A Hopeful Farce

Proper 21C
Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15
September 26, 2004

A Hopeful Farce

Rev. John M. Caldwell, PhD
First United Methodist Church
Decorah, Iowa

There is a difference between optimism and hope. Let me take a stab at stating it. The pessimist sees that glass as half empty. The optimist sees the glass as half full. The person with hope knows where the well is. No, that’s not quite it. I’m not sure I can put it simply, but I know it when I see it. I see it in our text.

Zedekiah was an optimist. He walked along the city walls and he felt how firm they were beneath his feet. Jerusalem had never fallen to an enemy if there were men to defend its walls. He had an army at his command. It wasn’t anything like the armies of King Nebuchadrezzar who had besieged the city. There was no army in the world that was like the armies of Nebuchadrezzar, at least not in Zedekiah’s world. But the walls were strong.

All Zedekiah had to do was to outlast Nebuchadrezzar. He had water, plenty of it. He had food which, admittedly, was in short supply. But for now there was enough.

Besides, he had friends. Powerful friends. The Pharaoh of Egypt was his friend. He had said so, many times. Many times Pharaoh had promised that, if Zedekiah broke his treaty with Babylon and refused to pay Nebuchdrezzar the tribute money he demanded, Egypt would come to Judah’s aid. Zedekiah had sent his messengers to Egypt. Pharaoh would come. Zedekiah had only to wait. Zedekiah was an optimist.

Jeremiah was not. And, just so we can get this out of the way, Jeremiah wasn’t a bullfrog, either. Jeremiah was a prophet. Jeremiah’s calling was to look into the heart of the events of his day and into the heart of God and to announce the path that God was calling the people to walk. There are times when this calling is a delight. Jeremiah did not live in one of those times.

Jeremiah looked out from the same walls as Zedekiah. He looked toward the northeast, toward Anathoth, the town of his birth, the town where his ancestors had settled, the town where his family had lived, at least until the armies of Nebuchdrezzar had come. It was just three and a half miles away. Jeremiah could see it clearly.

But he could also see that the armies of Nebuchadrezzar swarmed over the landscape between Jerusalem and Anathoth and, indeed, in every direction, like ants whose hill has been disturbed. Nebuchadrezzar was not going to go away. Pharaoh was not coming. As far as Jeremiah could see, there was in the heart of God no hint of rescue and no promise of a miracle. No, the path that God was calling Jeremiah’s people to walk was the path of exile and the sooner they surrendered to that path, the better for them.

Prophets don’t just see the truth of a situation; they announce it. That’s what Jeremiah did. In a besieged city Jeremiah went about calling on the people to surrender. Jeremiah was not good for morale. Jeremiah was a problem for Zedekiah the king.

So Zedekiah had Jeremiah arrested and kept imprisoned in the courtyard of his own guards where at least he wouldn’t have access to public spaces and the frightened people who had taken shelter in the city.

Among those frightened people was a cousin of Jeremiah’s named Hanamel. Like hundreds of people, Hanamel had fled to Jerusalem at the first news of Nebuchdrezzar’s invasion. He grabbed whatever he could carry and sought refuge behind the strong walls of the city.

Hanamel, like the other refugees, had a problem: he was hungry. The price of bread kept rising and Hanamel’s purse kept getting lighter and lighter. Like the other refugees, Hanamel was looking to liquidate some of his other assets so that he could continue to eat.

Hanamel owned a field at Anathoth. The field was pretty much useless to him, what with the Babylonian army using it for a motor pool and all. He could sell that field and have money for food. If he could sell the field. If he could find a buyer willing to pay anything at all. As any realtor will tell you, though, the three most important things to keep in mind about real estate are...location, location, and location. Located as it was under the chariot wheels of the Babylonian army, this field was not going to be worth much. Who would be crazy enough to buy Hanamel’s field at Anathoth?

Of course! As soon as Hanamel asked the question, he had his answer: Cousin Jeremiah! Jeremiah might buy the field. After all Jeremiah was Hanamel’s cousin. Land in those days was not quite the commodity that it is now. You couldn’t just sell your land to the highest bidder. Land was supposed to stay within extended families. Family members were morally obligated to buy the land, if they were able to do that, to keep the land from being alienated from the family. Jeremiah was not only Hanamel’s cousin, and obliged for that reason to buy the land if he could, he was also nuts. Buying useless land was just the sort of gesture that Jeremiah did all the time!

So Hanamel went to crazy Jeremiah who was confined in courtyard of the royal guard. He offered him the field at Anathoth. Even though Hanamel had thought all this through, I still think he was surprised when Jeremiah said yes. He not only said yes, but gave him a fair price for it: seventeen shekels. I have found nothing to suggest that this wouldn’t have been a fair price under normal circumstances and circumstances were far from normal.

But you couldn’t have figured that out by watching Jeremiah. Jeremiah got his secretary Baruch son of Neriah and grandson of Mahseiah—a very formal way of referring to Baruch—to make out the deeds setting out the terms and conditions of the sale. There were two copies: one deed was left unsealed so that it could be consulted and the other deed was sealed so that it could not be tampered with and could be available as a comparison in case there were ever a doubt about the open deed. Jeremiah weighed out the seventeen shekels in front of witnesses—bored, off-duty guards I suppose.

Everyone was waiting for what came next. Jeremiah had a way of turning the most normal of acts into an Event. Jeremiah was always bringing God into things. He did not disappoint. Jeremiah gave his secretary instructions: “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 this is what Yahweh of the Armies, the God of Israel, says: Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.”

And there is the difference between optimism and hope. Jeremiah is no optimist. Jeremiah does not look on the bright side of things. Jeremiah does not work to keep his own or anyone else’s spirits up. Jeremiah knows nothing of that optimism that seems to be a part of the American character. Jeremiah never faces disappointment with Scarlet O’Hara’s famous line: “Tomorrow is another day!”

What Jeremiah does instead is to stake himself on God’s future even as he lives in the midst of a present that is broken or even disastrous. He places himself in the gap between the world as it is and the world as God longs for it to be and entrusts himself to the world as God longs for it to be. This is what it means to hope.

This shouldn’t be too hard to understand. We do the same thing every time we pray the prayer that Jesus taught us. Jesus, too, was a prophet and he taught us a prophet’s prayer. In the midst of a reality that does little to render God’s name holy, we pray for God’s name to be hallowed. In the midst of self-serving empires we pray for God’s reign instead. In the midst of egos competing for scarce resources, we pray for God’s will to be done. In a world of hunger we pray for daily bread for all of us. In a world that keeps score and holds grudges we forgive and ask forgiveness. In a world of hard testing we pray not to be tested to destruction. In a world where evil seems to run rampant, we pray that no one would become evil’s victim.

When we pray as Jesus taught us, we pray a prophet’s prayer. But when we move from simply saying the words, to living this prayer that Jesus taught us, something profound happens. We, with Jeremiah and Jesus, place ourselves between the world as it is and the world that God longs for. With Jeremiah and Jesus we stake ourselves on the world that God longs for even as we live in the world as it is.

This is the beauty and the tension of a life lived in covenant with the God of Jeremiah and Jesus. And this is the life offered to the people who are called the church:

We are the people who commit ourselves to peace even in the face of war.

We are the people who commit ourselves to generosity even in the face of scarcity.

We are the people who commit ourselves to justice even in the face of privilege.

We are the people who commit ourselves to resurrection even in the face of death.

©2010, John M. Caldwell. Permission is given by the author to reproduce and distribute the unaltered text of this sermon provided this notice is reproduced in full and provided that this sermon shall not be offered for sale, nor included in any collection or publication that is offered for sale, without the express written permission of the author.