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A sermon is a manner of oral communication and therefore words and sentence structure/order would be added, altered, or deleted at the moment of delivery. + In Nomine Jesu + The Rev. Evan Gaertner Walking in the way of the Lord often begins as a joyous occasion. Joy pops out of the air at an infant's baptism with the cry of the baby as the water and the word are poured out upon her newborn head. At a baptism there is a wonderful feeling of celebration and excitement of promise. When an adult joins our congregation there is an enthusiasm that is simply hard to find in longtime members of the church. At the seminary, where I went to prepare to become a pastor, there is a service where we all received our first calls from congregations for public ministry. That service is filled with huge smiles as everyone opens up the documents that describe his first congregation. Jeremiah the prophet recalls this same kind of new joy when he states, "Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart." Jeremiah was a real person that shares his joy and frustration with God and with those that read the words that are preserved in his book. It is a confession by Jeremiah that we have before us today. His confession to the Lord begins with plea to the Lord saying, "O Lord, you know." You know Lord who I am. You made me. You knew me before I was even in my mother's womb. Jeremiah offers a cry to the very God that knows, understands, and is aware. Jeremiah was known by the Lord in a deep, intimate, and ongoing way. Confidence that the Lord knows him is the foundation for the protest that follows. Jeremiah's complaint is one that we may be uncomfortable with because we too often believe that to be faithful is to be happy. To be a faithful Christian that trusts in Jesus Christ as savior must mean to not have any worries or disappointments. When those worries and disappointments come upon us we feel guilty and wrong. We struggle. We receive the treasures of the Word of God as sinful human beings that are challenged with living with this life-giving Word in the midst of a dark and perverse generation. Jeremiah struggled and he wanted the Lord to know this struggle. He said, "Remember me and visit me." Jeremiah is asking for the Lord to act on his behalf and to not let him be done in with by his enemies. Jeremiah is confessing that he feels his life is slipping away and the Lord needs to know this. In fact in the beginning of our reading Jeremiah says, "O Lord, you know." And now he demands with an imperative insistence saying, "Know that for your sake I bear reproach." Reproach is possibly too odd of a word for our ears. Jeremiah looks around and he has become an embarrassment, a laughingstock. This is frustrating to Jeremiah because he feels he has done everything that he has been called to do. He ate the word of the Lord. He rejoiced. He did not sit in the company of merrymakers. He has sat alone. He not only has been seen as odd by the people he sees himself at odds with them. The word of God he has eaten may be seen as foolishness by them but they were a joy and pleasure to Jeremiah. Poor Jeremiah. He has eaten of the treasures of heaven and is utterly alone. He is desperate to see the name of the Lord lifted high among his people. But continually the Lord is laughed at and he is ignored. The Lord needs to know this and remember and visit him. Jeremiah's complaint is the frustration of trusting in the Lord and yet living in a world that does not listen. According to all practical measurements Jeremiah would look not even close to being blessed. Where are the crowds? Where are the people that hang on his every word and change their lives with what he proclaims? Rick Warren, author of A Purpose Driven Life, is famous for saying, "Never criticize what God is blessing." Jeremiah was a prophet of the Lord, called by the Lord to proclaim to the people of his time judgments and promises of deliverance. But he was alone and considered by those around him an embarrassment. In fact Jeremiah is crying out for the Lord to remember him and visit him. Where is the Lord when you share God's judgment against sin and proclaim the forgiveness of sins and all that happens is they continue to ignore you? Is it possible to see yourself blessed by the Lord but alone in this world? Jeremiah wants to know, if he is known by the Lord, why is his pain unending and his wounds incurable. Jeremiah puts the Lord in the same category as a deceitful brook, like waters that are untrustworthy. Jeremiah goes to the Lord to be fed and nourished and yet he remains hurt by the world, lonely and forgotten. Consider that in the second chapter o f Jeremiah, he proclaims that the Lord is appalled that the people have forsaken him, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water. But now Jeremiah has flipped this and complains that the Lord appears to be empty of living water. Why else would Jeremiah feel alone and a laughingstock among his own people, but because of the absence of the Lord in his life? The accusation by Jeremiah is that Lord is not following through with his promise to be a foundation of living water. The ability to throw at God this accusation is a part of the spirituality of the psalms. Peter wrote in his epistle, "Cast your cares upon the Lord for he cares for you." Jeremiah and Peter both are demonstrating that anything can be brought to God, even your frustration with Him, and H can tolerate it. The Lord responds, "If you return, I will restore you, and you shall stand before me." Turning to the Lord for Jeremiah in the midst of the attack of his enemies was going to be an act of faith. This is the very struggle that Peter has with seeing Jesus go to Jeremiah is renewed in his call and renewed in the promises of the Lord. The Lord tells Jeremiah, "I will make you to this people a fortified wall of bronze; they will fight against you, but they shall not prevail over you, for I am with you to save you and deliver you, declared the Lord." Any and every danger that Jeremiah is placed into on account of being a servant of the Lord will never be more powerful than the Lord that stands with him to save and deliver him. This is a promise that is held onto by faith. Jeremiah will continue to struggle with the loneliness of carrying the word of God into a people that will deny, reject, and laugh at him. But nevertheless Jeremiah is called to continue to be a servant of the Lord, uttering what is precious, being the mouth of the Lord. Over and against Jeremiah's protest that he is sitting alone he is reminded that he never ultimately is alone because the Lord promises, "I am with you to save and deliver you." In your baptism you have been marked as one redeemed by Christ the crucified. You are known by the Lord. They way you can be sure you are known by the Lord is that he knows that you are a sinner in need of his love and so he provides. He is the Lord that saves and delivers. He is the Lord that sent his only son to suffer and die at the hands of the people and rise again on the third day. You are blessed by the Lord and you be sure of this. Not through the success of numbers or popularity but assured through the cross of Jesus Christ. Jeremiah's confidence was to be placed in the promise of the Lord to deliver. Your confidence in the Lord is to be placed in the fulfilled promise found in the grace of Jesus Christ. You are never ultimately alone for the Lord has promised, "I will be with you to save and deliver you." Soli Deo Gloria -->> Home |