A Vision for God’s People

One of the things you learn when you preach and lead worship frequently is that sometimes, people take the subject of resting on the Sabbath literally…and they fall asleep in church. At times this may be due to the lack of vitality or inspiration in worship or a particularly dull sermon. Other mornings it could be that someone was out too late the night before or had such a long week filled with things to do that worship was one of the first moments when they could actually slow down.

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July 3, 2011
Jeremiah 7:1-15, A Vision for God’s People
Douglas Scalise, Brewster Baptist Church
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In either case, I figure if people leave refreshed from worship either as the result of an occasional brief nap or renewing worship and a word from the Lord that is okay. One time I was walking out of a church that I had not preached at and I overheard the following exchange between two older women. The first said, “I feel so badly, my doctor put me on this new medication that makes me drowsy and I fell asleep during Pastor’s sermon.” The other woman replied, “Don’t feel badly. I fell asleep too and I’m not on any medication.”

Sometimes we can get so relaxed with God and so comfortable in worship that we can yawn wide enough to eat a banana sideways. So every now and then, God sends someone like the prophet Jeremiah to wake people up to the whole truth of God, to shake people out of their comfortable “I know it all already” posture with a strong prophetic word of confrontation and challenge. The same God who offers grace unconditionally also has expectations and demands that we are to meet. God used Jeremiah like a smoke detector to wake up the sleeping people of Judah to the moral and ethical demands of faith that they were ignoring. They were treating the Ten Commandments like the Ten Suggestions – obedience optional. They deceived themselves into thinking that saying religious words and singing religious songs and following religious rituals when they were at the Temple in Jerusalem gave them the freedom to do whatever they pleased the rest of the time.

Jeremiah was too faithful to God and too concerned for the people to let them go on in such an unfaithful and unethical manner so he preached God’s truth to them – right in the gate of the house of the Lord. What happened is found in Jeremiah 7:1-15.

“The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: Stand in the gate of the Lord’s house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the Lord, all you people of Judah, you that enter these gates to worship the Lord.Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your doings, and I will let you dwell in this place.Do not trust in these deceptive words: “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.” For

if you truly amend your ways and your doings,

if you truly act justly one with another,

if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and

if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt,

then I will dwell with you in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your ancestors forever and ever.

Here you are, trusting in deceptive words to no avail. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known,and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, “We are safe!”—only to go on doing all these abominations? Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your sight? You know, I too am watching, says the Lord.Go now to my place that was in Shiloh, where I made my name dwell at first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel.And now, because you have done all these things, says the Lord, and when I spoke to you persistently, you did not listen, and when I called you, you did not answer, therefore I will do to the house that is called by my name, in which you trust, and to the place that I gave to you and to your ancestors, just what I did to Shiloh. And I will cast you out of my sight, just as I cast out all your kinsfolk, all the offspring of Ephraim.” That was a tough word for Jeremiah to speak and for the people to hear.

We have to use our imagination a little bit to get the full impact of this scripture. Imagine you’re on the way to worship this morning and right outside the doors to the church, someone was looking at you and saying what Jeremiah said. I thought about greeting folks as they arrived today while animatedly speaking Jeremiah’s words. I wonder what kind of response that would have generated? I suspect it would have been surprising, somewhat uncomfortable, and awkward – and that’s just how I would have felt about it – can you imagine your response?

It is hard for us to grasp how significant the Temple was for the people of Jeremiah’s time. The temple was characterized by beauty on the outside and on the inside. The temple had pure bronze columns, golden incense altars and lamp stands, wooden cherubim, each ten feet tall with outstretched wings. Inside the holy place, and in the innermost part of the temple, was the Ark of the Covenant, where at one time the two stone tablets of the 10 commandments, a golden bowl of manna from the wilderness wanderings, and Aaron’s rod were. In this place in the temple, according to 1 Kings 8:10-11, was the very presence of God.
The temple was also a place where Israel sacrificed. Sin offerings and burnt offerings were performed by the Levites on behalf of the people for their sins. The people had to go through certain rituals in order to sacrifice in a way pleasing to God. Rules were enforced as to which animal should be sacrificed and the manner in which it was to be killed and then offered. The point was for people to give back what had already been given to them through God’s grace.
People in Israel loved going into the beautiful house of God. Many people participated in the rituals and sacrifices to God, but some people’s experience of God stopped there and didn’t permeate every aspect of life. They characterized their entire relationship with God by their sacrifice. God came to Jeremiah, and told him to stand at the gate of the temple, and preach a message, a message that they needed to hear, and a message that we still need to hear today. What Jeremiah said would’ve shocked the people. The people placed their confidence in the temple. They knew that God lived there, and by coming to the temple and offering up their sacrifices, they would be ok. They knew that this was the truth. But Jeremiah tells them the complete opposite. He tells them that just coming to the temple, to the very house of God didn’t make them faithful. They would come to the temple and say, “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.” And by saying so, they were proclaiming that God is here, we are doing what God wants. Jeremiah told them that just because you come to the temple doesn’t mean you live with God. Just because you come here and offer sacrifices doesn’t mean you follow or walk with the Lord of hosts. What did the people have to do? Jeremiah told them to amend their ways and their doings, and live with God each day being obedient to God’s commands because their actions, words, attitudes, and thoughts, were different when they were not at the temple. Their relationship with God was completely defined by the temple. And Jeremiah said, WAKE UP!
Do not trust solely in the temple. Do not think for a second that if you live one way at the temple and another way on the outside, that God will look on you favorably. Just because you come to the temple doesn’t make you safe. Just because you come to the temple doesn’t make you faithful. We may struggle with the same problems that the Jews in Judah struggled with in this story. In the church, we may think a person is faithful, if you are here. If you are on a pew, you’re faithful. Just because we’re here, just because we attend worship on Sundays doesn’t make us faithful. And just like Jeremiah promised the Israelites, God knows, God sees. God doesn’t just want part of our Sunday. God wants you and your whole life. There were devastating consequences for the failure of the people of Jeremiah’s time to obey God and live obedient, just, loving, compassionate lives.

This episode from Jeremiah clearly impacted Jesus and the Gospel writers. Mark, Matthew, and Luke all describe a moment from Jesus’ ministry in which he quotes from Jeremiah 7. It happens when Jesus also makes a strong public statement at the Temple in Jerusalem. Mark 11:15-17 says, “Then they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves;and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. He was teaching and saying, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.”

Over and over and over the prophets and Jesus share God’s vision about the importance of ethical, loving, concerned for others behavior by the people of God. Through the centuries, there have been too many to count who claim the temple, claim the name of Jesus, claim to be Christians – whose ethics, love and concern for others fall far short of our stated beliefs.

William Law’s eighteenth century spiritual classic, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, echoes the words of Jeremiah and Jesus that we care for and serve others, especially those who are the most vulnerable and needy, including “the alien, the orphan, and the widow.” Law writes that every day should be viewed as an opportunity to serve others.  He tells us to “…condescend to all the weaknesses and infirmities of your fellow-creatures, cover their frailties, love their excellencies, encourage their virtues, relieve their wants, rejoice in their prosperities, compassionate their distress, receive their friendship, overlook their unkindness, forgive their malice, be a servant of servants, and condescend to do the lowest offices to the lowest of mankind.”^[1]

That kind of vision for God’s people is both pleasing to the Lord and one that we will find very meaningful. One of the things Americans think about around Independence Day is the Declaration of Independence. In it Thomas Jefferson wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Recently novelist Toni Morrison said to the 2011 graduating class at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey: “I have often wished that Jefferson had not used that phrase ‘the pursuit of happiness’ as the third right … I would rather he had written, ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of meaningfulness‘ or ‘integrity’ or ‘truth.’ I know that happiness has been the real, if covert, goal of your labors here. I know that it informs your choice of companions, the profession you will enter. But I urge you, please do not settle for happiness. It’s not good enough. Personal success devoid of meaningfulness, free of a steady commitment to social justice — that’s more than a barren life; it’s a trivial one. It’s looking good instead of doing good.”

On September 17, 1796, President George Washington in his Farewell Address to the American People, wrote: “Observe good faith and justice towards all Nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and Morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and, at no distant period, a great Nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt, that, in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages, which might be lost by a steady adherence to it ? Can it be, that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a Nation with its Virtue? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature.”

As we celebrate the 235^th anniversary of our nation’s independence tomorrow, may we be determined to be people who are guided by transforming faith, exalted justice, benevolence and Christian virtue.

Let’s pray: Lord, Open our eyes to see both the wonderful world you created and the challenges we face.

Open our ears to hear of the needs of people all around this land and the world.

Open our minds to imagine the world as you want it to be.

Open our hands to share with people who are hungry, frightened, grieving, and homeless.

Open our mouths to pray, to share your Good News, and to speak out for others.

Open our hearts to love you and our neighbors near and far.

Help us to serve together in love in Jesus’ name.  Amen.

Benediction (A Good Word)

President George Washington in his Farewell Address to the American People:

“Of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and Citizens. The mere Politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them.”