College Avenue UMC: October 13, 2013
I often have the privilege of visiting senior adults who
have moved and downsized their belongings. This may have been a move into an apartment or some form of
residential living. After selling
or giving away so much, something treasured and kept are letters. Letters are pieces of history you can
hold in your hand, as you hold love ones in your heart.
It used to be that someone might say: “I owe someone a letter.” I still hear that among a few older
persons. In earlier times, you
kept letters because they were treasures.
My mother recently showed me a letter written by my great-grandmother
about my birth. You kept letters. In fact, Penny and I have saved all the
letters we sent back and forth when I want in Boston and she was in
Kansas. And, no…I am not
going to read any of them. But I
loved getting each one. They had a
great impact on my life.
Letters in an earlier time were treasured much more than the
emails. With the cost of regular
mail, emails are the current way to write. Skype, Twitter, and Facebook have changed the way we
communicate. But a handwritten
letter was a valuable thing. You
know that the person who wrote it out by hand had touched that letter. You could tell some things about the
writer by the handwriting.
The letter we read from Jeremiah changed the course of
history. This letter so
impacted lives it is included in Scripture. Jeremiah wrote to a people deeply distressed about
their unsettled world. Israel and
Judah, the Jewish homelands had been devastated by war. The people where going through
post-traumatic stress syndrome at the very least. Prisoners of war had been taken to the city of Babylon and
were now thinking of their homes back in Jerusalem and the people they
loved. War had separated families
and faith communities. People were
angry and depressed and they wanted to know how long this was going to last.
Our faith ancestors were wondering what to do in the
meantime. Seek revenge? Try to escape. Start fires, make bombs? Spit at them. Throw shoes or rocks.
Stay away from these disgusting Babylonians. Worship God alone.
Don’t cooperate with the other side.
Jeremiah gives great advice for any age:
Do your best!
The better you make your life, the better
everyone’s life will be, including your enemy.
Continue to grow!
Learn all you can and work together.
Build houses, have
children, you are going to be here a while.
Even if it is for the long haul…love your
enemy.
“Bloom where you are
planted.”
Stay non-violent and do not seek revenge.
Seek the Peace of the City
Seek the Kingdom of God
Search for ways make the worst better too and make the best
better.
Jeremiah is saying…seek the welfare of even those you hate,
pray for them…for we are all in one world together. Don’t close off the world. Instead open your hearts and minds and doors. Learn to grow in the midst of
foreigners.
Jeremiah had warned them over and over. God is not pleased when the people of
Judah turned their backs on orphans, widows, the poor and sojourners. How these people are treated is what
can make a nation great in God’s eyes.
But Judah did not do well in that department, so God let this
happen. You are here and you are
not going home any time soon! Jeremiah said, “God has not forgotten you. But this nightmare will not be over
tomorrow. It is going to last 70 years…two
generations. For this time
we are going to have to deal with what we brought on ourselves."
The notion of praying for the welfare of the enemy remains
as controversial as ever, though the prophetic message is clear. God intends the well-being for all
peoples.
Our faith ancestors did learn from Jeremiah and they did
make it through the exile. Some of
our Old Testament was written there.
After the exile was over they people did get to go back to their beloved
Jerusalem.
And even today we are following Jeremiah’s advice.
Build houses with
Habitat for Humanity.
Plant community
gardens and share their produce.
Settle down and the
live the best lives possible.
Create churches as
places where people will say: God is there!
This week I have spent a bit of time with the family of
Roger Johnson. While in ICU he was
to put on his wall chart goals that we wanted to accomplish. His wife Linda and his daughters were
there to help him define the goals. The first was that he wanted to learn how
to swallow again. And the second
goal was to go to jail. That means
that we wants to return to his work with the literacy program at the jail,
helping people with language skills.
Carol Ott does that as well.
There are many similarities of what was happening then and
now. Many of us have felt helpless
during this time of much upheaval.
We have experienced a government in neutral, divided over what is best
for our country. We have looked at
Syria with enormous sadness.
80,000 doctors have fled the country and 90% of the hospitals have been
destroyed. It used to be that all
soldiers tried to avoid civilians, schools, and hospitals.
Jeremiah had faith that the current circumstances, as bad as
they were, did not limit what God was going to do. Faith is the refusal to be defined by what the world may
look like at the moment. Faith is
the belief that God is at work through an invisible power.
Faith is a powerful force:
Kansas was settled
with the faith of pioneer settlers.
Kansas and Nebraska
churches were formed through the faith of circuit riders.
There is a faith when
an artist sits at the easel.
There is faith when a
woman gives birth to a child.
And just marvel at the
faith of a child to try new things.
Faith is that inner vision which enables a forward movement
of one’s whole being even in adversity.
The Christian is one who has faith that God’s work and love are seen,
not just in the past, but for now and in this place.
Thank goodness for people on this planet like Malala
Yousafzai. She has been getting
lots of publicity that inspires us all.
She was targeted by a radical and violent religious extremist group that
does not believe in education for girls.
At age 12 she countered them with her belief in education as what is
best for everyone, especially the city. She found out that she was a target but thought surely they
would not come for a girl. She
imagined what she would do if she confronted an attacker and she thought of
throwing a shoe, but thought that then she would be no better than him. Then she thought she would tell the
attacker that education makes life better for everyone and she even wished it
for his own daughter. They did
attack her and shot her in the head.
The bullet narrowly missed her brain. After miraculous surgeries she now says she has a second
life. People have prayed to God to
spare me and I was spared for a reason—to use my life for helping people.
In the midst of tragedy, we must find sources of hope.
Fredrick Buechner, one of my favorite writers, offered the
following:
Is God all-powerful?
Is God all-good?
Terrible things
happen.
You can reconcile together any two of those statements. But you cannot put together all three
of them. The problem of evil is
perhaps the greatest single problem of religion. Christianity offers no theoretical solution at all. Christianity merely points to the cross
and says that practically speaking, there is no evil so dark and so obscene
that God cannot turn it to good.
Jeremiah told the people that God had not abandoned them. God is still here and there. “Don’t give up.”
One of the amazing things of this church is the number of
people who volunteer in the community:
OFH, Shepherd’s Crossing, Flint Hills Community Clinic, the Crisis
Center. I will invite you next
week to put on the registration pad the places that each of you volunteer.
In the New Testament we see faith in a family having an
unexpected and divine baby, the humility of a carpenter, the poverty and
spiritual wealth of Jesus, the public disgrace of the condemned, forsaken and
crucified, and how he established a new kingdom without borders or walls. We see Jesus welcoming and healing
dreaded Samaritan and telling how Samaritan have gratitude and faith.
A church is a place where all ages learn of God’s love shown
in Jesus Christ. God has given us
a God-size vision. Each one of us
who follow Jesus has been given a life vision and the gifts to make it
happen. Each one of us may claim
our mission in life because we know that the Holy Spirit will help make that
happen.
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