Trinity 4
Aren’t there times when we are all like Jeremiah, bemoaning our situation? Don’t we say, “I will not mention him or speak any more in his name”? There are times when I do, when I am so tired during the week that I just cannot be inspired to write a sermon. But like Jeremiah, I still do, because deep down there is something I cannot keep bottled up. The word is burning in my heart to get out and be proclaimed to the world around me.
Perhaps I must be able to say, “O Lord, you deceived me” because I keep getting up here and speaking about the message which overpowers me and prevails over my despair. Although everyone ridicules and mocks me because of my message, this gospel of God, I keep on speaking. My message is not the same as Jeremiah’s though, for he preached violence and destruction, when another subject was desired by the great congregation.
God’s word is in my heart like a fire, and if I neglect my thoughts about God, they burst forth anyway. I cannot keep this fire within my bones, just as Jeremiah was unable to do so. His voice ever called out upon the Lord, and I lift my voice up in the praise of God as well. Jeremiah says in our passage, “Sing to the Lord.” So should we do, we should sing to the Lord in our lives outside of these four walls. We should proclaim the Gospel with the whole of our lives, when we meet others in any situation, when we glance at the stranger we should look with the love of God and greet him in the name of the Lord. Isn’t that what Jesus asks us to do? Isn’t that what the disciples did when they wandered throughout the Roman Empire, and beyond? How else could they have converted so many people to the faith, unless they let God loose in their time?
And so it is our task to let God loose today. Everyone says that today is so very different to when Jesus lived. Indeed it is, we have electricity, radios, cars, so many conveniences. But we still have our selves, the human being, which has not substantially changed in hundreds of millennia. We may be taller and healthier but we are still arrogant and selfish; we are still blind to the meaning. The people around us are annoyed when we take the moral stand of loving our neighbours; they do not hear the message of patience and forgiveness when we proclaim the rightness of not casting the first stone.
Although some indeed may hear us when we speak the praise of God, we feel isolated because in a community of a thousand souls only a few gather to pray together with us on a Sunday morning. Our circle of friends is narrowly defined in the church – the spreading of the ripples in this pond does not seem to be happening. We feel just like Jeremiah as he reflected on his situation in his time. We feel persecuted just as if we were failures to be parodied throughout the length and breadth of the land.
We have heard the whispers as we go from here to there, “Well, I hear they go to church, but what good does it do them?” Or, “He still lost his job.” Or “God is not doing to well by her. So what?” They chuckle as they are witty at our expense. We are crushed under the power of their careless jocularity.
But Jeremiah never stopped and so should we continue in our proclaiming the word of the Lord, even if it is just the “Good morning” of everyday, even though people say, “it’s not very nice today, looks like rain.” Or, more likely, “It’s raining today.” The problem of the Good morning is the problem Jeremiah had, but in reverse.
Let’s think a little more about Jeremiah’s message. He was required by God to speak out about the Day of His Coming – you know the Messiah piece, “Who shall abide the day of his coming?” That is what Jeremiah was preaching. Who will stand when God appears amongst us? The Hebrews at the time understood only themselves as those who would stand because they were “the chosen people.” Jeremiah did not hold the same view. And he kept on speaking out about his apocalyptic vision for the future. The destruction and violence would appear on that final day. Jeremiah clung firmly to his his Lord and he preached the fire and brimstone about which the Hebrews of his time had no conception. Sadly, they soon learned about the destruction which was to come, and indeed is still coming even today. Instead of the coming of peace in our time, there was war. The Hebrews felt the full force of it. So do we today, the rich west is feeling the wrath of a new power in the world, terrorising it to pieces.We must listen to Jeremiah and prepare ourselves for God’s coming, however he may come, whether in the peace of the garden of Eden, or in the wrath of the Apocalypse of St John the Divine.
The coming of the Lord has always vexed the church and the Hebrews before us. All of us have wondered what that day of the Lord will be like. There are dramatically different visions which we have had in our tradition already, one like Jeremiah’s the other like Ezekiel’s in his vision of the valley of dry bones, where all are knitted together finally. One like the vision of the day of Pentecost where there will be the wisdom of God resting on all so that we can hear the word of the Lord peacefully, the other like the Apocalypse where the word of the Lord destroys all before it through God’s agents, the four horsemen.
The how of the coming of the Lord will only be answered on that day. So never mind the answer to the question, Who will abide the day of his coming? For I think we will all answer that with, “I hope I will be counted worthy.” The other question is, “When will the Lord come?” is rather tougher to answer.
When the Lord shall come is unknown to me. Perhaps you know, if so, let me in on the secret, it would give me more reason to hope. I have often thought that the day of the Lord comes for each one of us some time in our lives. Some have seen that day in a vision which guides the whole of their individual lives, others see it at a time when it cannot be shared. I hope I have had my Day of the Lord when I formed my decision to become a Reader and so work for the Kingdom through my preaching. I pray that you have had your Day of the Lord which impels you to share the Gospel, a sharing which ultimately is the opening of hearts to neighbours just as Jesus tells us. Without a doubt, I say, the Day of the Lord is coming, I pray that we are all found worthy of the Lamb who sits on that throne.