Sermon for the Twenty-Third Sunday After Pentecost, Year B, "Remnants and Restoration," Psalm 126 and Jeremiah 31:7-9 (Proper 25B, Ordinary 30B)

Sermon 10/27/24

Jeremiah 31:7-9 and Psalm 126

Remnants and Restoration

I have been thinking about you all in this challenging season. As I reminded you when I first joined the preaching rotation here, this church was the site of my first job during seminary. I was the youth pastor from 2000-2001. As part of my role I also helped lead in worship and preached about once a month, and this was my first job at a church other than my “home” church. I felt nervous and unsure of myself, but I was also excited to be in seminary and to be really “doing it,” this ministry thing I’d felt called to for a long time. I know this is a painful time. I remember the busy congregation of 25 years ago, and I know you’ve seen and mourned a lot of change, and I know the upcoming change of closure will be the hardest yet. 

I’ve been thinking about what it feels like to lose a place of deep connection in our lives, in our formation. The first home I ever really lived in, from infancy until I was about 9 years old, is still standing, and from the outside it looks the same. But the family that bought it from us completely tore out the inside. The rooms that were once my bedroom, my playroom, the rooms where my extended family gathered for so many Thanksgivings - they’re not there any more, not in any recognizable way. My grandparents’ home, around the corner from my childhood home, has been vacant for many years now, and is slowly crumbling, not safe for anyone to enter. The place I went to high school was demolished, making way for the district’s athletic offices, and a new high school across town. I can’t go into the halls I once walked as a student, a find my old lunch table or the music and theatre rooms where I spent most of my time. And my childhood church, where attend church with my grandparents and family until we moved twenty minutes away - that church closed many years ago now - a tiny country church that shrunk along with the town, and that has now been converted into a private home. 

It’s painful, it fills us with loss, I think, when we feel cut off from a part of our lives, particularly a part, a place, a season, a time that shaped us deeply. Our scripture readings for today both speak to communities who have known this kind of pain on a grand scale. The Ancient Israelites of the scriptures are marked by two major themes: the Exodus story, and Exile. After a season of warnings from the prophets to repent and return to following God, after warnings that they were failing to enact justice for the poor and marginalized, after warnings that their rituals were empty if the people did not truly give their hearts to God, and after warnings that if they did not change, then God would not prevent them from being conquered and controlled by foreign rulers, the Israelites found themselves sent out from their homeland. They were exiled from home. And it was devastating. The scriptures are full of lament and sorrow in the midst of exile. There’s a deep sense of loss. There’s fear, abandonment, grief, a replaying of everything that might have been done another way. 

But there’s also always still, even in the midst of what feels like the harshest punishment, God’s presence. God and God’s promises remain with Israel, even in exile. We see these themes in our scripture texts: In Jeremiah, the people are asking God: “Please, save us - the remnant. The leftover bits of your people.” The exile has come at a cost - lives have been lost. People have scattered. The clear identity of God’s people has been dulled. God, save the remnant. And God responds, “With weeping they shall come, and with consolations I will lead them back.” The Psalm follows a similar pattern: “Restore our fortunes, God,” the people cry. And the Psalmist offers a blessing, imaging how God may answer: “May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy. Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves.” The remnant is enough. The people are saved. God restores. There’s a homecoming. 

Homecoming is certainly a theme in the scriptures - we can think, for example, of the powerful parable of the prodigal son, welcomed home by the loving father, no questions asked. A welcome home is such a powerful thing, isn’t it? As much as I started by sharing with you so many places in my life where I can never “go home” again, I find myself in a strange season in life where I am a student at Drew Theological School again twenty years after I attended here the first time. I graduated with my Master of Divinity in 2003, and in 2020, I started my PhD at Drew. I returned to a very familiar campus. I returned to many of the same faculty who were my wise professors the first time around, and have continued to teach me now, all these years later. 

But even though I have returned “home” to Drew, of course, it is not all the same. I don’t have the same classmates. The places I lived twenty years ago have been upgraded into luxury housing I could never afford. Seminary Hall has an addition - for which I’m thankful - but which also changes the building a lot. Many students take classes online, and fewer are on campus, in the building. And I’m different. I started the MDiv at Drew when I was 21 years old, not even five years out of high school. Now I’m a person who is in my 40s and who has spent years in ministry and had so much life experience that I didn’t have the last time at Drew. I’m home at Drew - but home is different, and “me” is different too. And thank goodness for that. I loved Drew then, and I love Drew now, but I’m reminded that being “home” at Drew has more to do with its values, its commitments to justice and love and compassion that I resonate with, its pursuit of diversity and wisdom that inspire me, rather than some unchanging material aspects. 

I’ve been thinking about my Drew homecoming as I think about these Exile texts and as I think about you all. I hear you in the voice of the prophets and the voice of Jeremiah - a remnant - the remaining people, perhaps feeling like you are about to be exiled, and perhaps already longing for home. What do God’s promises look like for you? Because I do believe God’s promises are with you. I do believe that God will restore, rebuild, grow new life in and with you. But what does that look like when you can’t come home in the way that you might have hoped? 

I mentioned to you that my childhood church is now a private home. I have so many memories of my little childhood church. It is where I learned the stories of the bible, and memorized scriptures in Sunday School. It’s where I was confirmed - it happened a few years earlier than usual there, since we were a small congregation. It was where I first took communion. It was there, as a five year old, that I collected the used bulletins after church each week to save because I was going to be a pastor when I grew up. It was where I made my first request for a favorite hymn at a hymn sing, and where I first made a prayer request out loud on my own. So many precious memories. When we voted on the closure of that church at our Annual Conference, my Uncle, who was a District Superintendent at the time, when to speak at the microphone. And what he said was: this church may be closing, but the impact it has had is not over, because this church produced pastors, and church leaders, and faithful disciples of Jesus Christ who continue to follow Jesus even though it won’t happen from inside those same walls anymore. This church planted seeds, and produced fruit, and the harvest will still continue. This church has a legacy that matters. 

Friends, remnants sometimes get treated as a byproduct, waste of something else that was created that is leftover and not worth much. But thankfully, we serve a God who can do a whole lot with a very little. God loves a remnant. God brings life from what is leftover. God work restoration where it seems there was nothing left. God takes the pieces of our broken hearts, and rebuilds. And so even when “home” isn’t here to return to, God builds home within us, and we bear the fruit of all the seeds that have been planted in us along the way. 

Some of the details of what is “home” are changing. And we are changing, ever and always. But the constant is God, who is with us at home, and with us in exile, and with us as we find home again. Thanks be to God, our home. Amen. 

 

Sermon for the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost, Year B (Proper 11, Ordinary 16), "Of Sheep and Shepherds," Mark 6:30-34, 53-56, Jeremiah 23:1-6

 

Sermon 7/21/24

Mark 6:30-34, 53-56, Jeremiah 23:1-6

Of Sheep and Shepherds

I’ve been thinking a whole lot about leadership lately, and who it is we want to lead us and why. Yes, as you can imagine, I’ve got the upcoming presidential election on my mind. No, don’t worry, I’m not about to get into who to vote for - or who not to vote for - or why. Today I’m more interested in thinking about what we value in leaders. What kind of leader do you think the President of the United States should be? I found an article that addressed several characteristics that seem to make for effective presidencies in American history, and the top qualities include: A strong vision for the country's future, an ability to put their own times in the perspective of history, effective communication skills, the courage to make unpopular decisions, crisis management skills, character and integrity, wise appointments, and an ability to work with Congress. (1) That sounds like a pretty decent list. But it is a rear view mirror list. In other words, it was a list made reflecting on presidencies after they were over, not in the midst of electing a new president. I tried to find something that gave a good sense of what we’re looking for when we’re electing a new president. The best I could find was a recent survey that asked people how they rated a pre-selected list of attributes. So, the survey decided on some important traits, but people got to rank them. There were some party-line differences, but people valued strength, honesty, and competence. Most of all? Across party lines, people said “taking responsibility” was their most desired characteristic in a leader. (2) Now, that desire can be interpreted in a lot of ways, but I suspect at least part of why people say they want someone who will take responsibility is because they feel like our leaders don’t do this already. How often do we hear our leaders - presidents or governors or members of congress or otherwise - say: that mistake was my fault and I accept responsibility? Examples do not immediately spring to my mind. 

I read recently on social media some words from John G. Stackhouse Jr.: “God, after all, has a long record of allowing societies to reap what they sow and get the leadership they deserve. It's called judgment, not blessing.” I’ve been thinking about that a lot. This idea: God gives people the kind of leader they want, even if it turns out to be an awful decision, even when it turns out the people are really bad at choosing leaders. Are we bad at choosing leaders? Stackhouse is certainly commenting on current events, but he’s also making observations about the biblical record. Our history, as people, of choosing poorly when it comes to leaders, is not new. It’s in fact a quite, quite old problem. That’s what our text from Jeremiah is talking about. When God first called together a people, Israel, God said that God would be the only ruler they needed. But eventually, the people started clamoring for a king, because they wanted to be like the other nations around them - they all had earthly rulers, and the Israelites wanted one too. And so God gave them what they wanted. And, as Stackhouse suggests, it mostly turned out to be a terrible decision. With few exceptions, ruler after ruler did what was evil in God’ sight, leading the people down destructive paths, resulting in wars, and poverty, and hardship, and most of all: idolatry and alienation from God. 

In Jeremiah, God has had it with rulers who are not the shepherds God intends them to be. Shepherds are supposed to care for and protect the sheep - at all costs! But instead, God says, the rules of Israel have been destroying and scattering the sheep - God’s people. There are consequences, God says. But as always, God makes promises too: God will be the shepherd earthly rulers are not, and gather the people. And God will raise up shepherds who will lead with righteousness and justice so that the people can live in safety. So what kind of leader do we want? What kind of shepherd does God seek out for us? Can we accept the shepherd God longs for us to have, instead of insisting we know better? 

There’s more talk about sheep and shepherds in our gospel lesson, where we start out with Jesus just seeking some peace and quiet after the relentless pace of his teaching, healing, and ministry. Picture this: you are exhausted. It has been a long week at work. Some things have gone wrong. And all week, you’ve been looking forward to a quiet Saturday at home, where you can sleep in. You’re just going to relax. No agenda. No schedule. No plans. And then, there’s a knock at the door. Or the phone rings. And suddenly, that time for rest and relaxation has vanished. And it’s not even that whoever interrupted your time is not a friend, a person you enjoy. It’s just that you were so exhausted, and you so needed a break. Has this ever happened to you?  

That’s what happens to Jesus and the disciples. They were trying to take just a little break, because with all the work they’ve been doing, they haven’t even had time to eat. But the people, who so want to see Jesus, experience his teaching, his healing, find out where he’s going, and while Jesus is traveling by boat, they hurry ahead on foot, so that by the time Jesus reaches his destination, they’re already there waiting for him. And Jesus doesn’t groan when he sees them all waiting. He doesn’t huff and puff and demand that he needs his alone time. Instead, we read: “As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.” Jesus is moved with compassion. The Greek word in the Bible for compassion is my very favorite. The word is a mouthful: ἐσπλαγχνίσθη - esplangchnisthe. It means something to the effect of: your guts are tied up in knots with the level of concern you have for someone. You are physically moved with emotion for the person you’re considering. You feel such concern, such care that it affects you physically. And this word is mostly used in the Bible to describe how Jesus feels about the crowds, the people. In fact, this word is used more times about Jesus than all others instances in the Bible combined. When Jesus sees people, his guts twist with the deepness of his concern. Compassion. His intestines twisted in knots in deep concern for what he saw. A true shepherd, like the one the prophet Jeremiah wrote of, is like this one: one who laments when the sheep are without a shepherd, and is moved to the core of their being to step in and lead, to step in and be that shepherd. 

I wonder: is compassion a leadership skill? Do we want a leader who is compassionate? What kind of leader does it make you if your best skill is that you have gut-wrenching compassion for people like Jesus does - all kinds of people, in all kinds of situations, some of their own making, some deserving more than they’ve gotten, some deserving less - all kinds of people? What kind of leader does it make you if your best skills are compassion, mercy, grace? Well, we can see what kind of leader his signature compassion makes Jesus into: It makes Jesus the kind of leader who can’t seem to stop pouring himself out for others, even when he’d really love a nap. It makes Jesus the kind of leader who says that he came to be a servant of all. It makes Jesus the kind of leader who eschews every attempt to elevate and glorify himself, to take a throne, to rule over. It makes him the kind of leader who cherishes children as those with important wisdom to share. It makes him the kind of leader who notices the widows, the poor, those who have been deemed sinful, those whom no one wants to touch,even the ones who are considered enemies - he notices and sees and embraces. It makes Jesus the kind of leader who gives his life for others. It makes him a true shepherd, a good shepherd, who cannot just pass by when he sees lost sheep. 

Sometimes I think we need reminding of just who it is we’ve committed to following. As people of faith, we’ve committed to following someone whose leadership skills may not be on the top list for presidential candidates. Elections matter. Secular leaders matter. Of course they do. I think we should vote, and vote thoughtfully, faithfully, trying our best to vote in alignment with our deepest held values. But I’m reminded of a post that was going around on Facebook way back in the Obama/Romney election in 2012. It showed Romney and Obama each with a statement near them that read: “Hope of the world.” But then it was crossed out. And it said at the bottom: “That job’s already taken.” I love that. Jesus is the hope of our world and the only one we should seek to follow. The empires of the earth - all of them - rise and fall. But Jesus is eternal, and our place in God’s heart is forever, and God’s love and compassion for us is everlasting. Let’s be followers of the leader God chooses for us. Let’s have the characteristics and qualities of Jesus be the ones we seek out. Let it be the compassion of Jesus that we long for the most, and most strive to imitate. Let’s be sheep in the fold of the shepherd who loves us down to his very guts. Amen. 

1. https://www.ushistory.org/gov/7e.asp

2. https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/31249-leadership-qualities-president-poll-data

Sermon, "The Story, Part I: Exile and Restoration," Jeremiah 10:17-25, 17:7-8, 31:31-34

Sermon 10/13/19

Jeremiah 10:17-25, 17:7-8, 31:31-34

The Story, Part 1: Exile and Restoration

Today in our journey through the Story of the Bible, we find ourselves in the Book of Jeremiah, one of the many books of prophecy in the Bible. As I’ve shared before, although we sometimes think of prophecy like fortune-telling, predicting the future, it’s really more about truth-telling. Here’s what’s going to happen if you keep heading down the path you’re on. Most of the books of prophecy in the Bible are centered around one particular narrative of warning about a painful future: With some speaking to the kingdom of Judah and some to Israel, with some warning and correcting decades before events unfolded and some writing from the center of the storm, so to speak, almost all of the writings of the prophets are warning Israel and Judah that if they don’t repent and return to God with all their hearts, they will be conquered by foreign rulers and exiled from the Promised Land. There are a few chief complaints that God has with God’s people. The most persistent is idolatry - people keep putting other gods, other things, before God. They’re not being faithful to their covenant with God. They said that God would be their one and only God, but they’re putting other things first in their life. That’s the main, worst offense. And related to that: when they stopped putting God first, they also stopped making care for the marginalized a priority. They’ve been disregarding the poor, the widow, the orphan, the stranger. Through the prophets, God tells people God has had enough of their rejecting the covenant. They have opportunity after opportunity to repent, to change their ways and turn back to God, but they don’t. And so what starts as warnings from the prophets turns into declarations of what will be: God is going to exile them. 

That’s what we find in our readings from Jeremiah today. We get three sections of text from Jeremiah, and the first is all about the coming exile. The language is bold and clear. Through Jeremiah, God says, “I am going to fling away the inhabitants of the land … and I will bring distress on them, so that they feel it.” God expresses deep pain because of being rejected by God’s own people. “Woe is me because of my hurt,” says God. “My wound is severe.” I think sometimes we forget that - that God can hurt, that we can cause God pain. Jeremiah describes a God who is brokenhearted. Jeremiah pleads on behalf of the people: “Correct us, God, but if you use all your anger on us, with all your power, we’ll be nothing.” But Jeremiah imagines he hears a noise, a commotion coming - the armies arriving who will make their homeland a desolation. 

In the second short excerpt, Jeremiah says, “Blessed are those who trust in the Lord.” Those who trust God, he says, are like a tree that’s planted by the water, that sends its roots out into the stream. They’re like a tree that doesn’t fear when it gets very hot - doesn’t wither or yellow in the extreme weather. They’re like a tree that doesn’t worry or get damaged even in a year of drought, but continues to bear fruit all the same. That’s what it is like for those who trust in God. 

And then, in the third section, God is looking ahead, looking forward already to the joyful time when God will make a new covenant with God’s people. “The days are surely coming,” God says. God says this time, the covenant will be different, not like the covenant the Israelites broke. This covenant, God says, will be put right within God’s people. God will write it on their hearts. People will know the covenant because it lives with in them, from the greatest to the least in a society. “I will be their God, and they shall be my people … I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.” 

I’ve been thinking about exile this week. Being pushed out of your home - banished from your home. In some ways, I think it is hard for us to relate. It is not a typical punishment, anymore, for crimes, at least not in the US. My mom might tell you that on one of her favorite shows, Survivor, you can get voted off the island - “The tribe has spoken.” But mostly, we don’t worry about being conquered and exiled - ourselves, or certainly as a whole society. I think of Romeo and Juliet, and Romeo’s punishment for killing Juliet’s cousin - not death, but banishment. To be separated from his love felt like death to Romeo. Today in other parts of the world, political dissidents, ousted national leaders, and war criminals - sometimes they are banished, exiled from their countries, kept on house arrest in some far off land. How can we relate to the pain, the gravity and devastation of the exile if it is so far removed from our experiences today? 

When I brought this up at Bible Study this week, the class quickly thought of ways people experience a sense of exile today. As we lifted up the Kairos team that next weekend will seek to share the hope of Christ with men who are in prison, we talked about how prisoners experience exile. They’re often very far from home and family. They’re often in prison in a place like Gouverneur that couldn’t be more different culturally than the place they’re from. It’s a kind of exile, certainly. We talked about those who are homeless, who are on the fringes of society. However a person came to be living in such poverty, they exist in a kind of exile, shut out of the rhythms of a working, consuming culture. People experience a kind of exile when relationships end badly, making even casual contact impossible where there once was a marriage, or a friendship, or a family bond. We talked about people being alienated from faith communities, either from feeling disconnected from the patterns and language and teaching of church, or from feeling unwelcome by church members, or afraid that there is no place for you in spaces considered holy and sacred. The truth is, when we start digging, prodding, the experience of exile is not so far from us after all. 

When have you felt exiled? Banished? Cut off from a place or a relationship or a situation that was home to you? Have you ever needed to banish or exile someone from you life? I’ve experienced having to break bonds with abusive family members. Necessary, but painful nonetheless - for those sent away, and for those doing the sending. Exile is hard. In exile, we are saying, perhaps, “Your behavior is so hurtful, so unacceptable, so destructive, that the only path forward for a meaningful change for me and for you is radical action: you can’t be here anymore. Moving forward with you is no longer one of the options we have.”      

Imagine, then, what must unfold, what must take place, and what must be felt by the kingdoms of Israel and Judah when it is God who exiles them. Sure, they are conquered, and foreign armies and rulers are the ones who drag them away. But the prophets, Jeremiah included, let us know that this is God’s judgment on them. It is God who is sending them away, God who is saying, “You can’t be here anymore. We cannot have the same relationship anymore.” Have you ever felt exiled from God? “For thus says the Lord: I am going to fling away the inhabitants of the land … and I will bring distress on them, so that they shall feel it.” Have you ever felt that? Flung away from God? 

I suspect most of us have. Don Schuessler mentioned in class, how Mother Teresa talked about a ten-year period in her life where she didn’t feel the presence of God. She wrote, “Where is my faith? – even deep down, right in, there is nothing but emptiness & darkness. – My God – how painful is this unknown pain. It pains without ceasing. – I have no faith. – I dare not utter the words & thoughts that crowd in my heart - & make me suffer untold agony. So many unanswered questions live within me – I am afraid to uncover them.” (1) John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, had some “dark nights of the soul” too - and he wondered if he’d ever really been a Christian, or if he was just a fake, and he wrote to his brother Charles expressing that he didn’t know what else to do in the midst of his doubts except just keep on preaching. This wasn’t Wesley as a young man, but Wesley in his 60s, already the leader of an international movement of reawakening faith. Maybe you think, “Gosh, if even Mother Teresa had doubts, what hope do I have?” But I think, “Oh good - even Mother Teresa had doubts! And yet look at her great faithfulness!” However we find ourselves in the strange land of exile, I think we all encounter seasons of feeling far-flung from God’s presence. Sometimes we know exactly how we got there. We can recount our sins, our failings, we know how we’ve broken covenant with God, and we understand how we ended up just where we are. Sometimes, our journey to exile was inch by inch, and we didn’t realize that we’d gotten so far from God until we looked behind us and couldn’t see God’s face anymore. Sometimes, we go for a season, for a decade, without feeling God’s presence, and we’re not even sure why. 

But friends, there is always restoration with exile when it comes to our relationship with God. Exile, our experience of exile, is never the end of the story. Because God’s promises endure, always. Even when God’s people are in exile, even in the worst time in their collective lives, God is with them there, too. I’ve been reading through the writings of the prophets for the past several months as part of my devotional time. The major prophets - they’re just the ones with longer books in the Bible, and now the minor prophets. I’m almost to the “end” of this section of scripture. And reading them all back to back, I’ve noticed some themes, some patterns, some repeated ways that God speaks through the prophets. 

My favorite “pattern” of God’s is this: practically before God is done saying what the consequences are for the sinful behavior of God’s people, practically before God is done describing the coming exile, God is already also imagining restoration and reconciliation with God’s people. God says, things like, “You’ve been awful, and I am so upset with you, and I’m so hurt, and so frustrated, and so angry, and I am so going to punish you, FOREVER! But then I am so totally going to relent, and forgive, and things will be awesome between us again and I can’t wait because I love you and you’re my people and I’m your God.” God never leaves us in exile. That works in two ways: God never leaves us - we’re never without God, even in exile. But also, God never leaves us there - exile isn’t permanent, not with God. There’s always a homecoming. The lost sheep is always found. The lost coin is discovered. The prodigal son is welcomed home. God can’t wait to forgive us. God can’t wait for our relationship to be healed. God is so anxious to says, “Let’s renew that covenant.” God can hardly stay mad long enough to not be eagerly describing how joyful it will be when we are reunited, when we return to God with all our hearts. 

If you find yourselves in exile, however you got there, I want you to remember those middle verses about the tree by the water, the tree that trusts in God. Even when you can’t feel God’s presence, even when you feel utterly alone, even when you feel like the world is a blazing sun that wants to cause you to shrivel up, or when you feel like your life has been in a long season of drought, dry and parched, seek to be like the tree by the water that trusts in God. Eventually, Mother Teresa, John Wesley, they felt God’s presence once again. And I think they were aided in part by the fact that they had practices of faith that sustained them even when they felt alone. They couldn’t feel God, but they still studied God’s word. They will prayed. They still shared about God’s goodness, about Jesus’s good news. And eventually, those words meant something to them again. We have to establish those practices of faith in the times when we feel God right by our sides, so that we can lean on them in times when we don’t. They’ll help us find our way again. 

And if you find yourselves in exile, remember this: God’s promises are written on your hearts. See, even though in Jeremiah, in that last section we read God says God will make a new covenant with the people, it probably sounds pretty familiar to you - because it is really the same covenant as always: I’ll be your God, you be my people. That’s always what God wants. A relationship with us. But remember in Deuteronomy, we read how God wanted us to remember by putting God’s words on our heads and arms and doorposts and gates, so we’d never forget? This time, God says, “I’m putting the covenant directly on your heart. My covenant will be within you. I’m writing it on your heart. Everyone will know it then. You’ll barely have to teach it - because you’ll know it already, young and old, greatest and least. My covenant on your hearts.” 

If God’s covenant is on our hearts, then there’s nowhere we can go, no where we can be sent, no place we can hide, no place we can run, no place to which we can be exiled, no state of sinfulness that is too much, no separation that has lasted too long, no circumstance of any kind where God cannot reach us. It can’t be done. “They days are surely coming,” says God. Like trees by the water, let us trust in God, wherever we are. Amen. 

1. https://www.smmsisters.org/who-we-are/sister-stories/86/the-doubts-of-a-saint

Sermon, "Voices from Prison: Jeremiah," Jeremiah 32-33

Sermon 7/1/18

Jeremiah 32-33

Voices from Prison: Jeremiah

A couple of years ago, a colleague of mine was posting on facebook about his sermon series, which was centered around biblical figures who had been in prison. He didn’t post the sermons; I never got to read what he wrote or hear his particular perspective, but I filed the concept away in my mind. It’s an occupational hazard for clergy - constantly filing away experiences, things we read, conversations we have into our “future sermons” mental drawer.

It seemed right in this time and place to preach a series about Voices from Prison. We have a prison in Gouverneur, and we have an active prison ministry that we support - Kairos - where a team of men, including some of our own folks, visit the prison and prepare to lead inmates in times of learning, worship, Bible study, and faith development, bringing the good news to folks who really need some good news. It seemed right, too, because I think sometimes it is easy to think about prison as something that happens to other people. But in reality, we - we right here in this congregation - have been touched by the reality of prison. Some people in the congregation, including myself, have family who have been or are in prison. Some people have themselves been in prison. It is a part of our reality, our experience. And I believe that our faith always has something to say to the experiences that make up our lives.

What does our story of faith have to say about prison? Certainly, the Bible touches on prison and prisoners, on crime and punishment for crimes, and on reconciliation - how are folks restored to the life of community after they have broken the law and been set apart from the whole? Joseph, Samson, Jeremiah, Micaiah, Zedekiah, Daniel, John the Baptist, Peter, James, John, Silas, Paul, Epaphras, Aristarchus, Junia, and Jesus himself spend time in prison, accused of or convicted of crimes, punished for breaking laws. When Jesus reads from the scroll of Isaiah in the synagogue at the beginning of his preaching ministry, he shares that the good news he fulfills includes “release to the captives.” When Jesus talks about where we see his face in the gospel of Matthew, when he tells what we call the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats, Jesus mentions visiting those who are in prison as a way that we serve, a place we see Christ. We cannot read the scriptures of our faith without encountering voices from prison.

In our United Methodist tradition, our statements of social beliefs speak to criminal justice systems, and what our hope is as followers of Jesus. Each week on the bulletin worksheet you’ll see some links to resources and action items related to criminal justice reform. I want to share with you aloud though an excerpt from our Social Principles and the Book of Resolutions, our resource for social action as United Methodists. Our statement says, “A justice system must be first and foremost about humanization since God’s justice always works to bring reconciliation. Systems of retribution breed only violence and isolation. Indeed, “we can- not punish our way to a healthy society” (Laura Magnani and Harmon Wray, Beyond Prisons: A New Interfaith Paradigm for Our Failed Prison System. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press [p. 5]) … Most justice systems do not seek healing and restoration for the people affected by crime or for those who commit crimes.” “A justice system that reflects God’s desires for the world is one that is healing and restorative.” (https://www.umcjustice.org/what-we-care-about/civil-and-human-rights/criminal-justice-reform)

“God’s justice always works to bring reconciliation.” Do we believe that? God is always working for reconciliation, and always hopes for us to work with God for reconciliation too. On Friday, I shared the message with the kids at Vacation Bible School. They spent the whole week learning about forgiveness - the whole of VBS was focused on knowing more about God’s amazing forgiveness, and how we’re called to share this message of forgiveness with others. VBS takes an offering every day for a mission project each year, and this year the offering went to a scholarship fund for children whose parents are prisoners to attend camp. What a perfect connection for a week spent talking about forgiveness! The kids had been talking earlier in the week about Simon Peter, and how he denied even knowing Jesus, who had been his dear friend and teacher, right as Jesus was at his most vulnerable - arrested, on trial, about to be put to death. So I asked them to think about a story they knew - Frozen. How many of you have seen the movie Frozen with Anna and Elsa and the song you can never unlearn, “Let It Go”? At the climax of the movie, Anna is frozen, and a kiss from her beau does not, in fact, save her life as expected. It seems that hope is lost. And that’s where the movie ends, right? That’s what I asked the kids, and they groaned and yelled, “No, that’s not the end!” Of course, in the end, it is Anna’s sister Elsa who saves her with the true love of sisterhood, and they experience, naturally, a happily ever after. That worst part, when it seemed hope was gone, was not the end of the story. And Peter’s denial of Jesus, we learned, was not the end of the story. A resurrected Jesus gave Peter the chance to affirm his love for Jesus as many times as he had denied knowing him, and Jesus entrusted Jesus to share the message of God’s grace and forgiveness with the world. Peter was devastated when he denied Jesus. In that moment, could he have imagined what God would make of his life? That the world would remember him mostly for being the leader of the newly birthed church, a most faithful of disciples? I bet he couldn’t see it. But God saw it. Jesus saw it in him. There was more to Peter’s story, and through Jesus, Peter was reconciled, redeemed, ready for a hopeful future.

Last fall, when we were talking about Theology at the Theatre, and we were managing to talk about Harry Potter and Les Miserables all in one sermon, I shared with you all that I thought redemption stories were our favorite stories. “Our hope in redemption,” I said, “our hope in this idea that someone, something, can save us from our sinfulness, save us from the evil path we sometimes choose instead of the path of good” is our favorite story. And at the same time, we talked about how even though we long for redemption, we sometimes struggle with receiving the God’s grace for us, God’s redeeming of our lives as a gift, and we have trouble sometimes letting others receive redemption as a gift, constantly feeling like none of us are worthy enough, like we are always needing to earn what God wants to offer us without price, and never measuring up, never letting others measure up.

When we think about prison and prisoners, do we believe in God’s redeeming power? Do we see people in prison as people of sacred worth? God’s precious creations? People whom God loves unconditionally? People for whom God has hopes and dreams? For the next three weeks, as we hear some of the stories of people in the Bible who spent time in prison, as we listen to their voices, I hope, too, that we think about the people who are in prison today, and how we are called to respond as people who follow a God who dreams, always, of reconciliation.

Today we turn to the writings of the prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah was writing during the time of the Babylonian exile. Judah, the southern kingdom of a divided Israel, had been conquered, and many Jews were sent to Babylon, but this happened in waves. Judah still had a “king” - a puppet-king Zedekiah, a nephew to the former king, who was put in place by Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon as someone Nebuchadnezzar could manipulate and control. Still, Zedekiah didn’t comply with everything Babylon wanted - he tries to work with the Egyptians, hoping they will be better for Judah than Babylon. The result of his maneuvering is that Babylon is now simply seeking to conquer Jerusalem, rather than letting it remain a vassal of Babylon.

The chapters we read from Jeremiah are a flashback of sorts. The whole book jumps back and forth in time, and it’s a little confusing!  But here’s the gist of what we need to know: It’s the tenth year of the reign of Zedekiah, and the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign. Jeremiah is in prison, something that amounts to a kind of house-arrest. He’s confined to the court of the guard in the palace of King Zedekiah. Jeremiah was arrested because he was accused of being a deserter during the war, accused of going over to the enemy side. Initially, he is beaten and left there alone for days. Finally, though, King Zedekiah sends for him. He threatens to turn Jeremiah over to Nebuchadnezzar, but Jeremiah pleads his case, and is put on house-arrest instead.

Zedekiah is displeased with Jeremiah because Jeremiah has prophesied that Jerusalem is going to fall to Babylon, and that Zedekiah will be captured and taken to Babylon as a prisoner. He wants to know why Jeremiah would say such a thing. Jeremiah is accused essentially of undermining the war effort. He’s discouraging the soldiers, the leaders say, by proclaiming that Jerusalem will fall, and Zedekiah and the other leaders don’t want him doing that. Thus, Jeremiah spends a lot of time imprisoned.  

Jeremiah offers evidence that he is truly hearing God’s word, and tells Zedekiah about buying a field from his cousin at Anathoth, something God has said would happen. God says Jeremiah’s ownership of these fields is a symbol of hope: someday, Israelites will build on this land again. Someday, they’ll plant fields and have vineyards. Someday. But first, God reveals through Jeremiah, first Jerusalem will fall to Nebuchadnezzar. God is upset because the Israelites have been worshiping other gods. They’ve turned away from God’s path. “They have turned their backs to me, not their faces; though I have taught them persistently, they would not listen and accept correction,” God says.

Still, Jeremiah spends more time sharing about the hope God has for the future of Jerusalem. Even as Israel is punished for turning away from God, even as God is filled with anger about the faithlessness of God’s people, already God is planning for how to be merciful and forgiving once Israel has paid the penalty. We read God saying, “I am going to bring it recovery and healing; I will heal them and reveal to them abundance of prosperity and security. I will restore the fortunes of Judah and the fortunes of Israel, and rebuild them as they were at first. I will cleanse them from all the guilt of their sin against me, and I will forgive all the guilt of their sin and rebellion against me. And this city shall be to me a name of joy, a praise and a glory before all the nations of the earth who shall hear of all the good that I do for them; they shall fear and tremble because of all the good and all the prosperity I provide for it.” It is amazing to me what a future of blessings God imagines for Judah even in the midst of, at the moment of Judah facing the consequences for breaking God’s commandments. How merciful, how forgiving, how gracious is God, who even in anger and disappointment cannot wait to get to the time of redemption, reconciliation, and rebuilding!

I think Jeremiah’s message about God’s longing for redemption is all the more powerful as it comes from Jeremiah when he himself is in prison. He is being punished - even if we feel unjustly - even as he speaks about the punishment Jerusalem will face. From prison, in the midst of various punishments, being handed from place to place, Jeremiah proclaims the good news of God’s persistent grace. What he’s saying about Judah’s hopeful future seems impossible. And it is a long way off. Seventy years off in fact. There is work to do, consequences to face before redemption arrives. But it isn’t impossible. In fact, redemption is the promise God gives.

As we think, friends, about those who are in prison, however they came to be there, and as we think about the ways that we have been imprisoned spiritually by our sin, by our disobeying God, by our self-destructive ways, by our brokenness, let us continue to be people who love redemption stories. Let us continue to be people who know that the story hasn’t ended with heartbreak. Let us be people who hope for the reconciliation of all of us to the heart of God. Let us hear and heed Jeremiah’s voice - calling us to faithfulness, calling us to accountability, and calling us to trust in the God of all hopefulness. Amen.