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A
Sermon by Donel McClellan
Lot For Sale . . . In
Kabul SCRIPTURE LESSON I, Jeremiah received a message
from the LORD. At the time, the Babylonian army was laying siege to Jerusalem.
They were under the command of Nebuchadrezzar, who had been king of Babylon for
eighteen years. I was locked up in the guardhouse of the Jerusalem palace on the
orders of Zedekiah, who had been king of Judah for ten years. The message from
the LORD said: "Jeremiah! Your cousin, Hanamel,
son of Shallum, is on his way to see you. He will ask you to buy his property at
Anathoth because he can no longer afford to keep it. As his nearest relative,
you have the right to buy it in order to keep it in the family." Just as the LORD had said, my
cousin Hanamel came to visit me in the guardhouse and said to me, "I want to
sell you my property at Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin. The only way it
can stay in our family is for you to exercise your right to buy it for
yourself." When this happened, I knew that
the message I had heard was from the LORD, so I went ahead and bought the
Anathoth property from Hanamel for the agreed price of seventeen pieces of
silver. We had the legal document drawn up, confirming the terms and conditions
of the sale and transferring the title to me. When the document had been
formally signed and witnessed, I counted out the money and handed it to Hanamel.
Then I took both the official copy of the document and a duplicate and handed
them to Baruch. Baruch was the son of Neriah and grandson of Mahseiah, and
worked for me as my secretary. While Hanamel and the witness were still there,
and in the clear hearing of all the other Judeans who were at the guardhouse, I
said to Baruch: “This is an order from the LORD
who rules over everything, the God of Israel: Take these property documents,
both the official signed copy and its duplicate, and store them in a sealed time
capsule so that they will last for a long time. Because the LORD who rules over
everything, the God of Israel, is making this promise: "Although you are being
overrun by invading armies, the time will come when you will once again own
houses, farms and vineyards in this land."
Jeremiah 32: 1-3a,
6-15 ©2001 Nathan Nettleton
www.laughingbird.net
Sometimes I regret trying to be so
clever in creating sermon titles. Once they are posted on the church sign I
never know what will happen. The church office had many telephone calls this
week asking what the sermon was going to be about. Our standard answer is that
nobody knows, not even the preacher, until Sunday morning. If you are someone
who joined us out of curiosity this morning, I’ll try not to disappoint
you.
On
Thursday I received an email about the sign. The writer said:
“I
find that sign in very poor taste. Making light of the tragedy and serious
threat to our country we face or making any disrespectful comment about the
Islamic religion or mid-east people is encouraging the wrong attitude and is
extremely inappropriate in my opinion, especially coming from a
church.”
I
realized that the sign, out of context, was subject to misinterpretation. I
added the word SERMON to the sign to clarify it a bit. But you have now been
given the advantage of hearing this week’s text from the Hebrew Bible and
therefore you have a clue about the sermon title’s source.
Jeremiah is about as feisty a
prophet as you will find in the Bible, yet his words bring comfort to all who
have suffered bad times. At the age of 18 Jeremiah felt the call of God to be a
prophet. He resisted, but God rejected every argument he could summon up. So,
against his better judgment he went to work speaking the Word of the Lord to
the wealthy and powerful in Jerusalem. His audience was not pleased. Jeremiah
was always preaching against the popular wisdom. He hated the paid prophets who
had forgotten how to hear the Word of the Lord and tailored their messages to
those the wealthy would welcome. The false prophets grew comfortable catering to
the powerful. Jeremiah was treated with suspicion because he always seemed to
have bad news to present.
These
years in Southern Israel were among the most tumultuous ever experienced. The
political ground was shifting daily and Jeremiah knew better than any of the
generals and palace staff what was most likely to happen.
For
years Judah (Southern Israel) had been a vassal holding of the great middle
eastern kingdom of Assyria. The Hebrew King was spineless and whatever integrity
the country once had was leaked away by bad treaties. As time went on Assyria
grew weaker and was finally conquered by the emerging world power of Babylon led
by it’s great King and commander Nebuchadrezzar. The Jerusalem palace
administration wanted to make deals with Egypt and unite smaller nations to
defeat Babylon. Jeremiah quickly saw the folly in that scheme and urged a treaty
with Babylon. The Hebrew king resisted and the Babylonian armies invaded
Jerusalem. The king considered Jeremiah to be a traitor and had him arrested and
held in the palace stockade.
That
is where this amazing scripture passage for today comes into the picture. Here
is Jeremiah in prison. The King had made it clear that he wasn’t about to follow
the path God, through Jeremiah, had laid out. That meant the nation was in for a
lot of misery. Babylonian troops already were on the outskirts of Jerusalem.
They already occupied the ancestral home of Jeremiah. Years of slavery and
captivity lay ahead for Judah. Jeremiah had failed to get God’s message across
and the prophet himself would suffer with the rest of Jerusalem. The situation
could not have been more dire and depressing.
Then
a funny thing happened. Jeremiah’s cousin came to see him. Hanamel was from a
side of the family that was long estranged from the prophet. The cousin asked
Jeremiah to buy property in the doomed part of Jerusalem in order to keep it in
the family. This was based on an old Jewish law that allowed someone to act as a
redeemer to hold land that otherwise would have been lost to a Hebrew
family.
Feeling that this is an
opportunity from God, Jeremiah buys land. This is land already occupied by the
Babylonian army. Land Jeremiah will never see, again in a city about to be
destroyed. The purchase is carried out with elaborate legal detail. When it is
finalized Jeremiah calls a news conference and announces that the deeds are to
be stored:
in a sealed time capsule so that they will last for
a long time. Because the LORD who rules over everything, the God of Israel, is
making this promise: "Although you are being overrun by invading armies, the
time will come when you will once again own houses, farms and vineyards in this
land."
Sometimes God just doesn’t make
sense. Buying property in a doomed city is ridiculous. It is as though our
church should invest in a vacant lot in Kabul, Afghanistan today. I don’t think
property in Kabul will be a good investment for a long time in the future. I
fear the city is going to see further military combat, perhaps instigated by our
own beloved country.
Jeremiah wasn’t investing in
property. He was investing in hope. His hope wasn’t based in the likelihood of
political victory. It was based in God’s promise that the land would be one day
restored. God’s promise outlasts human doubt.
And
although this congregation is not in the market for a lot in Kabul, we have
invested in something more precious. Our church has invested a family from
Kabul. The Jamalzada family represents the best of Afghanistan and the best of
America.
Our
denomination sponsors an annual lecture in honor of Everett Parker, the former
director of our Office of Communication. That lecture was given last Tuesday by
the host of National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition, Scott Simon. That was two
weeks after the terrorist attack on America. Scott, like the rest of the NPR
staff put in long hours covering the unfolding tragedy and its aftermath. He
threw out his prepared remarks for the Parker lecture and addressed the new
crisis in American life. Scott spoke of the pain of loss and fear of terror that
have caused many of us to admit to ourselves how much we love our country. This
is a love that is fully aware of our failures but equally proud of our
accomplishments. He said:
America can abound with silly, malicious, and even
dangerous ideas—because people here are free to express any damn-fool idea that
comes to them.
America
can be bigoted and inhospitable—but it also takes strangers from all over the
world into its arms.
America
has now been targeted by a few blind souls who are willing to kill thousands—and
themselves—to make this nation bleed. But far more people from around the world
have already been willing to die—over-packed into holds of ships and trucks—just
to have a small chance to live here. It's not that Americans don't want their
country to change, in a thousand ways, from making good medical care available
to all Americans, to abolishing the designated hitter rule. But the blast at our
emblems last week has made many Americans see their nation as that place in the
world where change is still most possible.
Akbar
and Fahima Jamalzada, their mother Dilbar, and five beautiful children are one
opportunity for this church to invest in the future God intends for the world.
By gently helping them make their way in this society we are rebuilding the
American dream and proving wrong all the forces that gather against this nation
because of hate.
Jeremiah did something radically
ridiculous to demonstrate God’s great love for a people who paid little
attention to the future they might have had.
Of
all the stories that came out of September 11, there is one that reminds me of
Jeremiah’s seemingly futile action of buying property in a doomed city. It is
the story of Jeremy Glick, a passenger on United Flight 93. Jeremy was the
charismatic Sales and Marketing executive of a hot internet company. A former
national collegiate judo champion in college, he was recently married and the
proud father of a beautiful three month old daughter. He didn’t want to go. It
was his first business trip in months. Since the birth of his daughter, Emmy, he
had been reluctant to leave home. However there was an important conference in
San Francisco and his wife Lyzbeth urged him to go, and stop worrying about her
and the baby. Jeremy planned to fly out the day before but got stuck in traffic
on his way to the Newark Airport, and rebooked for the following morning.
Not
long after the flight was underway, Jeremy called Lyzbeth on his cell phone to
report that five hijackers had taken over the plane. She was able to tell him
about the plane crashes into the World Trade Center and later the Pentagon.
Jeremy and several other passengers on that flight determined that they had to
do something.
We
presume that the passengers managed to carry out their intention because Flight
93 was the only one of the four hijacked planes that took no casualties on the
ground.
That
impressed me, of course. Here were men who literally gave their lives to save
the lives of people they did not know.
I am
even more impressed with what Jeremy told Lyz during the twenty minutes they
were able to talk before the plane went down. And I am impressed by the amazing
presence of Lyzbeth Glick. Interviewed on Dateline she shared the essence of
that conversation:
"We said I love you a thousand times over and over
again, and it just brought so much peace to us," says Lyz. "I felt the feeling
from it. He told me, `I love Emmy'—who is our daughter—and to take care of her.
Then he said, whatever decisions you make in your life, I need you to be happy,
and I will respect any decisions that you make. That's what he said and that
gives me the most comfort. He sounded strong. He didn't sound panicked, very
clear-headed. I told him to put a picture of me and Emmy in his head to be
strong."
Now,
a widow at 31, Lyz says she is not angry and she has no
regrets.
“I don’t feel like there are things left undone with
my relationship with Jeremy, you know,” says Lyz. “We did it all, and I don’t
feel like I’ve left anything unsaid to him, and I don’t feel like he’s left
anything unsaid to me, you know. And I don’t think many people who are so young
can say that.”
I
have watched that interview half a dozen times and still am amazed at the wisdom
of the this young couple. I am sure that pressure of the unfolding tragedy
created a diamond-like clarity of thought. Look at what Jeremy told his
wife.
I
love you.
I
love our child—take care of her.
Whatever you do is OK with
me.
As
far as I can see that covers it all. And, if I understand the Prophet Jeremiah
correctly that is exactly the message God has for each of us at this
moment.
I
love you.
I
love all our brothers and sisters on earth, take care of them.
Whatever you do is OK with
me.
Amen. |