Rev. Teri Peterson
PCOP
Hope in the Face of Fear
Jeremiah 42.1-12
24 July 2016, P2-2
(overflowing: hope)
The events of today’s reading happen shortly after King
Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had defeated the Israelites, destroyed Jerusalem, and
carried their king, officials, leaders, priests, and well-off people away into
exile. The people left behind were either too poor to be of interest to the
Babylonians, or were military men who had fled out into the countryside to
escape.
Just before the people came to Jeremiah in today’s story,
they discussed their options, and decided it would probably be best if all of them
who were left went out of the land and down into Egypt. Their own land had been
ruined by war, so a famine was likely. Their cities were rubble, and the
government and artisans and people with resources were all gone. Egypt was the
opposite direction from Babylon, and far out of reach of Nebuchadnezzar, so
felt safer. Having figured all this out, they come to the prophet to seek God’s
blessing on their decision, as we read in Jeremiah 42, which can be found on
page ___ of your pew Bible if you’d like to follow along.
Then all the commanders of the forces, and
Johanan son of Kareah and Azariah son of Hoshaiah, and all the people from the
least to the greatest, approached the prophet Jeremiah and said, ‘Be good
enough to listen to our plea, and pray to the Lord your God for us—for all this
remnant. For there are only a few of us left out of many, as your eyes can see.
Let the Lord your God show us where we should go and what we should do.’ The
prophet Jeremiah said to them, ‘Very well: I am going to pray to the Lord your
God as you request, and whatever the Lord answers you I will tell you; I will
keep nothing back from you.’ They in their turn said to Jeremiah, ‘May the Lord
be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not act according to everything
that the Lord your God sends us through you. Whether it is good or bad, we will
obey the voice of the Lord our God to whom we are sending you, in order that it
may go well with us when we obey the voice of the Lord our God.’
At the end of ten days the word of the
Lord came to Jeremiah. Then he summoned Johanan son of Kareah and all the
commanders of the forces who were with him, and all the people from the least
to the greatest, and said to them, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, to
whom you sent me to present your plea before him: If you will only remain in
this land, then I will build you up and not pull you down; I will plant you,
and not pluck you up; for I am sorry for the disaster that I have brought upon
you. Do not be afraid of the king of Babylon, as you have been; do not be
afraid of him, says the Lord, for I am with you, to save you and to rescue you
from his hand. I will grant you mercy, and he will have mercy on you and
restore you to your native soil.
The world was falling apart. First, the king and all the
ruling class and the religious leaders, along with the merchants and artisans,
had been carried away to Babylon, and a puppet king installed. Then, when he
also refused to listen to the prophet and insisted on going his own way, the
Babylonian army had come and camped around Jerusalem, laying siege to the city
for 17 months before finally breaking through and destroying everything—pulling
down buildings, including the Temple, setting fire to the city, and tearing
down the city walls. The entire Israelite army was either killed or ran away.
The Babylonians looted the Temple and the city, and carried off all that
bronzework we heard about a few weeks ago, and all the gold and silver ritual
dishes, and also the rest of the merchants, officers, Temple staff,
secretaries, and advisors who had come to live in the city in the intervening
decade. Second Kings ends the story of the battle with the simple statement “So
Judah was exiled from its land.”
Those who are left—the officers who deserted during the
battle, making their way back to the ruined city, the poor people left behind
to work the land, the governor appointed by Nebuchadnezzar—have watched their
whole world turn upside down. Their leaders have failed them. The economy is in
shambles, the environment is a disaster, and their understanding of themselves
as chosen and blessed by God, the best nation, has been shaken.
Into this anxious and angry community, the newly appointed
governor tries to speak calmly, encouraging the people to live in this new
reality and make a way forward.
The prophet Jeremiah speaks the word of the Lord, saying the
same thing: stay here in your land, build and plant, and God will build you up
and plant you here—no more tearing down, no more plucking up. Live here now,
and be God’s people here and now, and don’t be afraid.
The people, though, can’t hear it. They shout that the
prophet is lying, God would never say that. They insist that the governor is
corrupt because he was appointed by the king of Babylon, so they kill him over
the dinner table. And then they get together and talk about how good things
used to be, and how they just want to feel that way again—safe and prosperous
and blessed.
It’s like they are re-living the exodus, channeling their
ancestors insisting that it was better back in Egypt when they sat by the pots
and ate their fill.
But they are so blinded by their fear that they can’t
see—they can’t see how their memory of the past is colored by their anxiety,
they can’t see forward, so they decide to run away. They’ll go back to Egypt,
as far from the stranger king as possible, reaching way way back to their
roots…and then, maybe, they’ll be safe.
They come to Jeremiah for prayer with this plan already in
mind, anticipating that he’ll offer them God’s blessing. They insist that
they’ll do whatever God says, as long as Jeremiah tells them everything. They
insist so vehemently that it feels suspicious, actually, like they may be
covering their anxiety with lots of words, babbling almost. Protesting too
much, perhaps.
Jeremiah knows, and God knows, they’re not going to obey.
But Jeremiah takes them seriously anyway. He goes to God and prays—for ten
days, asking God for guidance. That’s a long time in an anxious space, with
people stewing in their fear. It’s hard to wait, especially when it feels like
the world is falling apart and we have to do something RightNow. Jeremiah
doesn’t rush, though—he isn’t afraid to listen for what God is truly saying,
and to take the time to be certain before speaking.
When the word comes, Jeremiah knows it won’t be well
received, but he speaks it anyway. He offers God’s words of hope: I will build
you up, I will plant you, do not be afraid, remain in this land.
It’s a beautiful vision: God says “I am with you.”
Spoiler alert: the people can’t see this vision. Their eyes
and minds and hearts are clouded by fear—fear of invasion, fear of hunger, fear
of each other. They cannot hear quiet truth, or carefully considered words.
They long for the way things were, and they don't want to do the hard work of building
God’s new future when it seems easier to go back, so they instead insult
Jeremiah and his secretary, calling them liars and other names. And they pack
up Jeremiah and Baruch into the already loaded caravans and carry them off to
Egypt too.
In the face of fear, the people could not choose hope.
It takes courage to be hopeful when the world is falling
apart. When everything is upside down, and our self-image is shattered and we
aren’t sure what’s coming next, and our minds are full of images of the good
old days, it is hard work to look for God’s presence and hope amidst the ruins
of our assumptions and anxiety. And it’s hard to pray honestly, as Jeremiah
did. Many of us are tempted to take the path of the people—asking God to bless
the side we are already on, rather than asking God to open our hearts and minds
and wills to walk God’s way…and then to wait for God to reveal the path, even
while we are afraid of what might happen.
In the world at any given moment, there’s plenty to be
afraid of. And there are people all around encouraging us to fear our
neighbors, the possibilities of the unknown, the future, the government, nature,
other countries, other religions, other political parties. We are constantly
inundated with messages of fear, and it’s easy to slip into “it was better
before when we were in Egypt” mode. It’s easy to join the throng in putting our
trust in things other than God, taking matters into our own hands because God
is too slow to answer, or because the word of God is too hard to follow.
But there’s also plenty of reason to hope. Even in the face
of fear, we can choose hope. We can live as if we believe God’s promise is
true: Do not be afraid, I am with you. We can be careful not to be blinded by
the anxiety peddled by our leaders and our media, we can insist that they be
truthful in their dealings with us, and we can refrain from automatically
disbelieving anything we don’t already agree with. We can act with integrity—a
key theme of the book of Jeremiah—and make sure that what we do and how we
behave lines up with what we say we believe. We can do our part to make the
world look a little more like the kingdom of God—treating everyone, even our
enemies, with kindness and respect; caring for God’s creation even when it
isn’t convenient; looking out for people on the margins and helping those in
need even when it costs us more than we get back. We can refuse to participate
in groups or systems that do not recognize the image of God in every person no
matter their race or religion, and instead create spaces where all are truly welcome.
We can choose hope, in the midst of all the fear that floats around and
threatens to overwhelm us. It will take enormous courage, and we may sometimes
have to do it even when we aren’t feeling it, but we can, and we should, be people who embody the good news of God, true
in every time and every place: do not be afraid, I am with you.
May it be so. Amen.
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