Sermon 9.15.13

Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28
Psalm 14
1 Timothy 1:12-17
Luke 15:1-10                                        

Our old testament passage today is very dark!  Jeremiah presents us with a devastating apocalyptic vision of what is to come for God's people.  A hot wind too strong for winnowing or cleansing, that will bring destruction.  A time of judgement.  The prophet has God saying, "My people are foolish, stupid children with no understanding, skilled at doing evil, but do not know how to do good."  The whole earth is of wasteland, a desolation, the cities are in ruin.  A land of darkness, earthquakes, the birds have fled and the once fruitful land turned to a desert.  All brought about by the fierce anger of God.

The Psalm continues this theme of the foolish who say in their hearts, "There is no God."  The Psalmist laments, there is none who does any good and depicts The Lord, looking down from heaven upon us all searching for just one person who might be wise, who might follow after God, but there is no one who does good, no not one.

When I hear language like this, so dark and pessimistic, when folks start talking like this, in such stark absolutes about how horrible everything is I want to say to them, "Its time to take a break!  Get some rest!  Get some perspective!"

I think immediately of burn out.  Burn out, Compassion Fatigue, these are real conditions that effect especially us who are faithful people, who really do want to help make the world a better place, who have a vision of how the world could be and yet are constantly bombarded with the reality of how we all fall so short of this vision.

It is amazing how negative we can so quickly turn, when our frustration level gets too high, when all of our efforts seem to be of no avail.  When we have just become too tired to continue on and yet we keep pushing ourselves out of sense of duty.  How quickly we begin to feel overwhelmed by all the problems we can't fix, all the ways we have no control over how things are going.   We begin to feel all alone, the only one left.  We know we can't do it on our own, yet we push on, feeling so isolated.  We begin to focus on all the things that are going wrong, on all the people who are really just in the way.  Those we started out hoping to help and comfort and heal turn into people we blame.  All those companions on the way who shared the vision with us become people we criticize and complain about.

Then we start to say things that really are just not true.  We make these sweeping negative generalizations about the whole world.  We say silly things really that we really do believe like the words of the Psalmist spoken out his own deep depression.  "No one does good.  Everyone is evil.  All are corrupt.  No one is wise.  No body has any faith."

When the reality is it is we who have lost our faith.  We who have lost hope.  We who have allowed our exhaustion to color the way we see the world.  If we are honest with ourselves we all can recall moments when we have let our own exhaustion turn our thoughts negative.  Maybe we have apologized when we snapped at our spouses or children, saying, "Forgive me, I am just really tired."  We have all watched the quality of our communities deteriorate when the pressure gets too high.  Committee meetings turn ugly, bickering increases, hurtful things are said, often because we have all just been working too hard for too long to try to solve some problem that seems to just go on and on.  And we are exhausted.  And yet we continue to try to push through!

If you are tired, what really is the only solution for this?  Rest.  Sometimes it is just sleep!  There is really nothing like a good night's sleep!  Sleep can really do wonders!  Our spiritual and emotional lives really are all wrapped up in our physical bodies.  Doing something completely different, taking a break, recreation.  The word is re-creation.  We really can rejuvenate ourselves, re-create ourselves by taking a break, letting go, quit beating our heads against a wall.  Often just by stopping doing that one thing that is killing us, we get a whole new perspective on our lives.  Peace only comes when we actually can stop.

Ultimately the spiritual peace that we seek for ourselves and the world is not something we attain for ourselves.  We know the doctrine perhaps, that we are saved by faith alone, not by works, but we really live our lives, practically speaking, like it all depends on us.  If we weren't doing what we do, the world would fall apart.

Paul's letter to Timothy says something completely different.  Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.  Paul gives the example, of himself, a saved sinner, and his story is not about his own righteousness, his own model character, which others should follow.  No, his story is an example of what the power of God can do.  Paul begins with his gratitude to Jesus who strengthens him.  He is clear that he was a blasphemer, a persecutor, a man of violence, but rather than dwelling here, he talks of the mercy he has received in his own life and relies instead upon the way that God in Christ defines him, a faithful servant.  He talks about the grace and love of Christ that has come into his life.  He talks about the utmost patience that Jesus Christ has displayed in working with him, the foremost of sinners.  This patience is that constant vision that though we may all too well know the negative about ourselves and the world, Jesus is constantly seeing us and calling us into the vision he has for us, modeling and shaping us into the Good and Faithful Servants he already knows we are.  This is the power of God working in us.

In our gospel today the righteous religious leaders of the day complain about Jesus saying, He welcomes sinners and eats with them."  They don't seem to understand why Jesus is so concerned with this unsavory bunch, these outcasts, the rabble, the unclean, those outside the pale of civilized society.  It seems in this passage, quite the opposite of the Jeremiah passage, that the perception here is that most people seem to be doing just fine.  We might say they are living in denial, in their own sense of their own righteousness perhaps.

Jesus, though, tells a parable about sheep, and the first thing to notice is that most of the sheep really are doing just fine.  In this parable 99% of the world is actually ok.  Well enough, actually, that the shepherd can leave them unattended and go off in search of that 1% of the flock that is lost.  He leaves the 99 and goes after the one that is lost.  In fact, all the attention is paid to this one lost soul, really disregarding all the rest.  Quite the opposite of the vision in Jeremiah with its focus on all the evil of everyone.  Here the emphasis is on the few that are left out of the blessing of creation, that are on the edge, lost and separated from the rest of the flock.  The concern is for the safety of these lost ones and the desire is to reunite them with the rest of the flock where they too can share in the good pasture, drink from the stream also, and be cared and tended for by the shepherd - where they too can bask in the blessing of creation.

And where they can join in on the cosmic celebration that will take place upon their return. For there will be more joy in heaven over one repentant sinner, than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance.

And so we can see ourselves and the world in a couple different ways.  We can catch the glimpse that Jesus offers us of all people in heaven and on earth sharing in the blessing of God's creation and joining in together in a cosmic celebration.  In this vision it is just unthinkable that anyone should be left out, and we will do all we can to make sure that all are included, and we will rejoice when we see our own communities mirror this ultimate heavenly inclusive vision.

Or we can see the whole world as a dark and desolate and lonely place described in Jeremiah.  If you are seeing the world this way, perhaps it is you that are lost.  Perhaps you have found yourself left out of blessing, far away from the good pasture, perhaps you feel all alone and see no one who can be your companion on the way.  The lost are not just those other folks out there on the fringe, who we have to go find.  Sometimes the lost are ourselves as well. Sometimes it is we who are wondering exhausted in a wilderness and it is we who need to find rest again in the shepherds arms.  It is we who need to be laid upon his shoulders and carried for awhile while he rejoices in finding us.

One of my favorite songs is called "Jubilee" by Mary Chapin Carpenter.  It is the story of a young man, lost himself, who struggles to accept the community of people who love him.  He has a hard time seeing how much he needs the rest that is being offered to him.  Trouble seeing how much he really wants the company of his friends who love him.  Trouble grasping what a wonderful incredible joyful time he will have when he finally joins the celebration.  He is so use to the "home" he has in his isolation and depression that it is hard to see what is being offered to him.   The song ends like this:

And I can tell by the way you're standing
With your eyes filling with tears
That it's habit alone keeps you turning for home
Even though your home is right here

Where the people who love you are gathered
Under the wise wishing tree
May we all be considered then straight on delivered
Down to the jubilee

'Cause the people who love you are waiting
And they'll wait just as long as need be

The people who love you are waiting, Jesus is waiting, the whole of heaven and earth in all it goodness and beauty and splendor, all its incredible blessing, is waiting.  Take some time to rest from your weariness.  Join in the party!  Once again receive the strength and power to share the good news that all that are lost are invited to come home.