A
New Reason to Sing
Jeremiah
31:7-14
Rev. Randy Quinn
I almost changed my sermon
title for today. It was actually a typo that we caught before printing
the bulletin. We almost left off the “g”.
It was after the near
blooper was corrected that I realized the opportunity I missed! If we
had advertised that as the sermon title, we might have had more people
show up for the first Sunday of the New Year! And then I thought, “It
would be fun to preach a sermon giving people new reasons to sin!”
J
In the end, however, I
came back to my senses. We already have enough excuses for our sin.
What we need is a new reason to live, a new reason to celebrate, a new
reason to sing!
It makes us long to be
recipients of a New Year’s blessing I came across this week:
May
peace break into your house and May thieves come to steal your debts.
May
the pockets of your jeans become a magnet of $100 bills.
May
love stick to your face like Vaseline and May laughter assault your
lips!
May
your clothes smell of success like smoking tires and May happiness slap
you across the face and May your tears be that of joy.
May
the problems you had forget your home address!
In
simple words, May 2009 be the best year of your life!!!
Truthfully, though, last
year we were reminded that life isn’t always what we want it to be, nor
is it what we plan for it to be. In fact, we often find ourselves
disappointed.
When I went looking for a
Christmas gift for my dad, I looked for a non-fiction book with a great
story – because I know he buys and borrows every fiction thriller he can
lay his hands on. I came across The Devil in the White City by
Erik Larson (Vintage Books, 2003). Have any of you heard of it? It’s
the mingling of three different stories that overlap at the site of the
1894 World’s Fair in Chicago.
(I was so intrigued by it
that I bought my own copy and read it.)
Before reading the book, I
only knew one thing about the Chicago World’s Fair: I knew there was a
desire to create something better and more memorable than the Eiffel
Tower. (The Eiffel Tower had been designed and built for the Paris
World’s Fair a few years earlier.) What I didn’t know was that the
introduction of the Ferris Wheel didn’t take place until well after the
grand opening of the fair! In fact, there were enough setbacks and
delays that it almost didn’t get included in the fair at all.
Reading about it was a
reminder to me that when there are setbacks, when there are
disappointments, when there are difficulties, the most American of all
responses is to press on.
And I am convinced that
this particular aspect of the American spirit is deeply rooted in
scripture. Our text for today offers a prime example.
Jeremiah lived in one of
the darkest times in the life of Israel. He witnessed the fall of
Jerusalem. He saw the Babylonians take their leaders into bondage. He
was there when the temple was sacked and looted. He saw the end of life
as the people had known it – the end of the dream of Moses for the
people to live in the Promised Land.
If ever there was a time
of despair that was it.
In the midst of their
despair, however, Jeremiah offers a word of hope. Keep your heads up,
he says. Look for signs that God is with us – because God will not
abandon us.
Listen now to God’s word
for us today:
For thus says the LORD: Sing aloud with
gladness for Jacob, and raise shouts for the chief of the nations;
proclaim, give praise, and say, "Save, O LORD, your people, the remnant
of Israel." See, I am going to bring them from the land of the north,
and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth, among them the
blind and the lame, those with child and those in labor, together; a
great company, they shall return here. With weeping they shall come,
and with consolations I will lead them back, I will let them walk by
brooks of water, in a straight path in which they shall not stumble; for
I have become a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn.
Hear the word of the LORD, O nations, and
declare it in the coastlands far away; say, "He who scattered Israel
will gather him, and will keep him as a shepherd a flock." For the LORD
has ransomed Jacob, and has redeemed him from hands too strong for him.
They shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion, and they shall be
radiant over the goodness of the LORD, over the grain, the wine, and the
oil, and over the young of the flock and the herd; their life shall
become like a watered garden, and they shall never languish again. Then
shall the young women rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the
old shall be merry. I will turn their mourning into joy; I will comfort
them, and give them gladness for sorrow. I will give the priests their
fill of fatness, and my people shall be satisfied with my bounty, says
the LORD.
Jeremiah 31:7-14
Some scholars will argue
that this was actually written while in exile rather than at its
beginning, perhaps an even darker period in Israel’s history. Either
way, it was a time when doubts were cast on their status as God’s chosen
people. It was a time when people seriously questioned the very
existence of God.
In the darkest of times,
Jeremiah offers words of hope, words of promise. Rather than another
reason to cry, he offers them a new reason to sing.
Despite what it may
appear, the truth is that God is still very much at work. God still
cares very much about the people.
During Advent, our Sunday
School class read James Moore’s book, What Do You Want for Christmas?
(Abingdon, 2008). In it, he recounts the story of Tom Sutherland.
It’s not a very familiar name to many of us. Back in the 1980’s, Dr.
Sutherland was Dean of the American University in Beirut when he was
taken captive by extremists. He was held for a total of 2,354 days. He
was held alongside of and finally released with a more well-known
captive, Terry Anderson.
Jim Moore, in his book,
speaks about the despair Sutherland experienced, in part because his
name was never mentioned in the news media. He thought he had been
forgotten. Listen to how Moore retells it:
As they were getting off the plane back
home in the United States, Tom Sutherland was amazed to see that there
were lights and television cameras, reporters and people holding signs,
and a huge crowd at the airport. Tom turned to his wife and said,
“Jean, look at all these people. There must be a celebrity on the plane
with us! Look around and see if you can spot who it is.” And Jean
said, “Honey, they are all here for you! It’s you! This is all for
you!”
When his wife told him that, Tom
Sutherland started crying, and he couldn’t stop. He sobbed like a
little boy. He couldn’t believe it. He said, “I thought everybody had
forgotten about me. I didn’t think anybody knew I was in captivity. I
felt completely abandoned. I didn’t think anybody cared. Thank God I
was wrong”
There may be times in our
lives when we feel alone or abandoned. There may be times when our
disappointments cast a shadow over our lives. In those times, the words
of Jeremiah offer a gleaming display of God’s glory.
But sometimes we need to
open our eyes to see it; sometimes we need to open our ears to hear the
music.
There is a story told
about a Rabbi who travelled to a foreign land.
He took his donkey, his rooster, and a lamp. Since he was a Jew,
however, he was refused lodging in one of the villages; so he stayed in
the woods.
He lit his lamp to study
the Holy Books before going to sleep, but a fierce wind came up,
knocking over the lamp and breaking it. So he decided to sleep instead,
saying “All that God does he does well.”
During the night some wild
animals came along and drove away the rooster and thieves stole his
donkey. When the Rabbi woke up and saw his loss, he still
proclaimed, “All that God does he does well.
When he went into the
village that had refused him lodging, he learned that enemy troops had
invaded it during the night and killed all the inhabitants. He also
learned that the soldiers had traveled through the same woods where he
slept.
Had the wind not blown out
his lamp, he too would have been found and killed.
Had the rooster not been
driven away by wild animals it would have crowed and revealed his
location.
Had thieves not taken his
donkey it would have brayed.
So once more he said, “All
that God does he does well.”
As we enter into a new
year, we are offered a promise, the promise of God’s presence, the
promise of God’s abiding love, the promise of new possibilities. And in
my mind, anyway, that gives us a new reason to sing.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
