenging work. How many teaching points are in each pericope? How do we preachers relate a teaching point to those in worship? This week, though, I found myself knowing what the sermon would be before I ever paid attention to the readings.
Monday was so crazy busy that I never got around to reading the passages. I headed over to the Y for my ride, which last week was my third or fourth least favorite ride. I loathe this ride. It’s only 8 miles or so, but I can never get a rhythm on the peddles. The ups are 20-40% climbs ranging from 100-400 feet. The downhills are never that steep nor that long. I started off the ride listening to Broadway musicals on Pandora. I know, I know, there are better music apps out there. I am the only non-Spotify user in my family. But it’s what I use. In any event, I decided on the third or fourth song I needed something lighter for climbing. So, I switched to Abba. Something strange happened. Generally, I will go a few hours before songs repeat. And, in case you are unfamiliar with the genres, Broadway music and Abba have little in common, outside Momma Mia 1 and 2.
The second song after the switch, though, was a song called It’s Quiet Uptown from the Hamilton musical. I have no idea why that would come up on Abba. But, like the deaf guy whom Jesus gives the wet willie that leads to the curing of deafness, I knew what message from the readings would be my focus. Those of you who love Broadway musicals and know the song can read the historical documents in the back of your BCP, if you want. You probably already know the message of this sermon. The rest of us will start with Jeremiah before I connect the two. Hmmm. It looks like more are surprised that certain what I will be preaching.
Our reading this morning comes from the prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah is one of the great prophets of the OT. Jeremiah is sometimes nicknamed the “weeping prophet.” The Tradition holds that Jeremiah wrote the book that bears his name and the book of Lamentations, though, as is typical, scholars argue a lot about authorship. That’s why he gets that moniker about weeping. Jeremiah was chosen by God to spend four or five decades preaching the destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of Babylon. Talk about a thankless ministry, huh! You are all trying to figure out what Broadway musicals have to do with a sermon, and poor Jeremiah was preaching destruction and Exile! Jeremiah began his prophetic ministry sometime around 625BC. Those of you who want to show off to your friends can remember that Jeremiah began his prophetic ministry during the reign of Israel’s greatest king, Josiah.
Yes, I see the surprise on your faces. Wasn’t David the greatest king? Or Solomon? It depends, of course, upon your measure. David finished the job that Joshua was given way back when Israel settled the Promised Land, and conquered those who lived on the mount where Jerusalem is located. Of course, David has some notorious sins that complicate his standing in our eyes, right? Solomon built the Temple and created incredible wealth and fame for Israel, but he allowed Israel to worship false gods after marrying outside the tribes. Josiah, by contrast, reigned for more than four decades. By the time he ascended the throne, the torah had been misplaced or lost. Luckily, when a scribe found it gathering dust somewhere in the Temple and presented it to the king, Josiah recognized its importance.
Just to remind us this morning, the kings were expected to read, learn, and inwardly digest the torah and teach it to the people of God. That was supposed to be their primary focus. Prophets were the only ones who could correct kings. If a king was doing something he should not be doing, like fighting a war, the prophet would tell the king what God wanted done or to stop. Those of you who pay close attention to Jesus’ teachings will understand that the kings did not always do what they were told to do!
Josiah’s reforms were remarkable, though, given how far Israel had fallen. But those reforms were not enough. Hearts were not changed, to use the language of Josiah’s words today. Once Josiah died, his heirs did worse than their ancestors who had come before. The punishment that Jeremiah declares in the Name of God come true.
Before that destruction and Exile are accomplished, though, Jeremiah will prophesy to four more kings. By the time of Zedekiah, nobody likes Jeremiah. When Jeremiah prophesies the coming of Babylon, one of Zedekiah’s retainers has a great idea. He convinces the king to throw Jeremiah into a cistern in Jerusalem for his insolent prophesying. That way, nobody in Jerusalem will be technically responsible for the death of the prophet. Zedekiah buys the technicality and has Jeremiah condemned to the cistern rather than shed his blood. Our reading today comes nearer the time he will be cast into the cistern.
Though Jeremiah’s prophesy is grim, you will notice it is not without hope. Babylon, the hated enemy of God’s people, will destroy Israel and carry her off into slavery. But, God promises He will do something new in the future. And this is where I am certain God wants us to focus today. When we speak of the unfurling of the Covenant, you and I are generally thinking a linear unfurling, right? God promises Eve and Adam, even as He is kicking them out of the Garden, that their offspring will stomp the head of the serpent. When Noah is done with the Flood, God sets the bow in the sky and promises never to destroy the earth. Abraham and Sarah get the Covenant and spend twenty-five years in relationship with Yahweh before they get their promised child and heir. Moses gets the torah. David learns his house will be established forever. I have skipped a few, but you know the different aspects of the Covenant, right? None are in conflict with each other. None supersedes the other. They are all part of the same covenant that points to the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, the ultimate offspring of Adam & Eve or the Seed of Abraham and Sarah. Everybody understand that? Good.
Jeremiah’s prophesy, though, points us to a change in our understanding of the Covenant, or better, how it impacts us. Specifically, the change is coming when God’s people will transition from understanding the Covenant in terms of atonement to something new, that is, in terms of forgiveness. What does Jeremiah and God mean? Were we worshipping God in the days of Jeremiah and up through the days of the Incarnation, we would head to the Temple and bring an animal appropriate to our need for atonement. If it has been a long time or one of us has been particular violators of the torah, we would sacrifice an ox, a year’s wages. Some of us would owe a goat. Others a sheep. The poor among is would sacrifice a dove or pigeon. Good. I see nods. The problem with atonement for us human beings is that it leads to what modern theologians call works righteousness. Though God always credits people’s faith in His promises and instructions as righteousness, making it clear it is a gracious act on His part, human beings are tempted to believe we are deserving of God’s grace because we did the required work to earn His grace or merit His favor. Think of it in the modern terms of those who like to think that because they attend worship enough or give enough treasure or do enough service, God owes them. Good, I see nods.
For those of you a bit lost in the discussion, think of the response of Israel to the teaching and baptism of John the Baptizer. Until John came out of the wilderness preaching a baptism of repentance, no one in Israel really thought that God would forgive sins. You could atone for your sins, by making the appropriate sacrifice. You could become righteous. But how could God forgive? Forgiveness was something that many faithful Jews would not expect, especially apart from the righteous behavior proscribed by the torah. And in case you think I am crazy here, think about the authorities when Jesus heals the paralytic. That you may know that the Son of Man has authority to forgive, I say get up and take your mat.
Yet the message of forgiveness and pardon is part of the prophetic tract, as unimaginable as it may have seemed both before and during the Exile. How many of the prophets remind people at various times in their history to repent so that God might put away His wrath? And today we are reminded of the further unveiling of the Covenant. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” Part of our challenge as Christians is that we cannot really separate atonement from forgiveness. When we hear those words, they blend together in our ears. Keck, we use both words in our liturgy each time we celebrate the Eucharist together. Jesus is the appropriate atonement. In fact, Jesus is the only atonement. As much as God is love, though, He is also just. God cannot ignore sin. His justice demands that life is in the blood. But as we will remind ourselves in just a week, Jesus will cry from the Cross, even as He is dying, asking God to forgive us, because we do not know what we are doing. Why the focus on forgiveness?
Think back to that song from Hamilton I named earlier. Hamilton was the most recent Broadway sensation. Most of us know the songs. Many of us went to see it at TPAC or watched it on PBS during fundraisers, right? Art is often good at demonstrating the human condition, and Broadway musicals are no exception. When that song is sung, what has happened? Phillip has been killed in a duel. Liza and Hamilton are crushed, as any parent is over the death of a child. What’s worse, though, is that Liza knows Hamilton’s infidelity. How can Hamilton comfort his wife, the mother of his son, knowing his sin? How can Liza accept any comfort from the one who has betrayed her the most? Given the number of divorces in our country, such betrayal is all-too common in the real world. Yet in the midst of this tragedy, what happens? In the garden, she puts her hand in his. He knows her healing will take time. He knows he has wronged Liza terribly. What makes the song so powerful that it is basically two voices and two different stringed instruments. His voice and her voice; his string and her string. Then comes that haunting refrain: Forgiveness. Can you imagine? Forgiveness. Can you imagine? Turn of the eighteenth-century Americans can no more understand forgiveness than 1st century Judea’s or 20th century people in Nashville.
How can God put away sin? How can our sin be removed from us as far away as the East is from the West? How does Jesus offering make that possible? For so many, we don’t know. We do not understand. Yet that is the promise. That is the hope! You and I have spent a whole season reminding ourselves of our need of pardon and absolution. We have focused intentionally on our wretched sinful nature and our need for a Savior. We have intentionally focused our attention on those mighty acts whereby God has delivered us from the bondage of our sin. But in the midst of that focus the unimaginable should have happened. We should have come to the understanding that because of Jesus we can be forgiven. Because of Jesus, the unimaginable is real!
The truth is that each of us knows what makes us unlovable. God’s enemy, our enemy, is always whispering and reminding us what is wrong with us. We are too mean. We are too selfish. We have served idols in our lives. We have harmed others. Even now, as I am speaking in general terms, some of you think that whisper is near to a shout. Some of you are arguing with me in your head, “Brian, if you only knew.”
The great news, the Gospel news, is that Jesus did and does! As He hung on that Cross, willing Himself to finish the work of salvation, He knew our sins. And such was His determined love for each one of us that He willed Himself to hang and to die there. And even as we shouted, cursed, mocked Him, such was HIs love for each one of us that He asked His Father to forgive us, to put away our sins, because we did not know what we were doing.
Now, of course, we know. Each of us gathered here to remind ourselves of His saving acts and to receive the nourishment of His Body and Blood knows the words of Jeremiah’s prophesy have begun to become true. We might not understand it completely, but we know on some level that we have been freed from the oppression of our sin. Because of Jesus, God has begun that new creation in each one of us. Make no mistake, the new us will not be completed until our Lord comes again or we meet Him face to face, but that beginning freedom from the bondage of our sins gives us that wonderful foretaste, that wonderful pledge. We get whispers of encouragement and partial visions of the glory He intends. What was unimaginable before we met Him is now full of hope and promise.
And reminded of that truth, that each one of us is forgiven by God if we accept His offer, we are fit and perfect heralds! We are those who are sent out into the streets, called to pity those who do not yet know the message of pardon, and to share the Great News of that glorious Savior, Jesus of Nazareth. We are called to share that He did for us what we could not do ourselves. And because He was faithful, we have hope! And better than hope we have God’s promise that He will write His torah in our minds and on our hearts, that from least to greatest we will know Him and He us! And reminded of that truth, and fortified by that Sacrament, you and I are sent out into that world proclaiming the unimaginable, the offer of forgiveness to all who claim Christ as Lord!
In His Peace,
Brian+
