SUNDAY SERMON 10/9/16
THE REV. KATHLEEN M. STURGES

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. This passage we heard from our first reading from the prophet Jeremiah is one that is very popular among many Christians. In fact, it is so popular that marketers have taken notice. I Googled this verse to see what things would come up and I found that there are hundreds of posters, prints, and signs for purchase. I printed one up here to give you a sense of it. The Bible verse is printed at the top, “For I know the plans I have for you…” and then you see in the background a picture of a sunrise like this one, or a grove of trees, or a field of flowers -some image that conveys peace and comfort. But that’s not all, if you want you may also purchase a t-shirt with this verse, Jeremiah 29:11, printed on it. Or jewlery, bracelets or necklaces. Even a scarf with the bible verse. Now who wants a scarf with a bible verse, I wonder?

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. It’s so popular and so marketable because it is such a lovelymessage and it’s true. However, it’s not said in a vacuum. There is a history and setting around it that we find in chapter 29. And let me tell you, this declaration of a future and a hope is not said to the Jewish people when everything's coming up roses, quite the contrary. It’s roughly 600 BC and the Jewish people have lived in the promised land for quite a while. The glory days of King David have already come and gone and now the promised land is divided up into two kingdoms, the northern kingdom called Israel and the southern kingdom, Judah. To the east is the rising kingdom and power of Babylon. After some time Babylon’s power overtakes the southern kingdom Judah. And in order to reduce the resistance of this newly conquered territory a good many Jews are deported. They are a conquered people who are ripped from their land, their life - all they know - and sent east to the hostile land of Babylon.

And they cried out wondering where was God? How could their Lord God let this happen? Not only are they torn away from their life, but they also are feeling torn away from their God. For back in this time the Jews understood God as being a God of the land, the promised land, and you worshiped this Lord God primarily at the temple in Jerusalem. Here were the Jewish exiles,separated from that land and wondering where God was literally. They were bereft and abandoned.

Then word came from the promised land of Israel. People claiming to have the word of the Lord said that what was going on was just minor setback lasting two years, tops. That surely wasn’tgreat news for the exiles, but manageable. They could last two years and then return to home. However, that was not to be the case because it was Jeremiah who truly had the word of theLord. And from occupied Jerusalem, Jeremiah sent word. And it is that word that we read today in chapter 29.

This is the word of the Lord: build houses and live in them, plant gardens and eat what they produce, marry and have children, multiply, and pray for the welfare of your captors. And ontop that, Jeremiah also proclaims that this time in exile will not last a mere two years, but seventy. Which meant that most, if not all, of the people who were hearing these words would never see their home again: they would spend the rest of their lives in exile.

This was not what they wanted to hear. They wanted to hear that things were going to change! That God would end their captivity. Punished their enemies. That they would go back home. But that was not to be. The word of the Lord was that even though they were in a circumstance that they did not like, they did not want, a situation that they resisted, resented, and rejected, the message was to live.

Live: put down roots - build homes, plant gardens. Nurture relationships - marry and have families. Pray - now this was a radical thought. If they could pray to their God in exile in Babylon that meant that God was not tied to the Promised Land, rather God was a universal God. Something that we today take for granted today, that wherever we are God is, that concept was just beginning to be developed here. That the captive Israelites far from home could pray and God would hear and be connected to them that was mind-blowing news. However, they were told not just to pray in a general, but to pray specifically for their captors, the hated heathen, for their welfare. (This type of message was unheard of. It would be several hundred years before Jesus was on the scene saying pray for those who persecute you.) So the instruction to pray for the welfare of their enemies and really all of the word of the Lord sent through Jeremiah was not what they wanted to hear.

I can imagine those people wanting to put their fingers in their ears, shake their heads and shout, “No! No! No!” But this was their lot. And it is in this dark time, in exile, it is within this context that the Lord proclaims, “I know the plans I have for you. Plans for your welfare and not for evil to give you a future and a hope.”

This scripture is not a trite message that can be slapped onto various items for sale in order to convey a simple, “Everything’s going to be OK” message. Rather this word of the Lord, this good news is hard-won, born out of a hard, even dire, situation. It challenges the Jews back then and us now to embrace the place or the situation where God has us and to live because God is present and with us.

God doesn’t always defeat or send the enemy away, but God is with us. God doesn’t always cure our diseases, but even through the illness God is with us. God doesn’t make our loved ones immune to death, but God is still with us. And because God is with us in the uncertain, unknowable future, in all circumstance of life - the ones we invite and the ones we resist - we are invited to trust and hear deeply what God declares to us today. I know the plans I have for you, plans for your welfare and not for evil, for a future and a hope.