Jeremiah paints a pretty bleak picture. He describes a hot wind blowing toward “my poor people” that is too strong for winnowing or cleansing. At the Campbell Farm we used to grow a little wheat, and we’d have the kids thresh the wheat and we’d use an electric fan to separate the wheat from the chaff. Carman liked to talk about it as the spiritual process we go through in our relationship with God. We do like to imagine suffering and trials as tests, but this wind that is blowing toward the people of God now in this scripture is too much. A gale force wind, not the gentle breeze of a fan. It is too much for the process of separating the wheat from the chaff, too much for any kind of purification.
How else can we explain it? Is God just angry? The prophet calls the people foolish, stupid children, with no understanding, skilled in doing evil, and it seems like no one knows how to do good. And definitely I know I have felt that way at times. Failure is a word I have used to describe myself more than once; I don’t need an angry God to beat me up. I do that to myself enough. When the winds of suffering blow too hard, when life is just too much for us to bear, we are not always at our best. We doubt, we are afraid, we seek to protect ourselves, we get defensive and sometimes we take it out on each other. Crisis sometimes brings out the worst in us, and we do act foolish. And even if we are trying to be faithful, the world sometimes is just too overwhelming, the problems we face seem too insurmountable and we have simply no idea what to do. And this, this scene that Jeremiah is describing seems like certain death. He describes the earth laid waste and void, no lights in the heavens, the mountains are quaking, hills move to and fro, the birds have fled, the fruitful land a desert, cities in ruin. The whole land is desolate. God forsaken.
But listen. God continues to speak to us even in this moment. He says, “I will not make a full end.” Though the earth shall mourn, the heavens grow black; God will not make a full end. Life comes from death, even this most horrible vision of a God forsaken earth - that is not the last word.
The psalmist tells us, “What is it that foolish people say? They say there is no God.” The psalmist is bitter in his lament at the foolishness of his people. He is in the same dark place about to give into hopelessness that Jeremiah was in. The place that we often go to in our own depression. It looks like all around him is darkness. Is everyone faithless? Is there no one who does good? Evil doers, they eat up my people like bread, the want to torture and confound the afflicted. The Psalmist sees the suffering all around him, the affliction of his people at the hand of their oppressors, and he is overwhelmed. And he prays for deliverance, “Oh that Israel’s deliverance would come out of Zion! When the Lord restores the fortunes of his people, Jacob will rejoice and Israel will be glad!”
Listen, listen. If there is but one who would be wise and seek after God, hear the prayer of the psalmist. Catch a glimpse of the hope against hope in that prayer. There will be deliverance.
Paul, in Timothy, knows that Jesus Christ is his strength. He does not boast about his position as a Pharisee or a Roman Citizen. He does not mention that he was an educated man of some position and power in his society. No, Paul talks about himself as the blasphemer, the persecutor, a man of violence, the least of the apostles, the foremost of sinners. He talks only about the mercy he received from Jesus Christ.
Paul says that Jesus displayed the utmost patience with him making him an example to those who would come to believe in Christ. Perhaps Paul is a little hard on himself, but it is all about giving glory to God and thanks for God’s endless patience. That is such a good thing. The God of patience works with us silly, stupid folks, who don’t know how to do stuff, who don’t know how to solve the myriad of problems we face, who are confused and bewildered much of the time. Many of us buy the line repeated by so many who seek to keep us down and in our place that we are unworthy. Or on the other hand we buy the line that others tell some of us, all about how our education or wealth or whatever credentials we possess, or the position we hold actually amount to something.
But all of us simply need to learn, over such a long time, a life time really, whether we are the lowest of the low or the most lofty, we need to learn that ultimately it is not about us at all, it is about God. It is about the fact that we are only and always just Beloved Children of God. GOD LOVES YOU! And yet this is sometimes the hardest thing to hear of all!
But listen, listen now. Even if you have been excluded from community because of who you are, what you might have done, or what others imagine you might have done. Even if others have looked down on you, closed the door on you, treated you like you were nothing. Or maybe you have been the one doing the looking down on, closing the door on others. Maybe you have been the one clinging to your pride, imagining that you can Lord it over others. You hide your insecurity and live in denial about your own need of God. Listen again and hear all you will ever need to hear. GOD LOVES YOU. Hear the words of Jesus from the cross who says, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do!” All of us simply need to hear the words of Christ! We are forgiven, precisely because we don’t have a clue what to do. It does not matter, none of it matter, however you have screwed up, whatever you don’t know how to do. God says, “I LOVE YOU!”
It is this kind of welcoming love that Jesus demonstrated. I know you are all facing uncertainty about the future of the church. You are overwhelmed about how to meet the needs of the community, how to keep alive the presence of the gospel here in Wapato. It may not be the end of the world as we know it, like the description in Jeremiah, but there is fear of death here as well, and grief over loss like the lament of the Psalmist.
None of you have all the answers and yet you are here. You are listening and you are being faithful. In fact I think you are doing just the right thing! Jesus took the criticism from the powers that be, the Pharisees of his day, who stood on the side lines and complained, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them!” This is in fact the central action of Jesus, a radical hospitality, that welcomes all into the loving arms of God, and that, that is what you are all are doing here at Wapato Community Presbyterian Church.
Just as the shepherd goes off in search of the lost sheep, or the woman in search of her lost coin, you have gone out and sought the lost among our community and invited them in. And not just sinners, but what is sometimes even more difficult, people who are different from one another, even a little scary and you are beginning to find a way to form community together. You are now a community of people who were lost and God has found you! And you have found each other. I spoke the other night to one of the newest members of your community, an ex-gang member who told me how God had brought him back from the brink of death, and how now this community has offered his community a place to worship, a chance to celebrate new life. He told me about how, right here in this room, rival gang members were singing and praising the same God side by side.
Listen brothers and sisters! These are the sounds and sights of new life emerging in this place! I know the future is uncertain here to say the least, but listen, listen to the sounds of new life all around you.
There are Pharisees and Scribes who stand ready on the side lines, ready to criticize what you are doing. There is a conventional wisdom that says forget about the lost sheep or the missing coin. Cut your losses, close the building, dissolve the church and save what money you do have. You hear voices telling you, you don’t have what it takes to really do ministry here in this community! And some of you have doubts and fears as well. You are tempted to fight with one another over the vision of the church and the direction it seems to be heading. Some of you may be a little uncertain if the welcome you felt will really last. While some of you might be a little scared maybe of some of the new people you see filling the pews around you. Others of you grieve the loss of a past that is really lost forever and you cannot get it back. You see the inevitable writing on the wall, the lack of funds, all the old friends who have died or moved away, or who have become those folks who stand on the side lines.
There are structures and systems that are set in place that are really set against you, racist and unjust systems, those principalities and powers that the bible talks about that we are called to resist. We really barely understand these powers but they are there and they are weighted against us. These systems turn well meaning people in folks who have a hard time figuring out how to support you, and in fact will work actively against you, for what you are doing is in fact subversive! By the simple act of hospitality to a stranger, to those different from you, and to the outcasts, and sinners, you are creating an alternative community, a new way of being in the world, a vision of the Kingdom of God that finds unity in diversity! In which all are welcome in the loving embrace of God.
You are following Jesus. Praise the Lord! And I want you to know they kill people for that kind of stuff! And worse than actually intentionally trying to kill you, the powers that be quite unintentionally in their desire to control things kill stuff, by the ineptitude, and negligence and just plain stupidity of people in power, just like all of us fools who don’t know what to do. We can squash a good thing.
Today I want to call you to claim the promise of Jesus Christ. There are signs of new life among you. You are an incredible sign of new life. And I encourage you to continue on this journey to listen to Jesus.
We all have a choice. We can be driven by fear, fear of the future, of economics, of all the pain and struggle that goes on around us, we can be afraid of those who are different from us, we can be afraid of the voices of those who stand on the edge and criticize and comment. We can be afraid all we want. OR we can claim the power of Christ within in, we can claim the hope that, no matter what, God says, “I will not make a full end, I will deliver my people and restore their fortunes.” It won’t ever be like it was. Restoration does not mean turn back the clock and it all goes back to the way it was. NO what God is about is transformation, new life, new wine in new wine skins, new ways of doing things, new forms of community, a new and emerging vision for a new life that comes out of the ashes of death and dying. We believe in resurrection around here! Remember how Paul was transformed. Each and everyone one of you has a story of personal transformation. Remember that story! Look inside yourselves and see where God has been at work in your life. You each have known the new life that comes from death. So too this community will be transformed as well.
I want to tell you also that you are not alone. We have formed an Ecumenical Shared Ministry group that has been meeting over the last year to share the similar stories of small congregations and mission partners throughout the Reservation and surrounding communities. My small little Episcopal congregation with about 10 members has been involved, the Methodist, Lutherans, and Disciples, have all been involved. David Norwood, Marlyn, Valeta, and Carman at the Campbell Farm have come to the meetings. We are getting to know one another, building those relationships and finding ways we can support one another. I want you to know that all of us look to the community that is unfolding here at Wapato Presbyterian Church as a model we all want to aspire to! You need to know that there are fellow Christians around you who recognize the work of God among you, and want to walk along side of you and support you. We are all praying for you.
I have no idea how it will all turn out, but I do believe that something new is emerging. There is a new wind blowing. And this time it is the powerful wind of the Spirit of the Living God, moving among us in a new way.
Listen . . . Listen . . . Listen for it. Can you hear it?
AMEN.
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