“PRAY: Invest in God’s Dream”

Prayer:   “May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts and minds here together be acceptable to you, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer.  Amen.”

Have you noticed that things aren’t going so well with the world these days?  There’s a lot of bad news out there, a lot of reasons to get down on our knees and pray, beg for mercy even.  Demand God take some action.  I mean, just yesterday my paper had stories about the threat of global economic collapse, the increasing risk of wars in the Middle East, Korea, and Africa, and the danger to public health and safety from poor diet, broken gas lines (like the one that blew up in California), and bed bugs.  It’s amazing we pray as calmly as we do.  It’s a wonder more of us don’t raise our fists and shout at God, “THY Kingdom come, THY will be done on earth as it is in heaven!”  I mean, what in the world was Jesus thinking there in Luke when he says, “the kingdom of God is among you”?  It’s not obvious to me that God’s kingdom is…or was…or ever will be, among us.

OK, so this is what I love about church – the sheer insanity of faith – the way we come together to pray and give thanks to our invisible God, and re-invest ourselves in God’s crazy dream for the world.  We get up and we step over all that bad news that lands on our doorstep in the Sunday papers – or those of us who still get papers – and we gather here in hopes of hearing some Good News.  At the end of a long, hard week, we plunk ourselves down in these 19^th century pews with our frayed carpets and our faded spirits to match, and somehow, with God’s help – with the help of a great organ and choirs – we rise to our feet, we lift our voices, and we fill our plain little meetinghouse with the Glory and Grace of God.  Some weeks I honestly don’t know how we do it. 

We preachers do our best to bring you hope, but let’s face it, we can take just one look into the faces of our children as they sing, and we say, once again, “Ah… there it is.  There it is.  “the kingdom of God is among us.”  It was Gert Ewing who reminded me of that last week, as I visited her in the hospital with her broken hip.  She talked about how much our church means to her, and she only joined us recently, when she turned 90.  You should have seen the way her face lit up when she remembered sitting in that front pew there by her friend Marge Nohe and hearing the children’s choir sing.  The children show us the Kingdom of God, the glory of hope and love alive here. 

We mustn’t forget we a long line of generations in faith – each of whom I’m sure thought they had it worse than the generation before.  Our former church historian Gene Farrell blesses us when he reminds us of our stories – about how faith in God’s promises, investment in God’s dream for the world, got his generation through the Great Depression and the 2^nd World War, through the Civil Rights movement and Vietnam, not to mention local controversies that led to a church split right here in Brookfield.  We need those reminders now, and Jesus’s generation needed them too.  As he struggled to lead his people to some hope and dignity under the oppressive rule of the Roman Empire, he kept pointing to the way their faith had strengthened them in the past.  Jesus preached from the only Bible he had, from the Old Testament – and he quoted the great prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah.  He reminded his people that God had gotten them through worst times before, and would get them through again. 

And so we need to still do today – especially on this anniversary Sunday – to claim and reclaim our history.  As the church of the Pilgrims, our ancestors risked their lives to assemble illegally to worship in England.  Talk about investing in God’s dream!  They invested their very lives as they gathered in secret to pray – it’s not wonder they took inspiration from books like the Letter to the Hebrews, written to inspire the early church under the Roman Empire.  They were literally “running with perseverance the race” that was set before them!  When they were driven out, they got into their small sailing ships and came to this new land, where their great work of shaping society was done with word and prayer and action.  These little white churches that they planted all across the rocky hillsides of New England formed the moral backbone of this new world.  Their great Ivy League universities were intellectual lights that still shine brightly today.

Sometimes, I know, they shaped society with the very political and religious oppression that they had been fleeing…unfortunately…as they persecuted Jews and Catholics.  But even as we admit now to our flaws, we are the inheritors of their humble, confessional faith.  We are still today dedicated to their traditions of faithful prayer and Bible study, to their attention to uplifting worship and preaching, to their commitment to free marketplace of ideas, good public education for all, and working for justice – such as their leadership in the abolition of slavery, and rights for freed slaves, immigrants, and women – not to mention, now, in these times, human rights for gays and lesbians.

But there’s still an awful lot of work to do, an awful long way to go yet, until we see God’s dreams for the world come true.  I mean, can we really, honestly proclaim, with Jesus, “the Kingdom of God is among you?”  Sometimes it’s harder to find them than others, especially in the Bible.  “Amen,” Sherrie?  Did you guys hear what scripture she had to read for us today?  Jeremiah’s dream is not all that inspiring – it is a property transfer.  With all due respect to those of you who work in real estate, the story of someone else’s land transaction with his cousin is not likely to inspire anyone to shout “Halleluia!”  Or so I thought until I read up more about the historical background of the story. 

You see, it all sounds kind of ordinary unless we really hear what the text says:

“The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord [when] the army of the king of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem, and the prophet Jeremiah was confined in the court of the guard that was in the palace of the king of Judah, ³where King Zedekiah of Judah had confined him. …”  Jeremiah was a political prisoner when all this happened!  When we hear “prophet,” we think “fortune teller” but what we really should hear is “opposition party leader” or “talk radio host.”  Jeremiah was speaking truth to power, and going to jail for it, because his nation was under a totalitarian dictator.  Nebuchadrezzer was the King of Babylon, the Saddam Hussein of his time. 

So imprisoned by this king, “⁶Jeremiah says, The word of the Lord came to me: ⁷Hanamel son of your uncle Shallum is going to come to you and say, ‘Buy my field that is at Anathoth, for the right of redemption by purchase is yours.’” His nephew Hanamel is a poor relation who comes begging to Jeremiah, who as an advisor to King Zedekiah even in prison is still better off than most, whose homes and fields had been burned by the conquering armies.  Now I don’t know about you, if I were Jeremiah, I think I would be tempted to keep what little money I might have saved up to use as bribes to get out of jail!  But then the vision comes true.  “⁸Then my cousin Hanamel came to me in the court of the guard, in accordance with the word of the Lord, and said to me, ‘Buy my field that is at Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, for the right of possession and redemption is yours; buy it for yourself.’” Jeremiah has this déjà vu moment and knows he has to do what God is telling him to do.  God was still speaking,

So he buys the field for 17 shekels of silver – in a collapsed real estate market we know what that meant. He was buying for his family, so he pays full price, even though the land to any outsider would be virtually worthless.  Jeremiah was investing in God’s dream for the future of the property and of his nation.  He signs the deed, seals it, with witnesses present, in public, as a public witness to faith in the presence of all the Judeans who were sitting in the court of the guard.  And he places the sealed deed of purchase in an earthenware jar, so it will last for a long time. He really invests in the long return – in the hopes of his people, not for their own generation, but for their children, and their children’s children.  That’s what we still do, when we invest in our church.

You see why I loved this story?  I really got excited when I read an historical sermon on the text, written for a Dutch church in November 1945.  The pastor got up and preached this Jeremiah to his poor people, who were about to spend yet another winter eating tulip bulbs and wondering if spring would ever come again.  When times get tough, we need reminders of past miracles.  And I’m here to tell you that we are wimps if we are tempted to despair today.  Meeting this capital campaign goal and last year’s stewardship goal in this economy are both unbelievable miracles, miracles to be truly celebrated, miracles we need to celebrate because they are payoffs on our investment in God’s Dream.

If you want to be inspired, just look at what God is doing here in Brookfield.  We are the fulfillment of our ancestors dreams, those who built the original barn on this site not knowing whether it would survive or be burned to the ground in the next Indian attack.  We have overcome our economic fears long enough to really invest ourselves in God’s dream. My prayer is that, even if times get worse for us, we can continue invest ourselves in God’s dream for our church, in a future yet unseen.  We persevere in the race that is set before us because we look to Jesus, the “pioneer and perfecter of our faith.”  He points to God’s dream, and calls us every day to reinvest.

Thanks be to God for this Good News.  Amen.

 

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Jeremiah. 32:1-3a, 6-15

32The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the tenth year of King Zedekiah of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar. 2At that time the army of the king of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem, and the prophet Jeremiah was confined in the court of the guard that was in the palace of the king of Judah, 3where King Zedekiah of Judah had confined him. …6Jeremiah said, The word of the Lord came to me: 7Hanamel son of your uncle Shallum is going to come to you and say, “Buy my field that is at Anathoth, for the right of redemption by purchase is yours.” 8Then my cousin Hanamel came to me in the court of the guard, in accordance with the word of the Lord, and said to me, “Buy my field that is at Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, for the right of possession and redemption is yours; buy it for yourself.” Then I knew that this was the word of the Lord. 9And I bought the field at Anathoth from my cousin Hanamel, and weighed out the money to him, seventeen shekels of silver. 10I signed the deed, sealed it, got witnesses, and weighed the money on scales. 11Then I took the sealed deed of purchase, containing the terms and conditions, and the open copy; 12and I gave the deed of purchase to Baruch son of Neriah son of Mahseiah, in the presence of my cousin Hanamel, in the presence of the witnesses who signed the deed of purchase, and in the presence of all the Judeans who were sitting in the court of the guard. 13In their presence I charged Baruch, saying, 14Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Take these deeds, both this sealed deed of purchase and this open deed, and put them in an earthenware jar, in order that they may last for a long time. 15For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.

Hebrews 12:1-3, 11-15, 28

12Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, 2looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God. 3Consider him who endured such hostility against himself from sinners, so that you may not grow weary or lose heart. …
11Now, discipline always seems painful rather than pleasant at the time, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. 12Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, 13and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed. 14Pursue peace with everyone, and the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. 15See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble, and through it many become defiled. …28Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us give thanks, by which we offer to God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe…

Luke 17:20-21

Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered,
“The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed;
nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’
For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.”