"Life or Death"
Sermon Presented February 11, 2007
Jeremiah 17:5-10
As most of you know, I was in Kalamazoo, Michigan last week for the second of five Courage to Lead retreats for clergy. I left my apartment early Tuesday morning fortified with four files, the primary one being my sermon preparation file, that included materials copied from commentaries and lectionary aids. My only notes were some meditation thoughts.
We arrived at the Seasons Retreat Center in a snow storm Tuesday afternoon. Every fiber of my body was stretched to the breaking point because of the excruciatingly slow traffic and mile after mile of cars and trucks with bent bodies and blinking trouble lights resting in ditches or down embankments. Wreckers were a constant! After placing my luggage in my room, I trudged through the snow to the meeting room for the first session, with the heaviness of the approaching sermon resting on tense shoulders.
The first exercise was to take a piece of paper and write down anything we needed to park that would interfere with giving our total attention to what we were about to embark upon. Then we were to wad up the paper - making a "snow ball" - and throw it into the fireplace. I didn't want to do that! I needed to work on my sermon at least some of the time! So I wrote something else on the paper and ritually tossed it into the flames, knowing I was holding something back from total immersion in the experience.
However, when I arrived back at my room that night, I knew I had to turn loose of my sermon for the duration of the retreat. I took the sermon file and the other three work-related files and put them back in the suitcase. Out of sight and almost out of mind! When I arrived home Thursday night, I reread the text, and miracle of miracles, my experiences at the retreat merged with the text. Hear the text from Jeremiah 17:5-10. Keep in mind that Jeremiah is writing in poetry and not prose, so you will encounter great figurative language here. (Read text.)
The people of Judah - the southern kingdom that includes Jerusalem - have turned away from trusting God to trusting human wisdom and armaments - ways in which the monarchy sustains itself apart from their covenant with God. God's covenant with the people emphasizes justice and dependence on God - a sharp contrast to dependence on military might and foreign gods. God calls Jeremiah to present the crisis to the people, because the window of opportunity for making changes is closing.
The people still have a choice. They can choose life or death, and what they choose will depend on whom they trust. The kings trust in human power, whether military or economic. They believe they are choosing life, because this is where the action is. It feels right and powerful. They believe they can sustain themselves through wisdom and armaments. They believe they can thrive outside of the covenant relationship with God.
However, God knows differently. Jeremiah tells the people that when they turn their hearts away from a relationship with God - when they no longer trust God - they are like a desert shrub living in an uninhabited salt land. Now those of you who have been to the Dead Sea in Israel or the Devil's Cauldron mud volcanoes in Yellowstone know that nothing grows around these areas. The smell of sulfur hangs suffocatingly heavy in the air. As nearby plants absorb the salty poison into their root systems, they also die. These parched places are uninhabited salt lands.
Just as vegetation around the Dead Sea and the Yellowstone cauldrons dies, we die spiritually when we don't tap into God. We dry up in our personal wasteland when we don't let our roots grow into the bubbling fresh water from the stream of God's love. We dry up when our roots don't drink from the water of the living stream that God offers us. God's message is that there are grave consequences for those who turn away from God to trust anyone or anything but God, because people, no matter how wonderful they are, will fail us, and because governments, no matter how powerful, will also fail us.
Whether we have life or death is determined by the object of our trust, and this is just as important today as it was in Jeremiah's time. God continues to invite us to choose a singular faith in God, and choosing requires careful consideration. The metaphors of a withered shrub and watered tree are more intense and more compelling when we remember that this poem emerged in a culture that was desperate for water. The metaphor of water in this context makes clear that trust is a life-and-death matter. No tree or shrub can survive without water. There are no viable substitutes. Likewise, Judah will find no viable substitute for a genuine trust in God. All other alternatives lead to withering and death.
God says: "I test the mind and search the heart to give to all according to their actions and what comes from their hearts." But if we don't knowingly allow God to search our hearts, we don't know what may be blocking the living water. When I stepped away from my sermon during the retreat, God searched my heart and I didn't like what was simmering there, unbeknownst to my cognitive mind. God showed me something that has been buried for more than a decade - something that needs to be dealt with, and that revelation happened over lunch while visiting with a group member from Louisville.
Our hearts are the breeding ground for our sins and where we need to begin to turn around and move toward God. In the previous chapter of Jeremiah, we see that we can't keep secrets from God, who wants to expose our secrets, not to shame us, but to cleanse us - not to condemn us but to heal us.
In order to embark on a journey to wholeness and begin to search our hearts, we need to spend time paying attention to our inner lives. This brings me back to the retreat and the unexpected conversation that began to expose the darkness in my heart. Prior to that conversation, God was preparing my heart to receive the message I needed to hear, even though it was NOT pleasant or welcome.
The preparation was thorough. The ground work laid. I had time to journal with poetry. One poem that spoke to me was Always We Hope by Lao Tzu. It reads:
Always we hope
Someone else has the answer
Some other place will be better,
Some other time it will all turn out.
This is it.
No one else has the answer
No other place will be better,
And it has already turned out.
At the center of your being
You have the answer,
You know who you are
And you know what you want.
There is no need
To run outside
For better seeing.
Nor to peer from a window.
Rather abide at the center of your being;
For the more you leave it, the less you learn.
Search your heart
And see
The way to do
Is to be.
If I had not had opportunities for solitude, I'm sure I wouldn't have been in a position to hear what my soul needed to hear. Thomas Merton said that "Not all men (persons) are called to be hermits, but all men (persons) need enough silence and solitude in their lives to enable the deep inner voice of their own true self to be heard at least occasionally. … For he (one) cannot go on happily for long, unless he (one) is in contact with the springs of spiritual life which are hidden in the depths of this own true soul." My periods of silence coupled with the luncheon visit with the chaplain from Louisville the final day of the retreat illuminated the interior work I need to do.
A life centered on turning toward God is a life that is fed by God's living water. A life centered on God isn't fearful or anxious or barren. A life centered on God is a choice we are given.
God desires that we take the time to do the interior work necessary to cleanse the arteries that lead to our hearts This often seems like major surgery, but that's okay because when the living water flows freely, new life is possible. This new life not only brings us renewal, it helps us offer new life to others.
We can't always do our interior work alone, especially if the arteries are closed by deep wounds that have been festering for a long time. I will get help on my issue from my spiritual guide. At the time of my divorce, I sought help from a mental health professional. As your pastor, I offer you a deep listening ear, and I find that more often than not, we have our own answers deep within us that become clear when we speak our needs.
The healing process begins when we take time to examine our hearts. The text says that we really can't understand our hearts. But it also says: "I, the Lord test the mind and search the heart." And if we can't trust God for our healing, who can we trust?
