Jeremiah 32:1-3a,
6-15
Enacted Prophecy
James Sledge September
25, 2022
As a general rule, there’s no such thing
as a popular prophet. You might even say that the term popular prophet is an
oxymoron. By definition prophets are people who see things that others don’t,
The Peaceable Kingdom, Fritz
Eichenberg,
and that almost always puts them out of step with the status quo, make them a
challenge to the status quo, and that almost always makes them unpopular.
1950, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
One of our most famous, recent prophets, Martin Luther King, Jr., is a good example. Even though Dr. King is widely honored today, albeit an often sanitized and domesticated version of him, that was hardly the case when he led a civil rights movement. In 1966, the last Gallop poll to ask about his popularity during his lifetime found that 63% of Americans had an unfavorable view of him.[1]
The prophet Jeremiah has a book in the Bible named for him, but during his lifetime, he may well have been more unpopular than Martin Luther King. When Jeremiah first began his ministry, he was a voice of doom and gloom at a time when all seemed to be going well. But Jeremiah knew that Israel’s failure to love God and neighbor, to enact mercy and justice, could only lead to tragedy, and that tragedy eventually showed up in the form of the Babylonian Empire with its powerful army.
Babylon conquered Israel, carried off some of its intelligentsia, royals, and priests into exile. They installed a relative of Israel’s king on the throne to be a puppet ruler, and collected regular tribute from Israel.
Unfortunately for Babylon, and for Israel, this puppet king was convinced to join a pro-Egyptian coalition of neighboring kingdoms who would rebel against Babylon with assistance from Egypt.
Jeremiah had warned the king against such a plan to no avail, and Babylon responded with ferocity. They attacked Israel and besieged the city of Jerusalem. Jeremiah urged surrender, for which he was branded a traitor and thrown into jail, which is where we find him in our scripture reading this morning.
Had the king listened to Jeremiah, Israel might well have been spared. Solomon’s great Temple might not have been destroyed. But by the time of our scripture passage, it was too late. Most everyone could see the handwriting on the wall. Jerusalem would only be able to hold out for so long, and when the Babylonians breached the city walls, they would exact revenge, making sure that Israel and Jerusalem would never be a thorn in Babylon’s side again.
It is precisely at this moment, when all is clearly lost, that Jeremiah, the prophet of doom and gloom, becomes a prophet of hope. It happens when Jeremiah learns from one of his relatives that a piece of family property is in danger of passing out of family hands.
Land was a big deal to Israelites and figured prominently in their covenant with God. In an agrarian world, land was what allowed people to survive, and so the possession of land was treated as sacred. Should a member of the family fall into debt and become at risk of losing the land. it was the duty of family members to purchase the land and keep it in the family. This is what Jeremiah’s cousin Hanemel speaks of when he comes and says, “… the right of possession and redemption is yours.”
But why would Jeremiah want to purchase the land. Israel is about to be decimated. The land will be worthless. Who knows if the deed will even survive. What a foolish act it would be to throw money away on this land.
Yet Jeremiah immediately buys his cousin’s land. And he makes a big production of performing all the legalities and making sure the event is witnessed by many. This is enacted prophecy. Yes, things are terrible at the moment. Yes, Babylon will soon destroy the city. But “… thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.”
Jeremiah’s actions are rooted in a vision of the future that makes him want to invest in that future. The present moment is terrible, tragic, horrific, but the prophet can see beyond the present to something new, something good.
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Many of us know a little about investing in the future. Some of us have 401ks and some have started a college fund for their children. Such activities are rooted in a vision, or at least and expectation, of the future. Most of us expect or hope that our 401ks will be there for us when we retire, that those college funds will help pay the tuition.
If we became convinced that these investments would disappear before we needed them, we would probably not have money that we could spend taken out of paychecks. If we lived under conditions like those Jeremiah did, perhaps we would simply say, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”
But as followers of Jesus, we have been given a hopeful vision for the future. Not only have we been promised resurrection to eternal life, but Jesus also tells us that the days are drawing nearer when the poor shall be lifted up and the mighty shall be brought down, when there will be plenty for those who had little, and there will be enough for all.
And we have been called to be ambassadors for that future, to invest in that future, to live in ways that share the hope of a better future with the world. In that sense, we are called to emulate Jeremiah and engage in enacted prophecy. We are called to publicly invest ourselves in activities that lift up the poor, that dismantle racism and the culture of white supremacy, that welcome the outcast and downtrodden. We are called, in ways spectacular and mundane, to live toward a future that many cannot see, but that we know is coming.
When church is what it should be, it is a vehicle for investing in God’s future, a vehicle for enacted prophecy that declares the hope of a better day. But that does not happen without your generosity, generosity with your time and your talents, and with your money. Investing in God’s future asks us to give without the hope of immediate returns.
Such enacted prophecy is desperately needed in our time. Not only do we live in a moment when the foundations of our democracy seem to be teetering, but we also live in a moment when large swaths of the Christian faith have become something bearing little resemblance to the way of Jesus. Evangelical Christianity’s love affair with Donald Trump, a man who embodies much that Jesus railed against, who once publicly disparaged Jesus’ teaching on loving your enemies,[2] has coated the Christian brand with an awful stench.
In this moment, our world desperately needs an alternative witness. It needs prophecy of the sort Jeremiah once gave that repudiated the false prophets who advised the king. We need to be a church that casts a different vision, a church that lives by and works for the vision Jesus had for the world. That means we need to be more public with the vision of a new world proclaimed by Jesus, and we need to boldly invest ourselves in that vision. We need to work against the Christian nationalism and the prejudice and white grievance that has become so connected with our faith. And we need to become beacons of Christ’s love that embraced the outcast and forgotten, that socialized with those deemed sinful, that healed those labeled unclean.
That is the work of those we ordain and install today as deacons and elders, but it is all of our work. It is work that we cannot do as we should without all of us investing ourselves, investing our time and talents and treasure to enact the hope, the vision of a new day. This is the work Jesus has called us to. How can we possibly say “No” to him.
[1] Harry Enten, “Americans see Martin Luther King Jr. as a hero now, but that wasn't the case during his lifetime,” CNN, https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/17/politics/mlk-polling-analysis/index.html
[2] Daniel Burke, “Love your enemies? Nah, says Trump,” www.cnn.com/2020/02/06/politics/trump-love-enemies-prayer-breakfast/index.html
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