19th Sunday after Pentecost
September 25, 2016
Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15; 1 Timothy 6:6-19;
Luke 16:19-31
Last week we talked a little about losing your religion.
This week I want to talk about hope. Have you ever lost hope? Have you lost
hope recently? How do you keep the candle burning? How do you keep from losing
hope? With the news stories today, with more unarmed people being shot by
police, with more riots and more protests, how do you stay hopeful?
As
we continue with Jeremiah’s story today, he does something pretty outlandish.
If you remember from last week, he’s prophesying to a people who know they are
about to be conquered by Babylon. In fact, it’s gotten to the point where
Babylon is now surrounding Jerusalem, the capital of Judah. The end is in
sight. It’s just a matter of time. Jeremiah himself is in prison in the palace.
This does not look good. Yet what does God tell Jeremiah? God doesn’t tell him
to hold on or keep praying or keep the faith. God doesn’t tell him to rant and
rave and yell at his enemies. God tells him to do something very specific, to
buy his cousin’s field. Judah is occupied by Babylon, they are about to be
conquered, the capital city and the palace are surrounded, and God tells
Jeremiah to buy a field in Anathoth, a city that neighbors Jerusalem. It is
likely already under Babylonian control. Yet that’s the land God tells Jeremiah to purchase, occupied land that
Jeremiah may never even set foot on. And Jeremiah buys it. He does what God
tells him to do. He buys this field that he never expects to be able to see,
much less use. And the prophecy that goes along with it, the word of the Lord
through the prophet Jeremiah, “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel,
Take these documents, this sealed deed of purchase along with the unsealed one,
and put them into a clay jar so they will last a long time. For thus says the
Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards will again be
bought in this land.”[1]
Yes, destruction and exile are imminent. Yes, life as you know it is about to
change drastically. However, that is not the end of the story. The purchase of
this field is a promise that God’s
people will again return to this
land. Yes, the Babylonians are about to take over. Yet God’s people can hold
out hope in this promise that one day
the exile will end and they will
return to their homes. Now, we know from our perspective that this exile only lasted
around 50 years or so. We know this, having the benefit of hindsight, but God’s
people didn’t know that going in to it,
and they needed a sign of hope that destruction and exile would not last forever. At their worst moment, they needed hope.
We also find hope in our reading from 1 Timothy. Paul
tells Timothy to “Tell people who are rich in the things of this life not to be
proud and not to place their hope on
their finances, which are uncertain. Instead, they need to hope in God, who generously gives us everything” we need.[2]
Don’t put your hope in your money, in your possessions, in your material
wealth. It’s uncertain; we can’t count on it. I think that’s a lesson we’ve
learned well in recent years with the recessions. Money is unreliable; it will
not keep you safe. Instead, put your
hope in God. Put your hope in your creator, the one who made you and cares
for you and loves you, unconditionally. Put your hope in God, who generously
provides for you. God is steady and
faithful and certain. This is all that faith is. Hebrews 11:1 says “To have
faith is to be sure of the things we hope for, to be certain of the things we
cannot see.” Put your hope in God. Have faith in God. Trust God. The present
feeling of overwhelmingness and uncertainty and chaos and division will pass.
It is not the end of the story. Put
your hope, keep your hope, in God.
Along with these readings from Jeremiah and 1 Timothy, we
have this parable in Luke about Lazarus and the rich man. It’s a parable that
Jesus tells to the Pharisees, who are described as “lovers of money.”[3]
The disciples are probably overhearing this parable, but it’s primarily told to
the Pharisees. We didn’t read the introduction to it, where Jesus tells the
Pharisees, “You are the ones who make yourselves look right in other people's
sight, but God knows your hearts.”[4] In
other words, the Pharisees are the group who make sure that their outward
appearance is perfect and righteous and blameless. They make sure people know
when they’re fasting or praying or putting money in the offering. They want
everyone else to know that they are good Jews. Yet Jesus says, God knows you really
love money, even if you’d deny it, and he tells them this parable about a rich
man, who doesn’t have a name, and a poor man, named Lazarus. Now, I want to be
clear that the rich man’s sin wasn’t being rich. Where he messed up was in not
using his wealth to help the poor, to help Lazarus. This rich man didn’t even
notice the poor man sitting outside his gate, much less offer him a few crumbs,
the leftovers, from his table. He did nothing
to help out his neighbor, who was in desperate need.
Lazarus would certainly qualify in that phrase, “the
least of these” that Jesus uses in the Gospel of Matthew. In Matthew 25, Jesus
describes feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked,
taking care of the sick, and visiting those who are in prison. Then Jesus says,
“Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these, who are
members of my family, you did it to me.” And you know what difference those
actions make? When you feed someone who’s hungry, when you welcome someone you
don’t know, when you clothe someone who’s naked, you offer them hope. When
you’re down on your luck and someone does something kind for you, it gives you
hope. It reminds you that being down on your luck is not the end of the story.
And that’s why Jesus came. In the beginning of Luke, when Jesus first begins
his ministry, he quotes from Isaiah to say, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to
proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the
oppressed go free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”[5]
And then he says, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”[6] That’s
what Jesus’ work is, to bring good news to the least of these, to bring hope to
those who don’t have a lot of hope.
Now, there are two ways we can approach this.[7] One
is to ask who are the least, the last, and the lost? Who are the poor? Who are
those who are on the margins of society? Who’s like Lazarus and left out? And
how are we reaching out and offering hope to them? What are we doing to join
Jesus in his work of bringing hope to a hurting world? Streets of Hope starts
up again in a few weeks. I challenged y’all last year for 100% participation in
this ministry for homeless men. I don’t know exactly, because people who prayed
didn’t tell me about it, they weren’t a Pharisee to make sure others knew they
were doing good things, but assuming most of y’all prayed, then I think we hit
pretty close to 100%.
Cowenton: I know we had more folks involved in supplying and
bringing the meals, and at least once we had too much food!
I’m going to challenge you
again for this season to somehow participate in that outreach. I don’t know if
Patrick shared with you when he was here in August about the name Streets of Hope. If I’m repeating, I apologize. “The
purpose of Churches for Streets of Hope is to mobilize Southeast Baltimore
County to work together in Christ-centered mission for the relief of our area's
poor, distressed, and underprivileged so that they can spark hope in our community.”[8]
The purpose of Streets of Hope is to spark hope in our community. How do you
spark hope for the least of these? Have you noticed the homeless man standing
on the street corner right here, at Pulaski and Ebenezer? Noticing him is the
first step. Have you helped him? His sign says that a fire took everything;
talk about not putting your hope in material wealth! Put your hope in God, and
offer hope to the least, the last, and the lost as well.
The other way to look at those without a lot of hope is
to include ourselves in that group. When have you felt hopeless? When have you
felt like an outsider? When have you felt put down, or like you were not
enough? Have there been times when you’ve been the one who’s sick or in prison
or hungry or lonely or in need of one of life’s basic necessities? Think for a
moment about what that feeling was like, and then about what gave you hope. A
time when you were new, or when no one was listening to you, or when you were
isolated, what gave you hope? I’m assuming you didn’t go out a buy a field! Did
someone call or visit you? Did you receive a letter? Did you play with your
kids or grandkids? Did you pet your dog or cat? Did you go work in your garden?
Did you come to church?
There are two questions here, really. How do we reach out
and offer hope to the poor and outcast? How do we offer hope and hold on to
hope ourselves? We know that we don’t put our hope in our stuff or in our
finances, because it won’t last. We put our hope in the one triune, eternal
God. Romans 5 reminds us that when we hope in God, we are never disappointed. A
new bible translation puts that passage as, “We also celebrate in seasons of
suffering because we know that when we suffer we develop endurance, which
shapes our characters. When our characters are refined, we learn what it means
to hope and anticipate God’s goodness. And hope will never fail to satisfy our
deepest need because the Holy Spirit that was given to us has flooded our
hearts with God’s love.”[9] As
we endure times of hardship, times when we are the least of these, we develop
character and we learn what it means to hope. We learn how to keep the candle
burning. “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these,
you did it to me.” Hope in God, not in your stuff. Relax your hand a little and
hold a little less tightly on to your possessions. Instead, use what you have,
use what God has given you, to offer hope to God’s world. Proclaim the good
news that the Spirit of the Lord is upon us to offer hope to those who are
hurting. It may be yourself, it may be a neighbor, or it may be a complete
stranger, offer hope. Spark hope. Buy a field if you have to. Give away your
leftovers if that’s all you feel you can do. Join God in this work of bringing
hope to those who do not have it.
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