Reflections on “What Will You Do with It?” Luke 18: 1-8; Jeremiah 31: 27-34

Except for a stumble at the end of the sermon, it went pretty well.  There were so many ways both the Luke and Jeremiah text could have been preached, but I think the approach I took was fair to the text.  I still have a sermon in mind that focuses on "I will remember their sins no more," but that sermon will have to wait until another time.

 “What Will You Do with It?” Luke 18: 1-8; Jeremiah 31: 27-34; St. Andrew Presbyterian Church; October 27, 2019; Reformation Sunday

Jeremiah 31: 27-34  The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of humans and the seed of animals. 28 And just as I have watched over them to pluck up and break down, to overthrow, destroy, and bring evil, so I will watch over them to build and to plant, says the Lord. 29 In those days they shall no longer say:

“The parents have eaten sour grapes,

    and the children’s teeth are set on edge.”

30 But all shall die for their own sins; the teeth of everyone who eats sour grapes shall be set on edge.

31 The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband,[g] says the Lord. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

Introduction: 

A second week with the prophet Jeremiah.

Move 1:  Jeremiah prophesies a shift in how God’s people will encounter God’s law.

a.  Not the first shift to take place.

1. there was a time before there was an established law.

2.  God creates humanity and develops a relationship with God’s people when there is no written law.

3.  God still loved humanity; God still claimed humanity.

b.  Then along came Moses and his trip up and down Mt. Sinai with the Ten Commandments.

1. the people now had a written law.

2.  Mediated by Moses.

3. Led to a tradition of laws and regulations concerning just about every aspect of life.

4. The law also created a need for someone, like Moses, or priests, or later Pharisees, to mediate the written law.

5.  Written law is black and white.

6. It also becomes a tool by those in power to keep their power and invited abuses.

7. Not to mention the human tendency to approach written laws with the desire to find ways around the letter of the law.

c.  Then Jeremiah announces the new covenant God has in mind.

1.  not an external law written on tablets, but a law inscribed on the heart.

2.  Notice the intimacy of this law. 

3.  Notice how it actually demands more than the written law because it is matter of heart.

4.  Notice also the radical nature of this law because it suggests that God is equally present among all the Israelites from greatest to least.

5.  Remember last week hearing Jeremiah prophesying that God’s people can live out their faith anywhere, even in Babylon.  

6.  This description of the new covenant builds on that premise:  As important as priest, prophet, and king are to Israel, God’s people can survive without the institutions of Jerusalem in Babylon (Garrett Galvin Associate Professor of Sacred Scripture Franciscan School of Theology Berkeley, Calif.; http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1772)

7.  the law is part of a personal relationship between each person and God.

8. For me, some of the most powerful, meaningful words in the biblical text are found in this passage when we hear God speak through Jeremiah:  “I will be their God and they will be my people.”  Such a powerful relationship; such a high calling.

d.  On Reformation Sunday, we remember at the core of Reformation was how we connect to God.

1.  The Reformers understood that we did not need a priest, or bishop, or pope to mediate with God for us.

2.  God’s Word should be made accessible to all people because all people were capable of interpreting God’s Word.

3.  Our own governance as Presbyterians grows out of the belief that we do not need a pope, bishop, or priest to dictate to us - members and clergy together as led by the Holy Spirit (that’s why we pray to start meetings) can best discern God’s will.

e.  The covenant described by Jeremiah does not need an external law or someone like Moses to mediate it for us.

1. God has written the law on our hearts.

2.  Thomas Merton in New Seeds of Contemplation, “in all the situations of life the ‘will of God’ comes to us not merely as an external dictate of impersonal law but above all as an interior invitation of personal love.”

3. Welcome to the new covenant Jeremiah describes.

Move 2:  What are you, what are we going to do with it - this new covenant?

a.  God has forgiven you; God has forgiven us.

1. The new covenant is marked by an intimacy of the law being written on our hearts.

2. things are good.

3.  I suppose one reaction might be to be satisfied and cling to this new covenant with no regard for anyone or anything else.

b. But there’s this story Jesus tells.

1.  A story about a widow and a judge.

2.  Admittedly, lots of nuances to this story.

3.  there is the widow angle - in the biblical text and in particular the Gospel of Luke, widows play important roles.  Widows represent the vulnerable class of peole, but also appear as prophetic and fiathful, such as Anna, who announces who Christ is when his parents bring his as a baby to the teimple (go to http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1787; Meda Stamper, for more insights into the roles of widows in the Bible)

4. There is the unbelieving judge caught in an exchange with the believing widow.

5. there is the whole question of just and unjust.

c.  But I keep coming back to the widow’s persistence.

1. She will not stop bugging the judge until he changes his mind and gives her justice.

2.  “The odds may seem insurmountable as corruption, inhumanity, and impiety characterize the widow’s world. her persistence enables God’s desire for justice to happen”(Garrett Galvin Associate Professor of Sacred Scripture Franciscan School of Theology Berkeley, Calif.; http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1772)

3.  The widow is driven by something inside, maybe by the law inscribed on her heart, that will not let her stop until justice is given. 

4. When I read about this widow, I am reminded of an older woman I knew in the church I served in KY.  In her adult life she had been a widow, then a spouse, then a widow again.

she was not loud and demanding, but she was persistent. Once she had her mind made up about a mission project or a change that needed to happen, she would not let up.  Not really demanding, but exhausting.  she would not be stopped.  People in the church, and the new minister, learned that you might as well give in early, because she would not stop until she wore you out. 

d.  Persistently living out our discipleship seems an appropriate response to God’s covenant  Jeremiah describes.

1. As forgiven people who are claimed as God’s own, we are sent into the world to persistently work for justice.

2. To persistently love others.

3. To persistently turn away from the world’s call to only worry about oneself and instead live for others.

4. How easy it is some days to look at the world and think, “What can I do?” and then retreat into my own world and the assurance that God has forgiven me.  Nothing else matters, right?

5.  But before us is the witness of the persistent widow who keeps on working it, keeps on pursuing justice, until justice arrives.

6.Such is our call - from the assurance of God’s love and forgiveness, we move out into the world serving the God’s whose law is inscribed on our hearts.

Conclusion:  The parable ends with Jesus asking the question:  “when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

We give our answer as we persistently serve the God whose covenant of love and forgiveness has already claimed us.

Reflections on "Living" Jeremiah 29: 1-7; Luke 17: 11-19

This is the first of two sermons on Jeremiah.  Today's text was actually last week's lectionary lesson, and today's lectionary will be used next week.  I did not have much going with the sermon most of the week, but it came together for an okay sermon.  The Time with Young Disciples was a very good set-up for the sermon, and made the sermon better than it might have been otherwise.

“Living” St. Andrew, Denton;  October 20, 2019; Jeremiah 29: 1-7; Luke 17: 11-19

Jeremiah 29: 1-7:  These are the words of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the remaining elders among the exiles, and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. 2 This was after King Jeconiah, and the queen mother, the court officials, the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the artisans, and the smiths had departed from Jerusalem. 3 The letter was sent by the hand of Elasah son of Shaphan and Gemariah son of Hilkiah, whom King Zedekiah of Judah sent to Babylon to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. It said: 4 Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. 7 But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

Introduction:  We are not people who have been forced into exile like those to whom the prophet Jeremiah writes the words we read today.

But, we now what it is like to be people not where we want to be in life.

So listen to what the prophet Jeremiah has to say. 

Move 1:  We are not living in a fairy tale world.

a.  Life is tough for the Israelites.

1.   They have been exiled.

1. Their homeland has been invaded and they have been defeated.

2.  Prominent leaders no longer in Jerusalem.  Remember, that was what a conquering nation like Babylon did.  They sent important leaders into exile so the conquered land was easier to control.

3.  The Davidic monarcy, which they had assumed would last forever is clearly over

4.  The hopes and dreams for what God was doing had been invested in the  Temple, in Jerusalem, in the house of Judah, and that is basically gone.

5.  It was for all intents and purposes the end of the world.

6. They are a broken people.

7.  As broken people ourselves, we recognize ourselves in them.

b.  To these shell-shocked Israelites in exile comes a letter from the prophet Jeremiah.

1.  That the letter came from Jeremiah was a sign of just how bad things were. 

2. We may think of Jeremiah as a major prophet, but in his time he was a small town boy trying to make it big in the big city, and by all apparent measures, he was a failure.

3.  Jeremiah was from Anathoth in the tribal lands of Benjamin. Benjamin was the home of the failed monarch Saul, and the town itself bore the name of the Canaanite goddess, Anat. 

4.  Jeremiah was in a position to send this letter because he was left behind in the deportations; the Babylonians did not think he was worth the effort of deporting  (Wil Gafney Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible Brite Divinity School, http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=704)

5. But from Jeremiah comes the word of God.

Move 2:  Embrace living where you are 

a. Do not cling to false hopes that deny the world in which you live.

1.  Look back one chapter to hear what a false prophet had told the Israelites.

2.  the prophet Hananiah has predicted a short stay in exile (2 years).

3. Imagine his popularity.

4. But his prediction of a short stay would also lead to not feeling a need to adjust and live fully where they are.

5. The false prophets call people to escapism, to ignore the truth, to avoid having to deal with life in exile

b. The word of God through Jeremiah to the exiles in 29:5-6 was to plan on staying in Babylon for the foreseeable future. 

1.  They are to build homes, settle down, get married, have children, and watch their children get married.

2.  In fact, the lesson ends with even more surprising word in verse 7, "seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare."  (Wil Gafney Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible Brite Divinity School, http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=704)

3.  Jeremiah calls for the Israelite to live out their calling in this new, strange place.

c. Huge shift in understanding how God is at work.

1.  The Babylonians may be able to separate the Israelites from their land, from their Temple, from the way they always had worshipped God, but the Babylonians cannot separate the Israelites from their God.

2.  If the Israelites do not find themselves rescued from the exile in two years, it is not a sign that they cannot live as God’s people because God is in their midst in exile.

3.  While Israelites might most often remember God as the God of Exodus who took them to the Promised Land, Jeremiah reminds them that God was also with the Israelites in the wilderness.

5.  God will be found in their midst wherever they live; as God’s people, they are called to live out their calling wherever they live.

d. Jesus expands on what Jeremiah tells the Israelites.

1. When we tell the story of the ten lepers, we often focus on the gratitude he expressed, which is a great lesson.

2. But notice that it is the Samaritan, the outsider, who is the one who recognizes what God has done in his life.

3.  Jesus points out the Samaritan leper who returns to give thanks, he announces that now it does not matter who a person is, the person can be one of God’s people. 

Move 3:  Speaks to us about living as disciples of Christ.

a.  Discipleship is not just being faithful when everything works out.

1. Discipleship is not just being faithful for a few short years until God has sorted out everything.

2.  Discipleship is about living in the moment as God’s people.

b.  Every day it seems I talk to people or read about people or feel myself like we are people in exile.

1. we are not quite where we want to be.

2.  Maybe you are not physically living where you think we ought to live.

3.  Or technology has moved so fast, you feel like the world has passed us by.

4.  You are in a new school and nothing feels quite right.

5.  the world seems headed in directions you do not want to go and do not think the world should go.

6.  You feel like an alien in the world around you.

c. Welcome to the world of the Israelites in exile.

1. Welcome to the world where God is at work.

2.  Welcome to the world where you are called to live as God’s people where you are.

Amen. 

Reflections on "Stuck and Unstuck" Kirkin' of the Tartans" Sunday; Deuteronomy 1: 6-18

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the sermon was preached as part of a "Kirkin' of the Tartans" worship service.  I am indebted to Karl Travis, a friend and colleague who pointed me in this direction for the sermon and gave me the ditty that did not quite work in my sermon (I suspect he pulled it off better when he used that ditty).  the sermon was a little dry as I tried to give some historical perspective about our Scottish heritage.  The reminder of the marks of the true church (emphasis on God's Word and sacraments rightly administered)  was a helpful reminder to me as I prepared the sermon.  Setting up our Scottish heritage in connection with last week's World Communion celebration was important to me.  I did not use the Matthew passage as much as I had intended when I chose the passage to pair with the Deuteronomy passage.

“Stuck and Unstuck” Kirkin of the Tartans Sunday; SAPC, October 13, 2019; Matthew 28: 16-20; Deuteronomy 1:6-18

Deuteronomy 1: 6-18  The Lord our God spoke to us at Horeb, saying, “You have stayed long enough at this mountain. 7 Resume your journey, and go into the hill country of the Amorites as well as into the neighboring regions—the Arabah, the hill country, the Shephelah, the Negeb, and the seacoast—the land of the Canaanites and the Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates. 8 See, I have set the land before you; go in and take possession of the land that I[a] swore to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give to them and to their descendants after them.”

9 At that time I said to you, “I am unable by myself to bear you. 10 The Lord your God has multiplied you, so that today you are as numerous as the stars of heaven. 11 May the Lord, the God of your ancestors, increase you a thousand times more and bless you, as he has promised you! 12 But how can I bear the heavy burden of your disputes all by myself? 13 Choose for each of your tribes individuals who are wise, discerning, and reputable to be your leaders.” 14 You answered me, “The plan you have proposed is a good one.” 15 So I took the leaders of your tribes, wise and reputable individuals, and installed them as leaders over you, commanders of thousands, commanders of hundreds, commanders of fifties, commanders of tens, and officials, throughout your tribes. 16 I charged your judges at that time: “Give the members of your community a fair hearing, and judge rightly between one person and another, whether citizen or resident alien. 17 You must not be partial in judging: hear out the small and the great alike; you shall not be intimidated by anyone, for the judgment is God’s. Any case that is too hard for you, bring to me, and I will hear it.” 18 So I charged you at that time with all the things that you should do.

Introduction:  Last week we heard lots of languages and saw breads from different countries;

we proclaimed that “from north and south, from east and west, people will come to sit down at the Table”   a testimony to the broadness of God’s reach and God’s love; a reminder 

Today, we zoom in to the Scottish church, the church built in Scotland that gave birth to Presbyterianism, in which we find our roots.

Move 1:  when we look at the Reformation era, we see that the Presbyterian Church (that is, the kirk, as the church is called in Scotland) stuck in Scotland.

a.   In the time of the Reformation, there were changes going on across the European continent and England, changes in both the political world and the church world.

1.  It was theological:

the reformers argued and fought over their understanding of who God was;

how people could or could not access God, 

and the importance and availability of God’s Word.

2. But it was also political as princes, kings, and popes fought for power.

3.  in Germany, for instance, the battle for power between regional princes and kings allowed cover for Martin Luther to survive and lead the Reformation.

4.  In England, a similar mix of church and politics and the changing landscape.

5. England was Protestant for a short time (during which the Westminster Confession, which became part of the Protestant landscape), and then returned to Catholicism and morphed into what we know as the Church of England now.

c. Scotland was no different.

1.  Into the battle between rival nations, kings, queens, and churches the Scottish church came into being.

2.  In a hurried four days in 1560, John Knox, with a small handful of others hammered out the Scots Confession (a portion of which we will affirm later in our worship) The Confession was immediately passed by the Scottish parliament.

3.  Scotland would be Protestant.  

4.  Scotland’s church would be Presbyterian.

d. From a  theological perspective, the Scottish Church would redefine what it meant to be church. 

1.   Knox said that there were three marks of the authentic church.  

2.  First, the Word of God is truly preached.  Scripture was to provide the primary measure of a church’s faithfulness.

3.   Second, the sacraments of communion and baptism were to be rightly administered. 

4.  Third, the church was to be a community of discipline.  To belong to the church would inspire a life of obedience and piety.  In this way, the church would build a just and merciful society.  

5. In its worship, the Presbyterian church in Scotland saw itself as very different from the church that was emerging in England and its liturgical ties to the Catholic church.

In fact, my friend and colleague Karl Travis shared a ditty he learned in Scotland that spoke to this difference (as background, remember the Larger and Shorter Catechism of the Westminster Confession begin with the question:  what is the chief end of man?).

Piscy, Piscy, bend and boo

Up and down all service through.

Presby, Presby, dunnie bend,

Sittith down on man’s chief end. 

e. Beyond worship and theology, the Presbyterian Church in Scotland also gave us a church with a democratic approach to leadership

1. that transition reminds us of the story we read in Deuteronomy.

2.   A pivotal moment in the life of the Israelites as they are about to enter the promised land.

3.  Moses takes that moment to remind them of what had happened earlier in their time in the wilderness when his father-in-law Jethro had come to Moses and told him that he need to enlist the help of others in leadership.

4. Now as they prepare to enter the Promised Land, Moses again reminds them of the need for shared leadership.  

5.  Here’s how the text says it; “Choose for each of your tribes individuals who are wise, discerning, and reputable to be your leaders.”  To this point, the Israelites have had Kings and Prophets.  Now, authority is trickling down.  

6.  And Moses did what God directed.  From each tribe, Moses chose leaders.  He shared responsibility and authority.

f.  the church Knox helped put into place shared this same concept of sharing leadership.

1.  in fact, its name, our name, Presbyterian comes from the Greek word presbyteros.  Presbyteros means elder.  A Presbyterian church is a church governed by elders.  

2.  As God instructed Moses to “choose for each of your tribes individuals who are wise, discerning, and reputable,” emergent Protestantism envisioned a church run not only by a professional clergy, top down, but governed by the people, through elected elders.  

3.  This was nothing short of a religious revolution.  The church would never, could never, be the same again.

The Presbyterian Church had its birth and stuck in Scotland.

Move 2:  Then, we might say, the Presbyterian Church came unstuck as it left its roots in Scotland and moved to America (not that the church in Scotland fell apart, but some of its members migrated)

a. The patterns of migration brought Presbyterians to settle in America.

1.  Not quite following Jesus’ command to make disciples of all nations, but still going into the world to seek a better place or escape from issues at home, Presbyterians arrived in the colonies.

2. The first presbytery pulled together by Francis Makemie in 1706.

3.  The Presbyterian Church growing in America, but also the Presbyterian church expanding beyond its Scottish heritage as the first presbytery included Puritan Presbyterians, Scotch Presbyterians, and Scotch Irish Presbyterians (A brief History of the Presbyterians, Leffers Loetscher, 61).

b. In a new place, with an expanding membership outgrowing its Scottish roots, the Presbyterian Church sticking  to its core values in its new home.

1.  The Word of God truly preached.

2.  the sacraments of baptism and communion rightly administered. 

3.  The church as a community of discipline to inspire obedience and a commitment to working to make our world and just and merciful place.

4. and, of course, rule by elders.  no pope or bishop in charge (they were stuck with ministers); instead elders elected by the congregation.

5. leadership that grows out of the pews, if you will.

6.  The Presbyterian church stuck in Scotland; then some “unstuck” and move to America, where they “stuck” again in the same understanding of God and church.

c.  Such is our call in our time.

1.   The times change, we move to new places,  come “unstuck” if you will,  both geographically and theologically, but still the call to  to stay “stuck”  in our commitment to God’s Word and the sacraments.  

2.  We may change how we understand God’s Word or the sacraments, but God’s Word remains the place where we turn to judge our faithfulness, and the sacraments continue to be the place where we discover the means of grace.

3.  To continue to be a church that calls for discipleship as we seek to bring mercy and justice to the world.

3.  To be the church whose leadership comes from the people.

conclusion:  the bagpipes, tartans, and drums take us back to the time of our beginning as the Presbyterian church - a rich heritage indeed.

God calls us forward to the new time and the new places where we live out our calling - a rich future indeed.