September 20, 2009 Sermon
Text: Jeremiah 52, selections and Romans 8:22-28
Introduction to the Text:
It’s the sixth century before the common era, and the people of Judah are anxious. I chose this passage for today because our children are hearing about it (in an age appropriate way) in Sunday School. It’s a hard passage, and one that our community should hear together, so that we can discuss it with our children. I also chose it for today, not because we are going through anything like what the people of Judah experienced, but because our community and our world are in a time of anxiety. We can sympathize with a people in crisis, which we’ll hear in this passage.
Jeremiah 52 1-10; 12-13; 27b-30
1 Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he began to reign; he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. 2 He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, just as Jehoiakim had done. 3 Indeed, Jerusalem and Judah so angered the Lord that he expelled them from his presence.
Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon. 4 And in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon came with all his army against Jerusalem, and they laid siege to it; they built siegeworks against it all around. 5 So the city was besieged until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. 6 On the ninth day of the fourth month the famine became so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land. 7 Then a breach was made in the city wall; F176 and all the soldiers fled and went out from the city by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, by the king’s garden, though the Chaldeans were all around the city. They went in the direction of the Arabah. 8 But the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king, and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho; and all his army was scattered, deserting him. 9 Then they captured the king, and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath, and he passed sentence on him.
12 In the fifth month, on the tenth day of the month—which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon—Nebuzaradan the captain of the bodyguard who served the king of Babylon, entered Jerusalem. 13 He burned the house of the Lord, the king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem; every great house he burned down.
Judah went into exile out of its land. 28 This is the number of the people whom Nebuchadrezzar took into exile: in the seventh year, three thousand twenty-three Judeans; 29 in the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar he took into exile from Jerusalem eight hundred thirty-two persons; 30 in the twenty-third year of Nebuchadrezzar, Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard took into exile of the Judeans seven hundred forty-five persons; all the persons were four thousand six hundred.
Romans 8: 22-28
22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; 23 and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. 27 And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. 28 We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.
Prayer
Sermon
When I was a child and couldn’t sleep,
because there were monsters in my closet,
dust bunnies under my bed,
creatures howling outside my windows
and scary things rattling around in my mind,
My mom would sit on the side of my bed
in the darkness
and rub circles on my back
slowly
gently
Circles of Love
Peace
Comfort
For hours it seemed,
until I drifted off to sleep.
And even now, when there are scary thing rattling around in my mind, late at night, I imagine her there, rubbing my back until I can sleep.
You have been there, haven’t you? The night spent sleepless with worry. The anxious day, keeping busy until…..The sound of the phone making your heart speed up.
For the people of Israel, or more precisely the southern kingdom of Judah, for the northern tribes of Israel we defeated long before – there could never have been a time more anxious than the reign of Zedekiah.
I hope you will forgive a history lesson – I’ll try to be brief, but this stuff is important to understanding the Hebrew Scriptures, especially the words of prophets like Jeremiah, Isaiah and Ezekiel.
Along about 1200 BCE, the Israelites came out of captivity in Egypt and settled in the land of Canaan. There was always a foreign threat. In the era of the first king, Saul, around 1020 BCE, it was the Philistines ( you remember, David defeated one of them). A few hundred years later it was Assyria, and Assyria took down the northern half of the divided Kingdom, the part known as Israel at the time, in 722 BCE. Judah, the southern kingdom, became a vassal state to Assyria, and then was dominated by Egypt and then threatened by Babylon’s ascension. Though they were dominated by the Babylonians, Judah and its capital of Jerusalem were still the center of the worship of Yahweh, the site of the Temple. The prophet Jeremiah, seeing what was coming, urged the puppet king Zedekiah to capitulate to the Babylonians, but to worship God properly. Zedekiah did neither. He did not worship God properly, and he rebelled against the Babylonians. In 587 BCE, the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, sacked Judah and its capital Jerusalem, laid waste to the holy Temple, and took the people into exile.
If you have read Psalm 137, or seen Godspell, you know the emotions of Judah in the era of exile:
1 By the rivers of Babylon— there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion. [2 On the willows there we hung up our harps. 3 For there our captors asked us for songs, and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!" 4 How could we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?]
Oh mercy.
Can’t sleep now.
Can’t sing.
Can’t do anything but weep and wonder, what will become of us and think of the old glory days, in Zion…on Pleasant Street.
Oh mercy.
Oh Lord have mercy on us.
You’ve got to know the history, to understand the prophets’ next message.
When the people were misbehaving, the prophets spoke God’s call to repentance, to piety and right worship.
But when the people were in exile, that is not the word God gave to the prophets.
In exile, what the people heard from God was:
“Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” (Isaiah 40:31) That’s the children’s memory verse for the fall, by the way.
Jeremiah, who was the very voice of doom to the puppet king, preached to the people in exile:
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, 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.] (Chapter 31)
The word of God to the people in exile was always a message of hope, a vision of a better future, a message of promise, and a message of comfort.
“Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.” (Isaiah 40:1)
God sat on the side of the bed, rubbing the backs of her children. Even in the darkness I am here. Even in Babylon, I am with you. You are never alone.
“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. 2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.” (Isaiah 43:1b-2)
Whatever Judah had done that displeased God, they were still God’s beloved children.
Five decades later, Judah was restored and the rebuilding of the Temple began.
~~
Fast forward a few centuries.
The followers of the resurrected Christ are a struggling, persecuted group. This is long before Constantine made Christianity the religion of the empire. There is no one but God on their side. They are meeting in houses, in some cases hiding from the authorities. Paul, a leader of their movement, writes to the church at Rome. And here comes my favorite chapter in all of scripture, Romans chapter 8. If you need a word of hope, turn to this chapter.
“The Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.”
It’s all going to be ok, says Paul to a worried people, the Holy Spirit, God’s divine wisdom, is on your side. God is always present to you. Keep following God’s will, keep the faith, and all things will work together for good.
We receive lots of messages through Scripture: messages on justice, messages on the way to worship God, the teachings of Jesus, the narrative of resurrection. And over and over again, we receive the message of the hope that we have in God, who loves us always, who is working good in our lives even when we can’t see it, and from whom we cannot be separated.
When the people of Judah were in exile, the prophets reminded them that God would always love them, and that there was hope, even when they messed up, even when things were at their worst.
To a ragtag band of followers of the way, Paul held out the promise of God’s faithfulness. Yes, everything is going to be alright. It may not be clear now. You may not be able to see it. The way things turn out may not even be recognizable to you, as you imagine the future now. But it’s all going turn out good, because God is at work in it.
28 We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to God’s purpose.
Thanks be to the one who can see the future’s redemption, even when we can’t. Thanks be to the one who comforts us in the night. Thanks be to God.
Amen.