"It won't be a good sermon," I warned them before I began. "A good sermon, preachers are sometimes taught, will have a memorable formula - an alliterated three point outline that will be easily remembered, for example: the Power, the Purpose and the Plan....
Or a good sermon will follow a narrative arc. People like stories and a good sermon is like a good story. We have a beginning wherein we meet a compelling character, a middle wherein the protagonist's life is complicated by struggle and then we have a glorious ending that swoops upwards toward victory and confidence and joy.
But what I had to preach today wasn't a "good" sermon. Jeremiah chapter 20 doesn't lend itself to good sermons.
The prophet Jeremiah lived in precarious times. The once great and powerful Assyrian empire (the constant and foreboding threat found in the prophet Isaiah's writing) had waned and was crumbling. And with that, the little nation of Judah began to flex its aspirations for independence. But there was another force on the rise. The Babylonian empire was becoming more and more powerful. Some within the nation of Judah recommended that they should ally themselves with the nation of Egypt as a hedge against the waning Assyrians and the waxing Babylonians. Some said they should keep as they were with their heads down.
But the prophet Jeremiah crossed them all with his message. It doesn't matter. None of that will be of any use, because Yahweh God has already decided to bring judgement on this nation for it's idolatry and violence. The only way out of our predicament, Jeremiah said, is repentance... but I know and God knows that you won't so your doom is imminent.
This was not a message that won him many friends.
But it was the message that he was called to deliver.
Even before he was born, while he was still being knitted together in his mother's womb, before he had any sense of self or identity, God had marked Jeremiah for this role. And when Jeremiah tried to object, "I'm only a boy, I can't do that." God refused to hear Jeremiah's demure. "Don't say, 'I'm only a boy' !" You'll go where I send you and you'll say what I have for you to say, and I'll be with you. (Jeremiah chapter 1)
He would speak God's message to the people. He would tell them of the coming wrath of God. And he did. And for this he was despised and arrested and beaten and thrown in jail and put in stocks and mocked and abandoned....
Chapter 20 verse 7 - 18 is part of what is sometimes called "the confessions of Jeremiah." These are passages within the book that are not part of God's message to the people, but rather Jeremiah's very personal and very intimate responses to God. And they are not easy. They don't make for "good" sermons.
You seduced me, Yahweh, and I was seduced.
Seduced, tricked, persuaded... the many translations use various words to try and capture the slippery meaning of this phrase in Hebrew. It contains all of those ideas. But what can we say - that God tricked him, fooled him, duped, - or what may be worse, God seduced him? And then to put that against the next phrase - You overpowered me, you were the stronger.
Dare we say it? God raped the prophet's will?
Jeremiah's bitter complaint is that God not been fair. God came to him when he was a young and naive and inexperienced boy and -forced- him into this life. "You came to me when I knew nothing and you told me to be your prophet, but you didn't tell me what it would be like. You didn't prepare me for this. You didn't give me a choice..."
And now my life is a joke. I speak your words and everyone hates me. My enemies plot against me and those who were my friends avoid me or turn against me. And it's your fault, God.
Jeremiah says that he would, if he could, just quit. I would leave it all behind. I would not mention your name and I would not speak in your name ever again ...
... except that when I tried to quit it was like a fire in my bones, burning me from the inside. I could not stay silent. I was damned by the people if I spoke and I was damned by God if I was silent.
Then there is a turning point. And here is where the text follows a nice narrative arc. We've followed the prophet down into dark despair and now we're ready to hear a word of comfort - a word of the gospel, the good news. And the prophet says, "But Yahweh is with me like a mighty hero."
Jeremiah celebrates the presence of God in his life, and the protection and vindication that God brings to his faithful servant. His enemies will be judged and Jeremiah will be rewarded. "Sing to Yahweh. Praise Yahweh. for he has rescued this needy one from the hand of the oppressor."
And if this were a "good" sermon, this is where it would end. I could deliver a nice and tidy word from God: when you're facing trouble and dark times, be confident because God will rescue and God will reward the faithful....
But the prophet won't let me end there. I really wish that he would have stopped there. I could feel comfortable with that sermon. We go through tough times, despair and loneliness come... but have faith, rescue is around the corner, blah, blah, blah... But Jeremiah didn't conclude the matter like that.
Instead he turns again sends the whole thing crashing back down into the dark depths of despair - sinking even lower than before. He curses his entire existence from the day he was born to the present moment. And though he doesn't curse his mother or his father or God (for that would have been a capital offense) he comes awfully close. And this, I think, is some of the darkest language in the bible.
Cursed be the day on which I was born
the day my mother bore me, let it not be blessed.
Cursed be the man who brought the 'good news' to my father...
let him be like the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah
forced to listen to the screams and cries of the people
why couldn't I have just died in the womb
why couldn't my mother's womb have been my grave?
From the womb on my life has been sorrow and shame.
How do make a "good" sermon from that? Maybe there is no good sermon here.
But I am glad that this passage - as ugly and as dark as it is - I'm glad, grateful even, that this passage is included in our scriptures.
I remember being 13 or 14 and we had just moved - again. I was in a new town with few friends and I felt alone and abandoned. My parents were busy with the things of the church - and I knew that we were there because they were answering God's call for their lives - but that was no comfort to me.
I remember being out one autumn afternoon, delivering the papers on my paper route. It was a bright and sunny afternoon. The sky was bright blue and the air was crisp. And I stopped in the sidewalk and looked up into the sky and I said, out loud, "God, I believe you're there, but stay the hell out of my life."
I don't know what I expected to happen. Maybe I thought there would be a flash of lighting or an earthquake or something. But no. I went on and finished my route and went home and nothing changed.
And that's what comforts me. Nothing changed.
God didn't hear that blasphemous boy and deliver a lightning bolt from the sky to smite him. God didn't throw me out. He didn't cut me off. No. He allowed me to be angry - even allowed me to be angry with God, and he still loved me.
God heard Jeremiah's confession - heard the prophet's bitter complaint, that borderline blasphemy and did not count it as a sin. We can be angry with God and it can be okay.
The other comfort (small comfort) I find in this difficult passage is that the life of faith isn't going to be all wine and roses; the word of God isn't going to always be honey on our lips.
I know. That doesn't really sound like comfort, does it? But it is. At least to me.
Because to hear some preachers, you'd think that the life of faith is going to be nothing but sweetness and light. That if we have been saved and if we have faith then we're going to have long and happy and healthy lives and we're going to be loved and respected and our children will be wonderful. We'll have great jobs and plenty of money, and we'll live our lives in sunshine and bliss.
but you and I know that that's a fairy tale. It's just not true. We're not promised a life of easy comfort. In fact, it seems that most of the biblical examples demonstrate that the life of faith is a life of pressure and danger and struggle. But there is reward in the struggle and there is victory.
Again, I know that doesn't sound like comfort. And maybe it's not.
I told you this wasn't a good sermon.
This is a good sermon, and it is comforting to me.
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