Sermons

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Jeremiah: The Tears of Faith
August 11, 2002
Second of four in a sermon series on Mentors in Faith
Associate Pastor Lynne Baab
Jeremiah 2:4-13 and 19: 1-3, 10-11

Jeremiah was a prophet, and a prophet is someone who speaks God’s word into a specific situation. Probably more than any other prophet, we need to understand Jeremiah’s setting in order to understand what he said. So I’m going to give you a very brief overview of the history of Israel that led up to his time.

King David’s reign began in 1000 BC I always find that a convenient date to start from. When David died, his son Solomon became King. Solomon built the temple in Jerusalem that was still being used in Jeremiah’s day. Solomon died in 922 BC, and his sons squabbled over who would be king next. They couldn’t settle it in any reasonable way, so they split the kingdom in half.

In the northern part, called Israel, there were 10 tribes. In the southern part, called Judah, there were two tribes. The capital, Jerusalem, was in the Southern Kingdom, so in the North, they had to make a new capital and find a place to worship.

The Northern Kingdom lasted for exactly 200 years from 922 to 722 BC The Northern Kingdom was plagued with problems related to worship – the people worshipped all sorts of gods in all sorts of settings. In 722 the Assyrians invaded, destroyed everything and took the people captive. You’ve probably heard about the lost ten tribes of Israel – they were lost when the Northern Kingdom was invaded in 722.

The Old Testament is clear that the Northern Kingdom was destroyed because of idolatry. People simply were not faithful to God, and God judged them.

Jeremiah began to prophesy about 100 years after the Northern Kingdom was destroyed. In Jeremiah’s time there were great threats to Israel – Egypt to the south and Babylon to the northeast, powerful countries, which looked like they wanted to gobble up Jerusalem. The Southern Kingdom had developed an arrogance and complacency. “We’ve got the temple,” they said. “God has always taken care of us. He won’t stop now.”

God called Jeremiah to speak into that situation. Jeremiah’s message went like this, “Do you see what happened to your sister Israel, the Northern Kingdom? Do you see that I, the Lord, wanted to be her husband, but she committed adultery with all kinds of gods? I destroyed her because she worshipped other gods, and I will do the same for you unless you follow me and obey me.”

God gave Jeremiah powerful images to use in his messages. I read you a couple of very vivid images: “They went after worthless things and became worthless themselves.” And: “They have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and hewn for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.”

God called Jeremiah to do all sorts of creative things to make his message clear. One time God told Jeremiah to go and buy a linen loincloth. A loincloth is basically underwear, and linen was an expensive fabric. God told Jeremiah to wear the loincloth. Then later God told Jeremiah to take the loincloth and bury it in the mud beside a river. Then later he told him to dig it up, and of course it was ruined, muddy and tattered.

This would be like God calling one of us to go to Nordstrom and buy an expensive pair of boxer shorts or women’s underwear, maybe silk or highest quality cotton. Then he asks us to go to Greenlake and bury it in the mud by the edge of the lake. Then some months later, he asks us to go dig it up. When we dig it up it’s dirty and beginning to rot. Why would God do this?

God had a very specific message he wanted to say to the people through this loincloth episode. God said through Jeremiah, “I created my people to cling to me just like clothing clings to a person. When you don’t cling to me, when you worship other gods, you become ruined, just like the loin cloth is ruined.”

Another time God asked Jeremiah to go down to a potter’s shed. Jeremiah watched the potter make one thing, maybe a bowl. It wasn’t turning out right, so the potter squished down the clay and started over and made something else, maybe a plate this time. God said to Jeremiah, “I am the potter and you, my people, are the clay. I’m the one who decides what kind of vessel I will make you into. In this instance, I am making you into vessels of destruction. Because you are worshipping other gods, you will be destroyed.

Another time God asked Jeremiah to go stand at the city gates with a pottery pot in his hands. Again, he was to tell the people that destruction was coming, and God told him to illustrate it by throwing down the pot on the ground and breaking it.

You may wonder how the people took these messages from Jeremiah. As you can imagine, they didn’t take these messages well. They preferred messages that said that everything is going okay. They threw rotten vegetables at him, mocked him, and one time they threw him in a deep pit.

And you can also imagine that Jeremiah got very discouraged. He cried, he moaned, he complained. All of that is recorded in the book of Jeremiah. But he kept on obeying God, even while he was honestly telling God how much all of it hurt. In fact, my favorite book on Jeremiah is called “Words of Fire, Rivers of Tears.” That sums up his life pretty well.

Jeremiah kept on obeying right up until his words were fulfilled. In 587 BC, the Babylonians did invade Jerusalem. They destroyed the city and carried most of the people off to Babylon. Of course, that’s not the end of the story. God brought the people back to the land of Israel about 60 years later.

So if Jeremiah’s words came from God for a specific time, why would we bother to study them now? Do they really have anything to say to us today?

I have loved Jeremiah since I was in my early 20s. I have always been a person who is good at moaning and complaining. I spent many years battling with depression. Jeremiah is an excellent model of someone who felt terrible about things, expressed them honestly to God, and kept on obeying God. For me, there’s no better model of obedience in the midst of discouragement than Jeremiah.

In addition, I love Jeremiah’s message of our call to cling to God. Just like our clothing clings to our bodies, so we are made to cling to God. Take that picture home, think about it, meditate on what it means for you to cling to God. For me sometimes clinging to God is a question of the heart. Do I value the things God values? Do I value my relationship with God above everything else?

Sometimes clinging to God is a question of how we use our time. Am I willing to take time to pray, to read the Bible, to meet with other Christians in order to grow together, to take time to serve others in Christ’s name? Does my time belong to God?

Sometimes clinging to God involves ethical or obedient behavior. Am I honest at work? Am I generous with money? Am I willing to show love to people around me who I don’t necessarily like? Am I willing to try to forgive when people offend me?

Cling to God. That’s what we were made for. If we don’t, we will become ruined just like that underwear that was buried in the mud.

I’d like to mention one more way Jeremiah’s life speaks to me. Jeremiah was a significant part in God’s work in that time – judging the people of Jerusalem for their disobedience, calling them back to a relationship with God, taking them away into exile in Babylon, and then bringing them back to the land of Israel for a fresh start. Jeremiah was a part of God’s story.

We so often think God is a part of our story, that God comes into our life and we keep living it with God’s help. In contrast, we are invited to be a part of God’s story. Our individual lives are a part of something bigger.

What does this mean in practice? Often we are so hurt or angry or offended when God doesn’t answer our prayers for things that matter to us. It really helps me to stop and think that I am a part of God’s story. He is working in every situation to bring about his will, to bring about what is best. Maybe this thing I want isn’t best for me or for someone else. I’m not the potter. I’m only the clay. I don’t get to decide. But this potter, the one who shapes our lives, is the one who loves us and cares for us, so we can trust our lives into his hands, and we can trust that being a part of his story will be very, very good.

I want to close with one more story from Jeremiah that is so vivid. Jeremiah had a good friend Baruch, who rescued him from all sorts of situations. Baruch also functioned as Jeremiah’s scribe. Baruch wrote down everything God called Jeremiah to say to the people. It was on a scroll.

Baruch delivered the scroll to the king. It was wintertime, and the king had his servant read the scroll in a room of the palace that had a small brazier heating it. A brazier is little metal bowl where people burned charcoal to keep the room warm. As the servant read the scroll, the king hated it so much that he chopped off sections of it and burned it in the brazier.

Now in those days, vellum to write on was extremely expensive. And it took a long time to write things down. What did Jeremiah do after he heard that the king had burned the scroll? He sat down with Baruch and dictated it all again. I pray for all of us that we will obey God that readily.