Ease in Risk

Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15

The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the tenth year of King Zedekiah of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar. At that time the army of the king of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem, and the prophet Jeremiah was confined in the court of the guard that was in the palace of the king of Judah, where King Zedekiah of Judah had confined him. Zedekiah had said, ‘Why do you prophesy and say: Thus says the Lord: I am going to give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it;

Jeremiah said, The word of the Lord came to me: Hanamel son of your uncle Shallum is going to come to you and say, ‘Buy my field that is at Anathoth, for the right of redemption by purchase is yours.’ Then my cousin Hanamel came to me in the court of the guard, in accordance with the word of the Lord, and said to me, ‘Buy my field that is at Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, for the right of possession and redemption is yours; buy it for yourself.’ Then I knew that this was the word of the Lord.

And I bought the field at Anathoth from my cousin Hanamel, and weighed out the money to him, seventeen shekels of silver. I signed the deed, sealed it, got witnesses, and weighed the money on scales. Then I took the sealed deed of purchase, containing the terms and conditions, and the open copy; and I gave the deed of purchase to Baruch son of Neriah son of Mahseiah, in the presence of my cousin Hanamel, in the presence of the witnesses who signed the deed of purchase, and in the presence of all the Judeans who were sitting in the court of the guard. In their presence I charged Baruch, saying, Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Take these deeds, both this sealed deed of purchase and this open deed, and put them in an earthenware jar, in order that they may last for a long time. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.

So-- Sue just read us a very dry story about an ancient real estate transaction. Why? Why is this even part of Jeremiah’s story? Well, as usual, to understand the point, we need to understand the context in which this is happening. The conquest that Jeremiah foretold is underway. They’re in the midst of a siege. Now right before it happened, Jeremiah suggested that when it does, everyone just lay down their arms and surrender, this is a lost cause anyway, we’re gonna be overthrown no matter what, so let’s just minimize the damages, and the lives lost. Well, for the proud Judean leaders, immediate surrender was not an option, and to suggest it was interpreted as seditious and traitorous, even. Because of this, and because of the fact that yelling that God wants you to lay down your weapons and surrender is not great for soldier’s morale, Jeremiah gets arrested. He’s able to receive visitors, so the arrest isn’t anything inhumane—King Zedekiah just wants him out of the public square preaching about surrender. So here is Jeremiah—imprisoned, his promised land under siege, he has knowledge directly from God that this land will be overtaken by enemies from the North, and this is when he decides to make a decision on a piece of real estate. Imagine what this looked like to King Zedekiah and the rest of these powerful Judeans—here’s this crazy, weeping man, who’s been talking yelling about our downfall, and now he’s buying land in the place that’s he says is a lost cause?

But Jeremiah is a prophet, and so he knows something they don’t know, or rather, something they won’t believe just yet. Now, I don’t want to get too deep into this, because we’ll talk about it more in a couple weeks when it’s our scripture reading, but just before this, in chapter 31, is when God tells Jeremiah about the new covenant. “I will put my law within them, I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” The love and law of God will now be within all God’s people, not just within a certain land. So Jeremiah knows that no matter who is in charge, no matter who has supposedly conquered who, that will not do away with God’s love.

And so, we are at the point now, that after all of Jeremiah’s weeping and wailing, after all of his crying and moaning, he’s doing something that seems insane to those not in the know, but what he’s really doing is an act of unbridled hope and faith. He’s buying this piece of land from his cousin because he trusts that God will be with him, will be with all people no matter who is king; and he also knows that there will be some kind of return to relative normalcy. Now, when I use my Bible commentaries for research, they’re usually pretty dry, and while they often inspire me and give me ideas for my sermons, rarely do I directly quote them, but I do want to quote R.E. Clements from his Jeremiah Bible commentary on this section:

…the message of hope is given expression in boldly human and social form… Genuinely God-given hope is neither an inner psychological confidence that ‘all will be well,’ nor a transition to a wholly new and other-worldly basis of existence in another life. Its very reality, and therefore its power to convince and take hold of the imagination, lies in its this-worldly concreteness.

 This is what I’m talking about when I’m talking about an earth as it is in heaven—we can’t fully rely on the next life, we can’t fully rely on platitudes of how it’s all gonna be okay—we have to make moves in this life, in this world. That’s what we’re called to do. And listen, this world is overwhelming. There’s too much to fix, there’s so much to despair about. Let’s be real, we’re not gonna save the world single-handedly. But what we can do is practice hope and practice God’s call in our community. What we can do is find small and accessible, but crucial, and life-giving ways to bring hope about in our immediate community.

Looking back, it seems like whole past two years of my life have been kind of the epitome of almost cockeyed optimistic hope. I started looking for churches for my very first call in the midst of a pandemic, before vaccines were even close to being a reality. I moved from a big city to rural Vermont, having never lived rurally before, and also with absolutely zero idea of whether or not Chris would be able to get any kind of job. I’ve suffered gut-wrenching losses and continued to move forward, Chris and I bought a house for way more than it was worth during maybe the worst time to buy a house in decades, the list goes on. I guess this isn’t really tooting my own horn, it kind of makes me sound very naïve and deluded. But, at the risk of comparing myself to a major Biblical prophet, people probably thought Jeremiah buying a field in a land that was about to be full under siege was pretty foolhardy, to put it lightly. But, “…the word of the Lord came [to Jeremiah]: Hanamel son of your uncle Shallum is going to come to you and say, ‘Buy my field that is at Anathoth, for the right of redemption by purchase is yours.’”

So “right of redemption” was a Mosaic law that simply meant that the next of kin would get first dibs on land that was being sold—this was because without land in an agrarian society, a family would be pretty screwed—so it was to protect people, to protect families, especially ones that weren’t super wealthy, from becoming totally destitute. Now, again, this all reads as really dry and not super interesting— but think about it: not only is Jeremiah buying land in a land that’s under attack, but he’s also using the same rules that would apply to his people, the same laws. Because he has faith that these laws and these rules to protect his people will still mean something, even when the land is taken over. He has faith in this new covenant from God.

This is the kind of faith we need to have right now, Church. One thing I really love about this congregation, about this church community, and I think a lot of credit for this goes to my predecessor Lucia, is that you all have such open minds, you don’t get bogged down by the very New England “but we’ve always done it this way” of being. But there’s also this really incredible love of community traditions. That combination is maybe the main thing that drew me to this church when I took that bonkers leap of faith to come here two years ago.  

The weather’s getting chillier now, people are out and about in the world again, and I think sooner than later it’ll be time to figure out roast beef suppers—what do the suppers look like in this new era? Will it be completely conquered by covid, conquered by inflation, or will we find new ways to show our radical hospitality to the Upper Valley as we have for decades? Do we still have faith that we can continue being who we are in this world that changes at such a rapid pace, in this world where so many traditions and joys have been decimated by a pandemic, not to mention the unjust and impossible economic conditions we’re forced to live under. How do we move forward in this world, how do we continue doing the things that are meaningful and important, how does our church fit into this new world we’ve been handed?

The Rev. Molly Baskette is probably the closest thing to celebrity pastor as one can get when it comes to UCC pastors— in the UCC bubble, she’s famous for bringing First Church in Somerville MA back from the dead, and now she’s the head pastor at First Church in Berkely CA. And she calls herself a “doomsday Pollyanna,” which I’ve always really loved. I’ve definitely taken a note from her—if you’ve ever been in a church meeting with me when I’ve wanted to push a new an idea, my refrain is usually, “listen, the church is dying—not this church, but the capital-C Church.” Because we have to be realistic, we have to know the world is changing, and it is changing in a way that is not super favorable to small churches that want to build communities and help those who need help the most. It was grim before covid, and it’s grimmer now. So there’s the doomsday part.

Now, the Pollyanna part— I knew the capital-C church was in dire straits before I took this job—so not only did I accept my first call during a not-great time, but I accepted my first call at a not-great time for the church in the least religious state in the country! Less than a quarter of already very small population of Vermont consider religion to be an important part of their life. Why did I do this?! Well, I have faith in you all. I have faith in this community. I have faith in the fact that my call to this church felt so incredibly, wildly, out-of-this-world strong that I couldn’t turn it down despite the fact that I had no idea if my husband could get a job, if we could find a place to live, if literally anything would work out. And I continue to have faith that together, we can bring our most important and life-giving traditions back in this world that is not hospitable to the radical hospitality.

But radical hospitality is what this church does best. And this pandemic has tried to kill it, this society has tried to kill it, but it still lives, I see it in this community every day.

And I know things still feel really fragile, right? We don’t really know what the next moves are, we don’t know what risks are worth it and which ones aren’t, but that’s what risks are all about, right? We’re in uncharted territory, and not decision is going to work, not every new idea will be a home run, but we have to keep pushing on and trying new things; we have to bring back and rework things that have provided life and joy, comradery and community here in the past. Because we know how important those things are to this small town, to this community. Surely as the times change, there are certain things we have to let go of, certain things we have to change, certain things we have to adapt to—but we can’t let our renown radical hospitality fall by the wayside. We can’t give up on meeting new people, on inviting new people in, on opening our doors to new and exciting projects.

On the surface today’s scripture reading doesn’t seem especially exciting. Because of that, it doesn’t read as especially inspiring. But think about the courage and the faith it took Jeremiah to take this risk, to buy this land believing that it would stay in his family thanks to the laws of his people, despite the fact that that very land was under siege by a people who had no reason to follow these Mosaic laws, or allow others to. But Jeremiah continued to have faith, not just in God, but also in his people—even after his people had disappointed him over and over and over; I mean, my God, in this passage, he’s being imprisoned by his own people! But he bought this land having faith that his people, no matter how sinful of lazy or apathetic they had been recently, would continue to keep their traditions, would maintain social and religious rituals no matter who was in charge of their land. Yes, Jeremiah has faith in God and God’s new covenant, but he also has faith in his people, even during such a frightening and uncertain time.

So, especially as we inch into a slightly earlier than usual stewardship season, I want us all to think about ways we can continue trust in one another, ways we can continue to have faith that we can overcome this siege of pandemic, that we can still embrace long-held, and life-giving traditions that show our radical hospitality. It’s so, so, easy to get bogged down in despair these days—so instead of getting overwhelmed by thinking of the infinite problems, let’s focus on how we can lift up those around us, how we can invite people into this space in both old and traditional ways and new and creative ones.

With that, I want to end my sermon with an excerpt from a blessing by John O’Donohue:

Awaken your spirit to adventure; / Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk; / Soon you will be home in a new rhythm, / For your soul senses the world that awaits you. Amen.