Scriptures: Jeremiah 2:4-13 Psalm 81:1, 10-16
Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16 Luke 14:1, 7-14
A funny meme was going around on Facebook a few years
ago. The words say, “Do I have a place
in your home? 1 like = 1 prayer 1 share = 10 prayers” It looks at first glance like a run of the
mill inspirational message – except, if you look at the picture a second time,
you realize, “Wait a minute, that’s not Jesus! That’s a picture of Charles
Manson!” Of course, it’s a satire, even
though at the time Manson’s cult was at its height, Manson did resemble some
artistic depictions of Jesus, especially if you don’t look too close. Unfortunately his life resembled that of
Jesus not at all. But as I remembered
this meme, I thought of those lost souls – about 100 in all, mostly young women
- who gravitated to Manson and looked to him as a spiritual leader on the way
to ushering in a new age. These
followers saw Manson as a manifestation of Jesus and lived with him in a hippie
commune, lived according to Manson’s direction even as he led them into random sex,
hallucinogenic drugs, and, for a few of them, into murder. Many were runaways and had already left
their parents and sisters and brothers behind, and were only too eager when
Manson invited them into his “family”.
While its likely that many of their families of origin had been
troubled, I’m sure at least some of their parents had to ask themselves, “What
did we do wrong? What on earth does our
daughter see in this guy? How could she
turn her life over this loser?”
Indeed, perhaps one of the more difficult things to navigate
in a family is when a member of the family makes a connection with someone who
doesn’t share the family’s values, even if it’s someone less awful than Charles
Manson. Perhaps, if it’s a highly
religious family, it’s someone who doesn’t share the family’s faith. Or perhaps the son or daughter in a fairly
conventional suburban family starts dating someone with a nose ring and
multiple other piercings and tattoos, and the parents go “what have we done
wrong?” Or the son or daughter in a
workaholic family starts dating someone who lives with their parents, has no
job, and just wants to play video games.
It’s an awkward situation – you love your child and don’t want to hurt
them, but you don’t want to see them get hurt by this new relationship. And
you surely don’t want to see the new person’s values rub off on them, because,
at least from your viewpoint, you taught them better than that.
The pain can be even greater if it’s a spouse, and not a
child, who strains or breaks relationship by pursuing others, especially if
it’s clear that the other party doesn’t really care and is just using the
person. It doesn’t have to be an
intimate relationship. It could be that
one partner in a marriage gets involved in a new circle of friends with very
different values, or joins some highly demanding or even cultish religious
group, that demands ever-increasing amounts of time and money and pulls that
person away from their spouse, putting strain on a marriage. And the spouse is left wondering, “What did I
do wrong? Why am I not enough for my
spouse? What did I do to deserve this?”
In our reading from Jeremiah, God sounds like a rejected
parent or a neglected spouse to Israel. The people have not completely walked away
from God. They’re still going through
the motions of worship. But their real
devotion is to false gods. That
may not show up in their religious worship. Where it shows up is in their relationships
with their neighbors. They exploit
rather than uplift. They curse rather
than bless. And God feels like many of
us would feel if our son or daughter started going out with some punk, and
started picking up the punk’s bad habits.
Or if our spouse joined a religious cult, and all they talked about was
the cult leader – “he did this, he said that, oh he’s so charismatic, he’s just
amazing”, as the spouse is saying to him
or herself, “What am I, chopped liver?”
As he channels the Divine, Jeremiah’s language is
devastating. “What wrong did your
ancestors find in me that they went far from me, and went after worthless
things, and became worthless themselves.”
Ouch! But we can all likely think
of people we’ve known who were raised in a loving home by supportive parents,
who left home and wasted their lives, who pissed away everything their parents
gave them. And Jeremiah is saying that
this is how God feels – heartbroken, furious at his people, ready to punish,
and yet not able to abandon them entirely.
Like a rejected parent or spouse, God reminds the people of all he had
done for them in bringing them out of Egypt, through the wilderness, and into
the promised land.
Jeremiah goes on: “Look at the surrounding nations. Has a nation ever changed its gods, even
though they are no gods. But my people
have changed my glory for junk. My
people have committed two evils; they ditched me, the fountain of living water,
and they dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no
water. We might say that they put all
their eggs in the wrong basket.
As I’d mentioned last week, Jeremiah’s prophetic ministry –
which was decades long, since he was called as a young man – was an
unsuccessful attempt to get his people to change their ways. We should probably take a few moments to
consider what it meant for Jeremiah to be a prophet. Particularly
with regard to those texts that we see as pointing to Jesus, it is
commonly believed that prophets foretold events thousands of years off. But while we do indeed read and gather
meaning from these prophetic texts in our time, their first and primary
audience consisted of those listeners of the prophet’s time. That is to say, Jeremiah’s primary intent
wasn’t to foretell events thousands of years off, but to interpret the events
of his day – primarily to say, “If you continue on your present course, here is
where you will end up – and you won’t be happy there.” For example, if I pick up the El at Frankford
Terminal and take it in the direction of 69th Street – the only
direction it’s possible to go from Frankford Terminal - while I will pass other
stops on the way, eventually I’m going to end up at 69th Street. If I expect to end up at Franklin Mills, I’ll
be sorely disappointed. The people of
Jeremiah’s time, metaphorically speaking, were on a train hurtling at high
speed off a cliff, though there were stops along the way. Throughout his ministry, Jeremiah tried
frantically to get his people to get off that train to destruction before it
hurtled over the cliff – but without success.
While the religious and political
leadership occasionally went through the motions of listening to Jeremiah’s
predictions of doom, they treated Jeremiah’s words like the sad trombone
representing the teachers’ or parents’ voice in the old Charlie Brown
cartoons: “Wah wah wah wah wah” The religious and political leadership of
Jeremiah’s time considered him a troublemaker – and this is the response of
entrenched power to all true prophets, including Jesus and his earliest disciples.
At first listen, this may sound like a historical
discussion, interesting enough on its own terms, but irrelevant. And it’s true that we live thousands of years
after Jeremiah in a very different
society from his. And yet, part of the
power of prophetic texts is that they tell truths that can be both timeless and
timely. That is to say, when any society
behaves as the society of Jeremiah’s time did, it risks some version of the
same consequences. Remember last week I
asked us to consider what response Jeremiah – or a modern-day counterpart –
would get if he or she preached in Washington, DC, or Wall Street, or outside
one of the many megachurches that exists primarily to bless the status quo. When
country’s leaders behaves in ways that are arrogant and abusive, as the leaders
of Jeremiah’s time did, it risks the consequences of how others will respond.
When those leaders put their faith in false gods, in idols, those idols
will inevitably fail to save them. As the saying goes, while history may not
repeat itself, it rhymes.
The false gods and idols of Jeremiah’s time were literal
carved figures representing imaginary deities that were said to control weather
– sun, wind, and rain – and fertility.
Our false gods, our idols, do not take the form of carved figures, but just
as those ancient carved figures, they promised protection from harm and control
over outside forces. And remember,
anything, however neutral or apparently harmless, can be turned into an idol if
we invest too much faith in it. Often if
there’s something we’re not allowed to question, that something may be an idol.
In our country, guns fit the description of an idol, an idol
demanding human sacrifice. Moloch was an ancient idol that demanded child
sacrifice, and guns are the Moloch of our day.
There are as many guns as people here, with 101 guns owned for every 100
people.[1] The two countries with the next highest rates
of gun ownership are Serbia and Yemen, with slightly over 50 guns for every 100
persons. Of course, many people don’t
own even one gun, and some people have stockpiled countless guns. Switzerland has a rate of slightly over 24
guns for every 100 people, and they also take gun ownership very seriously –
but they take it seriously enough to insist on gun training, and Switzerland
has nothing like our rate of mass shootings.
Indeed, virtually no other functioning country does. When it comes to gun violence, America is in
a class of our own – an unwanted example of American exceptionalism. But while our country is very insistent on
gun rights, we’re much quieter about gun responsibilities. Rights without corresponding responsibilities
are a recipe for chaos, and gun rights without corresponding gun
responsibilities are a recipe for blood running in the streets. Our Conference Minister, Rev Bill Worley – a
lifelong gun owner and Marine chaplain who served in Iraq – proposed in his
message in the August 13 2019 PSEC e-news a national policy that anyone who
owns a gun must be part of the National Guard or Federal Armed Services, where
appropriate background checks, training, and community service are
requirements. This comports with the
original 2nd amendment connection of gun ownership with
participation in “the militia”. I’m not
holding my breath waiting for that policy to be enacted – neither is Rev Worley
- but it could be an improvement over status quo. There are any number of
actions that could be taken to remove guns from the position of a national idol. One thing that is certain: as the saying
goes, “One definition of insanity is to repeat the same actions and expect
different results.” That is to say, if no changes are made, no
change will happen; we will continue to have high and escalating levels of gun
violence. The blood sacrifices to the
idol of the gun will continue. And if no
change is made, our inevitable “thoughts and prayers” after each tragedy will
accomplish exactly nothing. To quote Isaiah 1:15:
“When you stretch out your hands, I will
hide my eyes from you;
even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.”
even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.”
Nationalism is an idol that has become increasingly
prominent in our day. And I want to make
a distinction between patriotism and nationalism. Patriotism is a devotion to one’s country and
a willingness to defend one’s country that wants the best for one’s country
while recognizing its faults and wanting one’s country to be the best it can be. Patriotism is a good thing, a very good thing. Nationalism, by contrast, says that only my
country matters. We see nationalism at
work in recent changes to immigration policy, which would seek to wall
outsiders out and deport those former outsiders who have previously gotten
in. Over and over, Old Testament and
New, there is an ethic of welcoming the outsider: Leviticus 19:34 and numerous other passages
teach that “the alien among you shall be as the citizen among you”, while the
New Testament letter to the Hebrews 13:2 – part of today’s readings - speaks of
“entertaining angels unawares”. There is
also a recognition that every person without regard to race, religion, or
national origin is created in God’s image and precious in God’s sight. St Paul
put it this way: In Christ there is no
male or female, Jew or Greek, slave or free. (Galatians 3:28). These distinctions just don’t matter in God’s
sight. We would do well to remember that
Jesus had brown skin, in his early childhood was a refugee in Egypt, didn’t
speak English, never pledged allegiance to the American flag, not once in his
life…..and didn’t have a lot of time for Rome, the empire of his day. While I know that the Jesus of the Gospels
would be welcomed if he showed up on our doorstep – we’ve become a very
welcoming congregation - I can’t help but wonder: if the Jesus of the Gospels
showed up at some churches – brown-skinned, non-English speaking, non-citizen -
would he be welcomed, or pelted with rocks?
Some churches would probably call ICE, and Jesus would end up locked in
a cage or deported – as I believe Jesus is present with those in these
situations. It is the Jesus of the
gospels who reminds us that God’s saving work extends beyond American borders,
as his life and ministry witnessed that “God so loved the world.”
I could go on, but we’d all like to get home before
lunchtime. The Rev Dr Martin Luther King
named racism, materialism, and militarism as giant triplets of evil to be
overcome, and for many they function as idols – and like all idols, they will
fail us. Wealth as an idol has entailed
horrific sacrifices, as the health and well-being of billions are sacrificed so
that a few can profit, and the ability of our planet itself to sustain life is
increasingly put at risk, all in the name of creating value for shareholders. While we’re not going to destroy the planet
itself, we may very well destroy the planet’s ability to support ourselves and
most other forms of life, at best perhaps leaving only a small remnant, if we
continue on our present course.
Idols come in many forms, but have two things in
common: they promise the world, and they
don’t deliver. More specifically, they
promise safety, comfort, protection, and instead leave us open to danger, pain,
and attack. Truly they are, in
Jeremiah’s words, like cracked cisterns that cannot contain the hopes we place
in them.
Jeremiah accused his people of “going after worthless
things, and becoming worthless themselves”.
Bowing before our culture’s idols leads us to be less than our
best. By contrast, Christ is worthy not
only of our worship but of our discipleship, of our time, talent, and
treasure. As we not only worship but
follow Jesus, we ourselves become more like Jesus. While devotion to idols bring out the worst in
us, leading us to become our worst selves, following Jesus helps us more fully live
out the best within us, helps us reflect the very image of God within us. May we so live as to be worthy of the name of
Christian, bringing glory to God in our words and in our works. Amen.
[1] https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-with-the-highest-rate-of-gun-ownership.html. Article from 2018. Wikipedia shows slightly different figures,
with an even higher rate of US gun ownership:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_guns_per_capita_by_country
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