Getting the word out.
Jeremiah
Scriptural Sermons
Old Testament: Jeremiah
“Then Pashur struck the prophet Jeremiah and put him in the stocks that were in the upper Benjamin Gate of the House of the Lord.” This morning’s Old Testament lesson would seem to indicate that the prophet Jeremiah was not well received. Indeed, such was the case. The prophet Jeremiah was not well received. In fact, that is putting it mildly. The prophet Jeremiah was not only beaten and set in stocks by the priest Pashur. He was thrown into a muddy cistern. And when I say muddy, he sunk up to his waist. There he was left for dead. He came within a hair’s breadth of being lynched by an angry mob. Even his own family conspired to kill him. And these were just the physical assaults. There too was the derision. The king himself flouted him publicly in the most egregious way. The people jeered at him whenever he passed. Yes, to put it mildly, the prophet Jeremiah was not well received. This is because the prophet Jeremiah made an unpopular demand upon Israel. He demanded that Israel integrate belief with practice or face the judgment of God. And to make matters worse, he made the demand by exposing, accusing, and threatening, and in the most angry and denunciatory terms. Here is but a small and, believe it or not, relatively mild dose of the man; this to those who gathered at the Temple for worship: “Hear the word of the Lord, all you people of Judah, you that enter these gates to worship…Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend you ways and your doings, and let me dwell with you in this place. Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’ For if you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly act justly one with another, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood… and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, then I will dwell with you in this place….. But there you are, trusting in deceptive words to no avail. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods…and then come and stand before me in this house which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are safe!’ – only to go on doing all these abominations? Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your sight? You know, I am watching, says the Lord. God now to my place that was in Shiloh, where I made my name dwell at first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel.” Shiloh, of course, had once been Israel’s central shrine until it was destroyed by the Philistines. Exposure, accusation, and threat in the most angry and denunciatory terms, but at the same time the irrefutable truth. But Israel wasn’t having it, for essentially two reasons. For one, it was the prophet Jeremiah’s form. No one like exposure, accusation, and threat, especially in the most angry and denunciatory of terms. It is unpleasant. It is uncomfortable. It is offensive. And because it is, it became easy for Israel to view the prophet Jeremiah’s form as the problem and to overlook his content. And too, Israel, Israel believed at least, was not really so bad as all that. After all, Israel was God’s chosen people -- God, by the way, who was, “slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love…forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin….” Sure Israel had its warts and freckles, but who doesn’t? Compared to its pagan neighbors -- those uncouth, unclean, barbarians -- Israel was the most enlightened and advanced nation there was. Israel was as good as it gets. Why couldn’t the prophet Jeremiah see it that way -- as a cup half full scenario -- and keep his big mouth shut? Martin Luther King, Jr., for all the fanfare he now receives every January, was not well received either, and again, that is to put it mildly. It was for him about how it was for the prophet Jeremiah. As King himself described it, “Due to my involvement in the struggle for the freedom of my people, I have known very few quiet days in the last few years. I have been arrested five times and put in Alabama jails. My home has been bombed twice. A day seldom passes that my family and I are not the recipients of threats of death. I have been the victim of a near fatal stabbing. So in a real sense I have been battered by the storms of persecution. I must admit that at times I have felt that I could no longer bear such a heavy burden….” And too it was because King made the same unpopular demand upon America as the prophet Jeremiah had made upon Israel. King demanded that America integrate belief with practice or face the judgment of God. He demanded that the freedoms that inhered in the Constitution that declared all to be equal and that inhered in the Bible that declared all to be created in the image of God be afforded to African Americans. And King did not even expose, accuse, and threaten, at least not with the same anger and denunciation as the prophet Jeremiah. This was because standing between King and the prophet Jeremiah was Jesus Christ, who had shown that God’s cause was to be won by redemptive suffering. And so King substituted for anger and denunciation non-violent resistance – boycotts, marches, and sit-ins – through which he and the African American people indeed learned the way of redemptive suffering. But America, like Israel, wasn’t having it, again for the same two reasons that Israel wasn’t having it. It viewed the problem as King’s form and overlooked his content. They disliked his demonstrations. They were chaotic, dangerous, and frightening. What’s more, they were illegal. African Americans should just wait for the wheels of justice to turn, America declared, wait for the legislature and judiciary to act. They would have their equality in due time. King countered that unjust law was no law at all, and that the African American people had been waiting for 340 years. “I guess it is easy”, he wrote, “for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, ‘Wait.” But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick, brutalize, and even kill your black brothers and sisters with impunity; when you see the vast majority of twenty million Negroes smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society, when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television and see tears welling up in her little eyes when she is told that it is closed to colored children, and see the depressing clouds of inferiority begin to form in her little mental sky…when you have to concoct an answer to your five year old son asking in agonizing pathos: ‘Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”…When you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading white and colored, when your first name becomes boy, when your wife and mother are never given the respected title Mrs,…then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over…..” But America believed, grant King his eloquence, the larger problem was still his demonstrations. And what’s more, he needed to do something about that perspective. American wasn’t really as bad as all that. American believed itself too God’s chosen people, compared to its neighbors the most enlightened and advanced nation there was. It had, after all, fought a war to end slavery. America was as good as it gets. So why didn’t King see it that way, as a cup half full scenario, and keep his big mouth shut? But the reason that prophets, whether from Israel or America, don’t see it that way is because they see it through God’s eyes, God’s eyes that penetrate pretext and evasion, indifference and indolence, fear and weakness, eyes that will neither slumber of sleep until there is equality, freedom, and justice for all the people he created. Prophets are not well received, and they probably never will be, but history does have a way of vindicating them. Martin Luther King knew this. “One day the South will recognize its real heroes,” he wrote, “….They will be old, oppressed, battered Negro women, symbolized in a seventy two year old woman of Montgomery, who rose up with a sense of dignity and with her people decided not to ride the segregated buses….They will be the high school and college students….courageously and nonviolently sitting at lunch counters and willingly going to jail for conscience’s sake. One day the South will know…these children of God were standing up for the best in the American dream and the most sacred values in our Judeo-Christian heritage carrying our whole nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the Founding Fathers in the formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.” King was dead right. History has vindicated them all. All this makes you wonder how we would have received King had we been a church in the separate but equal south of the fifties and sixties? Would we have overlooked his content for his form? Would we have believed that we really weren’t so bad, that we were as good as it gets? And it makes you wonder how we would receive a prophet today. Perhaps our prayer, as we honor Martin Luther King, Jr. should be that God raise up another prophet of social justice, so that we may prove that we stand ready to vindicate him. Amen.
My grandmother, God rest her soul, was an expert bargain hunter. That woman really knew how to pinch a penny. And expertise, in bargain hunting and everything else, requires years of experience, such that a thing becomes second nature. My grandmother over the years developed a seemingly innate sense of the precise value of a diamond in the rough. And her reputation preceded her. She had only to arrive at an estate sale or auction or garage sale, and the crowds parted and let her have her way. She always walked away with what she wanted at the price she wanted. No one could rival her. I like to think that in my own small way I am a chip off the old block. I like to think that I too am an expert bargain hunter. After all, I watched the master at work. I am always trolling for a steal. I even schedule my morning run around garbage pick-up days to potentiate the discovery of treasure discarded in the parkway. Of course,garbage is the ultimate bargain because it’s free. Last week then, I had to run to a discount store for a few “essential” necessities, and I made my usual pass down the clearance aisle. To my delight and excitement, last year’s swimming apparel was marked 75% off. I was in need of beach wraps for the girls for the upcoming season, and it seemed truly a case of “seek and you will find” because there were three of them - all one size fits all. At the sale price they were five dollars, and since I had the remains of of a gift card from the store, I only had to shell out two dollars for all three beach wraps. A fair day’s work, I congratulated myself. Yes, I was feeling good about my achievement until I got home and had the girls try on the “one size fits all” beach wraps. My girls, though they are the same age, happen to be very different sizes. One girl is on the tall side, one girl is on the short side, and one girl is of medium height, after the fashion of The Three Bears. The beach wrap for the girl on the tall side fit her like a sausage casing. It was so tight that within seconds she had laceration marks around her neck. The beach wrap for the girl on the short side, was, so to speak, swimming on her. It was so big on her that it formed a train behind her. Of course the beach wrap for the girls of medium height actually fit her, but she claimed it was “lame,” so my achievement was a bust, and I was out two dollars. I did learn one thing from the experience, however. I learned that one size does not fit all. One size may fit the majority, but one size does not fit all. And this applies to more than just clothing. In fact it applies to just about everything. It applies to the lifestyles we choose to adopt. It applies to the vocations and avocations we pursue. It applies to the way we configure our families. It applies to the company we keep. It applies to our fashion sense of lack thereof. It applies to the abodes we make our homes. It applies to the ways we enact our roles. It applies to if and how we create intimate partnerships. One size does not fit all. There is no one way to do and to be. But there’s a problem with this, and it has to do with the fact that one size fits the majority. The majority then often expects that because one size fits them, that it must fit the minority too. And so they exert pressure upon the minority to conform - to deny that they are different, to deny their individuality, to deny their uniqueness. The minority is then at risk of being driven to a place of self denial and self contradiction to prevent being maligned or marginalized. Personally it seems ridiculous that people should be pressured to be what they are not. And the ridiculousness becomes compounded when the Bible is conscripted to support what we can label the “one size fits all tyranny.” Because in fact, the Bible wants nothing to do with it. For one thing, look at the wide assortment of “sizes” of its characters: Ezekiel, who, in an era when long hair and beards were the style, shaved every hair off his head and face with his sword? And the Lord put him up to it. Or Hosea, who married a prostitute and embarked upon the quintessential non-traditional marriage? And again, the Lord put him up to it. Or Solomon, who took for himself a thousand foreign wives? And the Bible never faults him for it, only that he worshiped their foreign gods. And don’t get me started on Jesus of Nazareth. Suffice it to say that we worship him for his uniqueness. They’re simply not “one size fits all” kind of folks. But more to the point, the overall message of the Bible wants nothing to do with the ”one size fits all tyranny.” There are places in the Bible where its truth breaks agonized and clear. Proof texting - or choosing a sentence here or there from the Bible to support your own preconceived biases (and those biases are usually formed of hatred and fear) - is always bad. But at the same time, there are places in the Bible which really manages to capture its overall spirit. “In Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself,” would be such an example. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” would be another. And today's words from Jeremiah would be yet another. “This is the covenant I will make, says the Lord, I will put my law within them. I will write it on their hearts. “ Jeremiah envisions a new covenant between God and God’s people. A true covenant. The true covenant, a covenant written upon the hearts of believers. But the timing of Jeremiah’s words was beyond strange, because the nation that had once been Israel lay before him in ruins. And Israel had not thought of itself as just any nation. Israel had thought of itself as God’s nation. The nation of Israel had been the very axis of Israel’s faith. But Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, shed no tears at the ruin of the nation of Israel. He declared that the axis of Israel’s faith would now be what it should have been all along = the hearts of believers. What Jeremiah was saying was that the nation of Israel should never have been the axis of Israel’s faith in the first place. Nor should that axis have been any preexisting majority of any kind, - whether it be the nation, whether it be race, whether it be ethnicity, whether it be orientation, lineage, or stature.. But solely the hearts of believers, wherever they came from, whatever they looked like, whoever they happened to be. This, Jeremiah was saying, would be how God would covenant with God’s people. This would hardly seem to buttress the “one size fits all tyranny.” As I said, the Bible wants nothing to do with it. Today is Mother’s Day, the day, obviously, on which we honor the institution of motherhood. And so, what application has all (or any) of this to the institution of motherhood? It has plenty. Too long, I think, we have held an idealized view of the institution of motherhood in ways that are sentimental or nostalgic or anachronistic. We have envisioned the ideal mother as Betty Crocker rolled into June Cleaver rolled into Laura Petrie - rather one size fits all. But whenever there exists a one size fits all mentality, there is too the threat of the "one size fits all tyranny.” Let us turn again to the biblical character to see if the mothers of the Bible fit this mold? There are the mothers of Bethlehem who wept inconsolably as Roman soldiers massacred their infant sons. There is Elizabeth who struggled with infertility her entire life until she was finally granted a son in her old age, a son she would live long enough to see beheaded. There is Hagar who along her her son Ishmael were driven from their home into the desert where Hagar begged God that she not be forced to witness her son die from thirst. And of course, there is Mary, a poor teenager who found herself pregnant, and who came to learn that the son she bore would be lost to her for the sake of the redemption of humankind. Hardly one size fits all. And let us turn too to the axiom that we may derive from the Bible’s overall message, that relationships must take root not from any preexisting majority, but between sympathetic hearts of individuals. And let then reconsider the institution of motherhood - set the ideal against reality, so that we may honor the woman who is raising children by herself, the woman who has been forcefully separated from her children by the law of the land, the woman who balances and juggles her vocational calling with the demands of child rearing, the woman unable to conceive who becomes a surrogate mother to the children in her sphere, the woman whose children have moved on and left her with a hole in her heart, the woman who exigency drove to give her child up for adoption, the woman who adopted that child, the woman who has lost a child, the woman who is raising her children's children. And yes, too, Betty Crocker and June Cleaver and Laura Petie as well. The point is, on Mother’s Day, we are called to honor all women who are possessed of a mother’s heart, and that depth of love that can only spring form the source of all love -- the God of Jesus Christ. Amen.
I’ll never forget the first time I read Hansel and Gretel to Adam. The questions began no sooner than I started. “Why is that mommy so mean?” he asked. “She’s just a mean person.” I answered. “Even to her own children?” he asked. “Some people are just that mean.” I explained. Would you ever become mean like that?” he asked, worry creeping into his voice. “No, of course not. I have never been mean to you in the past, and I will never be mean to you in the future. That I promise you from the bottom of my heart,” I responded. He seemed relieved, until the story continued. As the children were being led into the forest, he climbed onto my lap. “You mean the mommy is going to leave her children in the forest to die?” he asked, worry giving way to downright fear. “Well, yes she is,” I said, not knowing what else to say given the fact that the mommy was going to leave her children in the forest to die. By the time the witch had imprisoned Hansel with the intention of eating him and enslaved and starved Gretel, he begged, “Close the book!” “But the story is not over yet,” I protested, realizing the only thing worse than finishing the book was closing it and letting him think there was no happy ending. Life can be that way sometimes. We may feel we want to close the book on it, and for essentially the same kind of reasons. It’s too bad. It’s too scary. In fact, for many people life is like that right now. In all my years, I don’t remember living through more troubling times. There’s Covid 19, the decimation of the disease and all the ramifications of the disease – worry, anxiety, and fear over the future, over our livelihoods, over the economy, over vulnerable loved ones, over aimlessness, loneliness, and isolation. But to me at least, Covid 19 is not the worst of it. Not by a long stretch. The blind malevolence of disease doesn’t compare to the sighted malevolence that presently assails us -- The gun violence that has overtaken our cities – the horrific figures of shootings that bombard us day after day after day. The nightly anarchy featuring looting, destruction of property, and attacks upon law enforcement. And then there is this general feeling of malaise occasioned by the feeling that our moral compass has become completely inverted. Evil has become good, and good evil. Our entire culture has come under attack. Worse, there are calls for its destruction. All of this has hardly brought out the best in us. Just the opposite, it’s brought out the worst in us. We are all at each other’s throats. Mutual respect, common curtesy, good manners…These are things of the past. So yes, many of us may feel we want to close the book on life. We’ve had about enough of this story. The prophet Jeremiah would surely understand. He wanted to close the book on life as well, and his era made ours look like Shangri-La. God called him to prophesy at the time of the fall of the nation of Judah, to prophesy precisely that the nation of Judah would fall. And why would it fall? Because the hearts of the people, God made known to Jeremiah, had turned bad. The people of course did not believe Jeremiah. Just as they laughed at Noah before the deluge, they laughed at him. God would not allow the nation of Judah to fall. That was ridiculous. They had been elected by God for nationhood. “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you, and I will make of you a great nation,” God had promised Abraham. But Jeremiah continued to prophesy that the nation would fall because the hearts of the people had turned bad, and in time their laughter crossed over to derision and scorn, and then to anger and persecution. He was branded a traitor. He was publicly beaten and held in stocks, he was harried by mobs, attempts were made on his life. Jeremiah finally determined that he would keep his mouth shut, but God would not allow it. There was in his own words, “a fire shut up in his bones” that impelled him to speak until the end of his life. And through his whole long career as a prophet, some 50 years, and even after the nation fell, he was never vindicated by the people. It was only after he was gone that the people realized that God had indeed spoken through him. They realized their hearts had turned bad. They realized they had lost their nation because their nationalism distracted them from acknowledging it. And not only that, they realized that Jeremiah had served to preserve their faith after they had lost their nation. After they had lost their nation they never, as they could well have done, blamed God for it. They realized the blame was on them. But in the midst of it all, life got so bad and so scary for Jeremiah that he confessed that he wished that he’d never been born -- “Cursed be the day on which I was born! The day when my mother bore me, let it not be blessed! Cursed be the man who brought the news to my father saying, ‘A child is born to you, a son,’ Let that man be like the cities that the Lord overthrew without pity…because he did not kill me in the womb so that my mother would have been my grave…Why did I come forth from the womb to see toil and sorrow, and spend my days in shame?” He wanted to close the book on life. Now maybe Jeremiah had a right to feel that way. It would have required tremendous faith after all, to have witnessed all he witnessed, to have endured all that he endured, and still hold out hope for a happy ending in life. Jeremiah had a right to feel that way, but we do not. This is because we live on the other side of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The resurrection of Jesus Christ proclaims that there is a happy ending in life, and his story, like ours and Jeremiah’s, is one in which we’d definitely want to close the book before it was over. After a brief and increasingly ominous ministry, he was arrested by an angry mob and brought to trial, if you could call it a trial. The proceedings were those of a kangaroo court with Jesus being passed from jurisdiction to jurisdiction in a prejudicial attempt to convict him. Once he was convicted, he was mocked, tortured, and hung on a cross. He died broken and shattered. Yes, we’d definitely want to close the book on his story anywhere along the way. But of course on the third day he was resurrected! The resurrection is the happy ending of his life and of ours. It proclaims God’s triumph over the whole human catastrophe. We know now that God wins in the end. And that makes all the difference -- the hope born of God’s triumph in Jesus Christ. Will we face hard time ahead? Yes, we will. Will we be forced to contend with uncertainty and change? Yes, we will. Will things never be the same? Yes. Will there be loss? Yes. But we know how the story ends. Life has a happy ending. And we can do more than hope in God’s triumph in Jesus Christ. We can enact God’s triumph in Jesus Christ. We can enact God’s way of sacrifice, service, and mission. We can enact God’s way of love. Through us life’s happy ending can begin right now. Amen.
In the beginning; on that very first day, there were but primordial waters - dark and turbulent. And God said, “Let there be light!” and the primordial waters were enlightened. On the second day God said, “Let there be a dome to stand amidst the waters; a dome to hold them at bay!” and the sky appeared. On the third day, God said, “Let the dry land appear, and let it put forth vegetation!” and earth was girded with all manner of plant life. On the fourth day, God said, “Let there be lights in the sky to separate day from night!” and the sun and the moon appeared. On the fifth day, God said, “Let the waters and the sky swarm with life!” and the fish and the birds appeared. On the sixth day, God said, “Now let the dry land swarm with life,” and the animals appeared. And there was one more thing that God said on that sixth day. God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness,” and we appeared. Now, much can be taken from these immortal words, but one thing clearly stands out. God is a God who speaks things into reality. Now, you might puzzle at this -- that God is a God who speaks things into reality. But you shouldn’t really scratch your head too hard. If you really think about, it’s not that hard to grasp, especially for we who are made in God’s image and likeness. Because we speak things into reality too. Think about the call of Jeremiah, which you just heard read. God called Jeremiah when the whole world was at war. Rather than confound you with details of the ancient conflict between the Assyrian Empire, the Babylonian Empire, and the Egyptian Empire, there is a more recent and familiar time to which it can be compared. Think of World War II. The whole world was indeed at war. Hitler’s first two conquests of Austria and Czechoslovakia Hitler were bloodless, but thereafter, as the Bible puts it, "bloodshed followed bloodshed." Hitler invaded Poland, bringing Britain and France into the war. Then he invaded Denmark and Norway and France and Belgium and Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Then it was North Africa and Greece and Yugoslavia. And then finally, the Soviet Union. And this was just the half of it. The United States declared war upon Japan after that day that would live in infamy, that day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Thereafter Germany declared war on the United States. So you see, the whole world was indeed at war. Looking back on it, it is possible to get some handle on it. But it’s hard to imagine how overwhelming it must have been in its unfolding. To state that the world situation was complicated is the understatement of the century. The world situation at the time of God’s call to Jeremiah was every bit as complicated. Perhaps more. The words of his call reflect that. And God called to Jeremiah. “I have appointed you a prophet to all the nations.” And what was Jeremiah’s reply? “I am just a lad. I have nothing to say.” Now you can’t really blame him. He was just a lad. He was perhaps fourteen years old. Imagine some random fourteen year old addressing the world situation during World War II. So you can’t really blame him. But God blamed him. What was God’s reply to Jeremiah? God said, “Don’t you say that you’re just a lad, that you have nothing to say. Don’t you speak that into reality. ” So, as I said, it shouldn’t be that hard to grasp. God speaks things into reality, and we do too. And God, in Jeremiah’s case, was right. Of course he was. He’s God. Jeremiah might have been young. He might have been inexperienced. But God had seen something in him, something that Jeremiah was too young and inexperienced to see, something that’s far rarer than it should be - God saw moral clarity -- the ability, regardless of the complexity, to see the good from the bad; to see what’s right and what’s wrong. And after God turned him around, Jeremiah spoke that moral clarity into reality. To that complicated world situation, his words were the wisest and truest and best of all the words to sound. The bottom line is this. Everyone. And I mean everyone. God. His prophets. His people. We all speak things into reality. In fact, it shouldn’t be hard to grasp at all. A Roman Centurion grasped it for crying out loud: “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed.” But, you may press, so we all speak things into reality. But how does that work? It has to do with the fact that what you speak is your intention, and what you intend you enact. But more important than how it works is the fact that it does. It works. It works for good, and it works for ill. I am only a lad. I have nothing to say. It’s not my problem. I’ll never forgive him. I don’t really care. I don’t fit in. It’s not worth my effort. I can’t handle it. I’ll never get better. It’s not my responsibility. I can’t make a difference. I don’t have the strength. I am washed up. Existence is bad business. Life is not worth living. All those things you can speak into reality. And all these things you can speak into reality too. I will make God’s difference in this world today. I will keep faith in son Jesus Christ just as he kept faith in his Father. I will be his disciple in ways that will make him proud of me. I will make every person I come into contact today better for it. I will try harder. I will do better. I will make sacrifices to honor the sacrifices made for me. I will stop fearing those who are different from me. I will treat myself and all others as those created in God’s image and likeness. I will speak the truth. I will defend the downtrodden. Above all, I will love. And since it’s Rally Day, let’s speak these words into reality too. I will grow in God’s word. I will be mentor, guide, example, and friend to the children and youth of this church as they endeavor to grow in God’s word. I will be there for all the young people out there seeking in these troubling and difficult times that which is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, and excellent. I will make God known to future generations. Amen.
I recently came across a link entitled, “The Top Five Human Fears.” “What a time waster all these links are,” I said to myself disdainfully. No doubt you come across them too -- these links with their teaser titles: “This one will make you cry.” “This one will make you laugh.” “This one will surprise you.” “Open to burn belly fat.” “Amazing befores and afters.” “Celebrities Unretouched.” These links seem to exist to prey upon our tendency to procrastinate. Who of us would not rather click a link than pay bills, fold laundry, or clean the cat litter box? So there it was. “The Top Five Human Fears.” “Sorry, Link!” I said to myself confidently, “I am not susceptible to the allure of your charms.” A few moments later I began wondering if I were a fearful person. “No, of course not,” I told myself. “Just the opposite, I am a brave person… But what if my bravery is an over compensation for my fear?” I continued to ruminate. “No of course not,” I told myself again. “I am a really and truly a brave person. I have high self-esteem and self-confidence, and I am a person of conviction. These are the building blocks of bravery, so I am definitely not a fearful person pretending to be brave…. But I bet that’s what all the fearful people pretending to be brave say to themselves,” I began to worry. “Best to dig a bit deeper,” I cajoled myself. “Best to click the link to see if I resonated with what was fearful to the general run of humanity, of which I am a member.” Suffice it to say, in this way I seduced myself into clicking the link. When I saw the top five human fears, however, I no longer tossed over in my mind whether I was a brave or fearful person. That question shot out of my head like a sent croquet ball. “How trivial people are in their fears,” was the thought that now vexed me. Procrastination had taken full hold. At any rate, see if you agree with me about the triviality of people’s fears. Here is the list: number 5: the dark; number 4: spiders; number 3: heights; number 2: public speaking; and number 1: flying. “This is what people are fearful of?” I thought, chagrined. “How banal! How bland! How stereotypical!” What about the things that are really fearful; fearful, say, at an existential level? What about loneliness? Estrangement? Alienation? Absurdity? Insanity? Futility? Dread? Despair? What about failure? Rejection? Loss? Or the mother lode of them all: What about death? Or set aside the existential level. These fears are but abstractions. What about things that are fearful at a concrete level? Take world events, for instance. What about violence? The gun violence that massacres innocence all across our country, or the political violence that rages across the Middle East? What about the Leviathan we’ve wrought out of the created order whose avenging devastation is here to stay? What about the Goliath powers and principalities that subjugate us every way we turn? What about all the horrors of history that rehearse the horrors of the future? Nothing that was really fearful made the list. “Where was I when the poll was taken?” I fumed. “I would have given them an earful about fearful.” As I said, procrastination had taken full hold. I then began to wonder why people had answered so trivially. Spiders? The dark? Come on. It suddenly struck me that they did it on purpose. They delivered the party line, provided the pat answers, took the easy out, deliberately. Beneath the surface, then, their true fear could be seen to emerge. They feared separating themselves from the herd. Not long ago I clicked on another link. It was entitled, “Deathbed regrets.” The number one deathbed regret was that people had not simply lived their own lives. They lived by someone else’s expectations, lived according to someone else’s “should.” Accordingly, they lived, and they died, regretful and unfulfilled. Of course they did. They lived someone else’s life. Why did they? Why this fear of separating from the herd? There are many reasons to fear separating from the herd. The herd depends for its existence upon sameness – upon conventionality and conformity. The herd then does not like it when someone differentiates from it. It then criticizes. It judges. It ridicules. It rejects. And say you screw your courage to the sticking place and say to heck with the herd. I will live by my own expectations, according to my own should. I will live my own life. Well that’s just the beginning. Then you have to blaze your own trail, and trails are hard to blaze. They are risky. They are scary. They are uncertain. So there’s a certain safety in the herd. It may be stifling. It may be crippling. It may be dull, but this is the price to be paid for safety. I guess the bottom line is that those who answered so trivially, in that very triviality, indirectly gave expression to a fear that is anything but trivial – the fear of their own individuality. But what does any of this have to do with us as Christians? Plenty, for this herd mentality tends to be imported into religion. The herd mentality asserts that the highest expression of religion is to look alike, to think alike, to judge alike, to be of a social class, to share the same political enemies, to harbor the same prejudices, to employ the same jargon, and to erect the same facade. And heaven help you if you try to separate from this herd. As I said, the herd does not like it doesn’t like it when you differentiate from it. In this case the herd, often through the appropriate committee, will confront you and demand that you toe the line, and if you don’t, it will shun you in one way or another. The Bible, for its part, in fact is not supportive of the herd. Believe it or not, one of the mightiest theological choruses that runs throughout the Bible is one that sounds against the herd. Take the immortal words of the prophet Jeremiah, “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah…..I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts…And I will be their God, and they shall be my people….For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” Most people know these words, but know little of their context. The nation of Israel was no longer on its last legs. It had been destroyed. And I mean destroyed - with unimaginable violence and decisive permanence. That nation in fact would not be rebuilt until 1948. It fell to the armies of Babylon. The few who survived were deeply traumatized. Any destruction would have been enough, but this was the destruction of God’s nation. Jeremiah was not deeply traumatized. For him the God’s nation had to go. It had become a herd. Self-perpetuating uniformity. Us against them. God’s people aren’t coterminous with a nation, Jeremiah declared. Nor are they coterminous with a race or ethnicity. God’s people are individuals possessed of God’s heart, regardless of nation or ethnicity or race. Paul has his own immortal words, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Again you know the words, but probably not their context. Christianity was at first housed within the close confines of Judaism, so-called Jewish Christianity. The Gentiles wanted in, but the establishment said no. They weren’t part of the herd. They must become Jews first, circumcise themselves and bind themselves to the Law of Moses, before they could come in. So Paul declared that this Jewish Christianity had to go. God’s people were individuals who had heard the upward call of Jesus Christ and believed in his saving power. What the Bible is saying is that God’s people should and must be a various assortment of diverse individuals: individuals with unique personalities and interests, unique histories and stories, unique strengths and weaknesses, unique successes and failures. They need share only one thing in common. They must seek as their highest hope and aspiration to glorify the God of Jesus Christ. Jesus once told a parable. Three servants were a different number of talents, each according to his merit. One was given five, one two, and one just a single talent. The servant with one talent thought he didn’t rate much as an individual. So he hid what he was given in the dirt. This landed him in deep trouble. There is a negative lesson, here, obviously, it takes the form of a warning. But there is a positive lesson as well: It is this: You do rate much as an individual. You are important as that individual. You are worthy as that individual. You are needed as that individual. You can fill your role in God’s world as that individual. So love yourself and respect yourself as much as God loves and respects you. Expect as much from yourself as God expects of you. And this requires honesty. And this requires courage. And this requires faith. And this requires action away from the herd. You know, I think I will create my own link. It will be entitled, “Click here for the secret to life.” When it opens there will be but six words: “For God’s sake, just be yourself.” Amen.
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