Sermons for the Month
DATE: January 4, 1998
SERVICE: Second Sunday after Christmas
TEXT: Jeremiah 31:7-14
Sermons for the Month
"That's So God"
DATE: January 4, 1998
SERVICE: Second Sunday after Christmas
TEXT: Jeremiah 31:7-14
"To all of you here this morning, called to be saints, grace and peace to you from God our Father and from His Son, Jesus Christ. AMEN
I. Even though his car was in the driveway when I returned home two weeks ago, I really knew my son was back from graduate school when I walked into the kitchen and saw his shoes in the middle of the kitchen floor just exactly where he would leave them when coming home from grade school.
II. Share living quarters with someone (a spouse, children, parents, roommates, and you quickly learn how quirky the habits and hang-ups of others can be. Whether we focus on individual practices ("Why does he always have to leave her shoes right in the middle of the doorway!") or general personality traits ("Why is he always so grumpy in the morning?"), we soon learn what to expect and how to read the signs of the other's presence. Know someone long enough and well enough and you can predict their behavior with some degree of accuracy. We learn to expect and accept the typical actions and reactions from those closest to us whether we like them or not.
III. You know what I'm talking about!Your spouse leaves the lid off the mayonnaise jar once again, turning the contents into a freeze-dried, crusted-over sea of whitecaps. Scraping off the top two inches, you mutter, "That's so Walter." Your teenager informs you at 7:15 p.m. that you both are expected at an important school function at 7:30 p.m. Dumping your after-dinner coffee down the sink, you moan, "That's so Kelly." You are recuperating at home from a rotten case of the flu when your doorbell rings and your neighbor comes in with chicken soup for you and a casserole for the family. Through a haze of pain relievers and tissues, you murmur gratefully, "That's so Helen." After driving you crazy all day with noise and naughtiness, your youngest children suddenly throw themselves on you, seeing who can get in the most hugs and kisses the quickest. Repenting for wanting to lock them in their rooms until they were 18, you sigh and realize -- "That's so Michael and Emily."
IV. Jeremiah knew God's heart and God's intentions for Israel as well as any human could. He had served as God's prophet from his youth. He had lived through some of the most devastating and disappointing moments in Israel's history. He had faced and outfaced the hardheartedness, foolishness and false loyalties of the people. Knowing God's purposes and God's people, Jeremiah's message, not surprisingly, was laced with warnings and woe. But Jeremiah's ultimate understanding of God also provided him with the ability to see the big picture. The prophet could see past the moment of divinely ordained punishment his people received during lifetime to the time of divinely directed restoration that would also eventually come. God was not vindictive or unloving. It is God's love and loyalty that motivate the seemingly harsh words any prophet is called to deliver.
V. Jeremiah's "Book of Consolation" offers us the perfect example of a moment in time when all we can do is shake our heads in wonder and awe and exclaim: "That's so God." In fact, the entire audacious notion of an involved, attentive deity should cause us to examine each page of Scripture with our eyes open in amazement that this remarkable attraction to human history is, miraculously, "so God." The divine power that set everything into motion chooses an insignificant, run-of-the-mill planet in an insignificant, run-of-the-mill galaxy, in an insignificant, run-of-the-mill universe to conduct an experiment: making God known. All we can say is what? "That's so God." Then in His time, God chooses not the power brokers of Egypt, or the rich of Nubia, or the technologically advanced Sumarians, but a ragtag tribe of nomadic sheepherders, known for little but their stubbornness and willfulness, to invite into a covenant with God to make God known. All we can say is what? "That's so God." Furthermore, God chooses an unremarkable, unknown, technologically stagnant, historically insignificant, run-of-the-mill small town in which to be born into human flesh. All we can say is what? "That's so God." When Jesus feeds the hungry, as he did with the 5,000, there is plenty left over. All we can say is what? "That's so God." When Jesus clothes the naked, as God did with the "lilies of the field," there is an adornment surpassing anything Solomon in all his glory could have imagined. All we can say is what? "That's so God." When Jesus, instead of running for his life, gives himself up for the likes of two thieves, and dies on a cross All we can say is what? "That's so God."
VI. When Jeremiah talked of "fatness," he was conveying to us that we do not have a stingy and tightfisted God. The picture of the Garden of Eden is not bare. When God told Adam and Eve to "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth" (Genesis 1:28), God was doing more than telling them to have babies. The Hebrew word for "fill the earth" was meant to conjure up the image of little children holding out their hands as someone fills them with good things. Psalm 145:16 says, "You open your hand, satisfying the desire of every living thing." The "poor shall eat and be satisfied" (Psalm 22:26). God "has filled the hungry with good things" (Luke 1:53). For the same reason, Heaven in the Bible is portrayed as a place of abundance, as a messianic banquet, not a messianic snack. God wants to open the windows of heaven, or what translates literally as the sluice-gate of heaven (Malachi 3:10), showering us with blessings. That's so God. VII. "All things are yours," the apostle Paul proclaimed (1 Corinthians 3:21b). Abundance all about us, reflecting God's abundant nature. Our God is a prodigal God. Our God says to us what the father said to his "prodigal" son in one of the most incredible statements in the Bible: "All that is mine is yours" (Luke 15:31). That's so God. The miracle of the loaves and fishes is a prime example of God's extravagance. Human need could not justify all that was left over in the absence of famine, plague or natural disaster. That's so God. Our God does "abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine" (Ephesians 3:20). That's so God. Our God promises to meet our every need "according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:19). That's so God. A number of years ago, the southwest US was suffering from a prolonged draught. The fields were parched and brown from the lack of rain. All the ministers of the local churches in one town called for an hour of prayer on the town square the following Saturday. They asked that everyone bring an object of faith for inspiration. At high noon, the townspeople turned out en masse. The ministers were touched to see the wide variety of objects clutched in their hands—Bibles, crosses, rosaries. When the hour ended, as if on magical command, a soft rain began to fall. Cheers swept through the crowd as they held their treasured objects up to the sky in thanksgiving. From the middle of crowd, one faith symbol seemed to overshadow all the others. A small nine-year-old child had brought an umbrella. VIII. Martin Luther contends that when we pray "Give us this day our daily bread," we are not praying for a prison diet of bread and water, but for an abundant supply of whatever it takes to make the body and soul faithful instruments for God. Seek first the kingdom of God, the Bible says, and what is added will be amazing (Matthew 6:33). All we can say is what? "That's so God."
AMEN