Angry Clay

Psalm 139:19-22; Jeremiah 18:1-12

Simone Weil (pronounced Vey), a fascinating French woman who lived in the first half of the last century made an incredible observation about life.  She said that more often than not we are asked to choose between agony and numbness.  Her advice was to choose agony because it is not silent.  Our frustrations, our suffering, our disturbance over the demands of others, simmers endlessly until finally the steam must be released or forgotten.  I might suggest our memories are far more dangerous than our enemies.  Consequentially, to rage, to scream, to know that we are heard, is a far more potent remedy than anything we might find in our medicine cabinet.

In light of this I must admit for most ministers, myself included, the spoken and unspoken promise behind many   sermons and certainly most counseling sessions is the promise of Jesus, “Fear not, I am with you.”  What I sometimes  forget is that before this promise can be effective, the source of the fear must be voiced.  The story of the Old Testament is grounded in the idea that something huge and often frightening intrudes into Israel’s complacency, enough so that life as the Hebrews knew it was often placed in jeopardy.   Their response was to cry out, believing that Yahweh would respond to their fears.  The reaction and often the lack of reaction by God caused a stunned awareness that sometimes it is too late to change what we have already been put into motion.  None the less we cry out, knowing, or at least believing only God can change the unchangeable.  Both scriptures this morning deal with choosing to voice agony rather than remain numb.  And in both cases, the rage of the writer elicits a response from this Holy one called Yahweh.

The first example comes from a well known passage from the Book of Jeremiah.  It is the parable of the Potter.  How many times as a child have you sung, “Have thine on way, Lord, have thine own way.  Thou art the potter, I am the clay.  Make me and mold me after thy will, while I am waiting, yielded and still.”  It is a beautiful song, which completely misses the conflict that is going on in this text.  Yes, God was the potter.  Yes, Israel was the clay.  Yes, God was in front of the potter’s wheel pumping away, trying to make something beautiful of the material in God’s  hands.  But it was not working.  No matter how hard God tried to create a pristine vase, the results was like one of those ash trays our children kept bring home from summer camp.  The problem was not God’s inability to create but rather the imperfection in the material with which God was working.  God said to Jeremiah, “You go tell Israel she is flawed.  You tell her I know she has no desire to correct her sins.  You tell her I am going to throw her away and start over with some new material.”

Talk about an impossible task.  Can you imagine what must have been going through Jeremiahs mind?  He knew if he took this message to his neighbors, to his friends, they would run him out of town on a rail.   What do you do when you are asked to fix something that is not fixable?  Imagine you are at work and the boss comes up and says, “It seems to me the productivity in the work place is not what it should be and I want you to evaluate our work force and figure out where the weak link is so that we can increase our margin of profit.” It’s a reasonable request except for the small little problem. You are the only person in the business that is not related to the boss.

Or perhaps family members have come to you to discuss the health of everyone’s favorite uncle.  It seems that Uncle Joe has been making more frequent visits to the doctor and everyone is concerned.  You are elected to make the trip over to Charlottesville to see if maybe Uncle Joe might be open to a healthier diet or perhaps a regimen of afternoon walks.  He graciously greets you, intently listens to the concerns of the family and then responds, “Do you mind if I smoke?”

Sometimes we feel there is no use in even trying.  As much as we want to shape the clay, as often as we hear the encouraging words of friends or family urging us on, we know the clay is never going to be anything more than another ash tray for Uncle Joe.  And that makes us really mad.  We get mad at Uncle Joe, we get mad at the folks who made us the messenger and we get mad at ourselves for agreeing to be the messenger in the first place.  I can understand Jeremiah’s frustration when he was told to go deliver the “word of the Lord” to Jerusalem.  He knew they were not going to change.  He knew they would discard both him and the message. And so in his frustration he screamed back at God, “They are not my problem.  You are the potter, not me.  If you can’t shape them don’t lay that responsibility on me.  May they die of pestilence; may their children starve; may their widows become childless.”

Wow!  Where did Jeremiah find that kind of anger…. that kind of courage…. to say exactly what was on his mind?  It kind of goes against the grain of us peace loving Christians who would never say anything that might upset the proverbial apple cart.  We WOULD EXPECT Jeremiah to intercede on behalf of his neighbors.  We WOULD EXPECT Jeremiah to beg for the mercy of God to bridle the anger of God.  We are almost shocked by the prophet’s outpouring of venom.  ……… But perhaps not shocked so much that we don’t become Jeremiah’s private cheering section.  Sometimes it feels really good to get angry, to think horrible thoughts we would never speak out loud, to secretly lash out at our adversary……… even if it is God. 

Back in my tennis playing days, I was given a wonderful piece of advice on how to keep my eyes on the ball. I was told to imagine that the face of an adversary was painted on the back side of the ball.  See the face, whack away! Once after a decisive victory over a very worthy foe, my friend said to me, “It must have been a tough day at work.”  

Is there anyone here that hasn’t felt that they deserve their moment of righteous indignation?  Is there anyone here who hasn’t had perverse thoughts toward someone we normally love and adore?  Is there anyone here who hasn’t wanted to pick up a tennis racquet and wail away, just for a moment of absolute joy?  Is there anyone here who hasn’t wanted to scream at God? 

Let me suggest screaming at God begins a process from which we are awakened from our complacency. Screaming at God is certainly safer than screaming at our spouse. Furthermore screaming at God opens us to discovering creative resolutions in what we imagined to be an impossible impasse. In the case of Jeremiah, the transformation of Israel would never have begun until someone screamed.  It was the scream, the cry for help, which reminded Yahweh of the covenant relationship to which God was bound.

Our second scripture offers a second, more modern approach to the crisis of our lives.  I like to refer to this Psalm as the passive aggressive Psalm.  I am sure you all have friends who take this perilous approach to personal relations.  In a conversation they gently waltz their way around a problem, believing if they leave enough hints, we will see the difficulty and respond in a manner that meets with their approval.  And when we don’t, they get angry that we are not smart enough to figure out what is going on.  This particularly is frustrating for women.  If guys have something to eat, a ball game to watch and a bed to sleep in, we pretty much think things are great.

Perhaps Psalm 139 was written by a woman.  It starts out with the greatest of compliments.  “Lord you have searched me and known me.  You know when I sit down and when I rise up.  Even before a word is on my tongue, you know it completely.”  In other words, if I am happy, God knows it.  If I am joyful, God knows it.  If I am hurt, God knows it.  If I am sad, God knows it. If I am angry, God knows it, and therefore God should respond to my anger without me having to say a word.   

But that is not the way it works.  God doesn’t play games. If there is a problem, God wants us to spit it out. Eventually the Psalmist realizes this and speaks the words that were pinned up inside.  “O God, why don’t you kill the wicked.  I hate them with perfect hatred and I count them as my enemy.”

Am I the only person here who has wanted to say those words? I promise you it doesn’t matter if your enemy is holed up in a cave in Pakistan, if your enemy is a disease that is attacking a family member, if your enemy is a lie that is challenging your reputation, we cannot deal with the enemy until we have understood the pain they have caused.  Furthermore we cannot understand the pain until we have voiced it.

Here comes the good news. Once voiced, the potter takes our brokenness, our anger, our pain, our honesty and places us back on the wheel.  Then gently, God shapes us with his hands and mind.  Eventually our agony, our pain, our frustration, our humanity, is molded until we become something beyond what we thought possible.  We cry out, “Search me, O God and know my thoughts, test me and know my heart.  See if there is any hurtful way in me and guide me along your road of eternal grace.”

Once we have voiced our pain, once we have honestly expressed our agony, once our hurt and dare I say it, our sin, has been acknowledged, we are able to honestly sing,

“Have thine own way, Lord, have thine own way.

Thou art the potter, I am the clay. Mold me and make me, after thy will, while I am waiting, yielded and still.

                                                        To God be the Glory, Amen.

Where is God?

Jeremiah 2:4-13, Psalm 81; Luke 14:7-14

        The author of Psalm 81 collects himself late in the afternoon. He has attended worship at the synagogue. He read the Holy Word. He sang, “Sing aloud to our God; shout for joy to the God of Jacob. Remember it was God who brought us out of Egypt and into a place flowing with milk and honey.” He watched his fellow worshipers as they read the same text and sang the same song. There was no joy, no celebration and certainly no anticipation. The songs and prayers crossed the lips of the faithful few and fell quietly to the ground. It was a ritual, performed out of habit and executed without emotion.  

The Psalmist, with his head in his hand whispers, “Where are you God?” The answer he received gave little satisfaction. “My people do not listen to my voice. Their hearts are stubborn and so I have left them to their own counsel. O that they would seek my voice and walk in my ways. I would feed them with the finest wheat and satisfy them with the sweetest honey.”

The Prophet Jeremiah waits to be summoned to the court of the King.  Rumors have spread among the inhabitants of Jerusalem that the armies of Babylon have swept through Damascus and are headed south. Jeremiah knows the question he will be asked. “Where is the Lord? Where is One who stood against Pharaoh? Where is One who opened up the Red Sea and then swallowed the Egyptian Army in a rush of water. Can we count on God to stand between us and certain death?

There is no future in being the one who brings bad news. Jeremiah was asking the question of God’s absence long before the king, in an act of desperation, turned to Jeremiah. The prophet knew the word he would bring offered little hope to a people that could not see beyond the sunrise.

Where was God? This was a bold question to be asked by a people who changed gods more often than they changed shirts. Where was God? Where was their salvation? Jeremiah responded with an answer no one wanted to hear. God had gone to Babylon. God was waiting to bring them home from exile.

Sitting in a Presbytery meeting this week the words of the Psalmist and the prophet kept creeping into my head. As I listened to folks grappling with the role of the church in the midst of turmoil and distress I wondered if the motivation from both sides wasn’t more about the self-preservation of an institution than in seeking the guidance of God in our moments of turmoil. As we grappled with questions of compensation and property, I had the impression that God left the building long before the motion to adjourn had been recognized.

Where do we find God when we need God most?

In the gospel of Luke Jesus is invited to a dinner party. There seemed to be a discussion about where every one is suppose to sit. Jesus took this opportunity of confusion to entertain the crowd with a word of advice concerning heavenly etiquette.  “When you are invited to a wedding banquet, do not sit at the place of honor. It is always possible someone more distinguished than you has also been invited. Better to take the lowest chair and move up than the highest and move down.”

When I first read this passage, my first thought was, “Oh no, another passage on humility.” I have found through the years sermons on humility are highly ineffective. Those who could use some humility assume the sermon is about someone else. And those with little sense of their own self worth take even more weight upon their already overburdened souls. So why not move from the obvious and pursue the difficult question asked by the Psalmist and Jeremiah. Where is God in this story?  Or to be more exact, where would God sit if invited to the wedding?

Sometimes Creedal statements do us a great injustice. In the Apostle’s creed we state, “Born of the Virgin Mary” (comma) “Suffered under Pontius Pilate”. If Jesus was God Incarnate, i.e. God among us, the life of Jesus deserves more than a comma in our declarations of faith.

What if this story is not just about table manners? What if Jesus is helping us to see more than a comma. What if Jesus is speaking about himself?  What if Jesus is telling us where God always chooses to sit?

The story of Jesus does not lack for powerful people. Caesar and Herod play dominate roles in the birth narrative. Caiaphas and Pilate are major players in the crucifixion. According to conventional measures these four men would not hesitate to occupy any seat of honor. Could Jesus have been referring to them when he suggested, “All who exult themselves will be humbled?” With the possible exception of Caesar Augustus, would we know the names of any of these men apart from the gospel accounts?

So where does Jesus sit himself? Where would one think that the Son of God should sit? Possible the earliest creed of the Church, long before the Apostles Creed, is found in Paul’s letter to the Philippians. It is in the form of a song, a song probably sung much like we sing our doxology today. It is about the life of Jesus in that comma that we talked about earlier. 

“Jesus, who was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited. Jesus emptied himself, taking the form of a slave. Being born in human form he humbled himself and became obedient, even to the point of death.”

Perhaps this is why I am so partial to the Brief Statement of Faith written in 1983. It also ventures into that “comma”. “We trust in Jesus Christ, fully human, fully God, who proclaimed the reign of God by preaching good news to the poor, release to the captives, blessing the children, healing the sick, binding up the broken hearted, eating with outcast, forgiving sinners, and calling all to repent and believe.”

Where is God? God is where God has always been, not at the seat of power but rather at the end of the line with those who still cling to the idea that they are not gods themselves.

God is here, inviting us to the table. If you are a sinner, come. If you are broken, come. If you are downhearted, come. If you are confused, come. If you are typically uninvited, come.

This is the table of the Lord. Immanuel, God with us, has issued the invitation to everyone.  Come, and      sit with God.       

Amen             

Dreaming 50 Years Later

Jeremiah 1:4-10

        Preachers are a dime a dozen.  Right now, on Rt. 151 alone, there must be 15 of us shifting our notes, preparing to deliver our understanding of the word of the Lord. Each of us has two things in common. We are all legends in our own minds and we are all replaceable.  The Tandy’s and the Cameron’s have come and gone and Rockfish still moves forward. In two weeks my former church will install their new pastor and Graves Memorial will have hardly skipped a beat. To be a great preacher is indeed a rare thing. Ask Lynne Carson about John Buchanan or Bill Howard about Otis Moss III. They know what I am talking about. Personally I have marveled at the gifts of folks like Barbara Brown Taylor, Joe Roberts Jr. and Bill Coffin. I had the honor of hearing Desmond TuTu. Now those folks can preach.  Joe Roberts could weave his magic for thirty minutes and make me wish for an additional thirty. A great pulpiteer is indeed rare, but not as rare as a great prophet.

        In this morning’s text we are introduced to the prophet Jeremiah. He stood alone, speaking words no one cared to hear as the City of Jerusalem and the land of Judah crumbled into oblivion. The book of Jeremiah is not light reading. It reflects the words of one man, supposedly speaking for a God brought to tears by the reckless behavior of a wayward people. The Old Testament prophets did not predict the future. Instead they made social commentary on the events they witnessed.  The Old Testament prophets spoke words they believed God placed on their tongue. Often those words burned their mouths and their hearts as they dreamed of a future when God would again ordain peace and harmony to once again walk hand in hand.  

Jeremiah 1:9 states, “I have put my words in your mouth. You tell my people, “Today I will pluck up and pull down. I will destroy and overthrow. And then I will then build and plant.”

The word of the Lord is something few dare to speak, for with the recitation of the word, follows the crisis of a nation.

At the moment of his death in April of 1968, I am not sure how many white folks in America would have proclaimed Martin Luther King Jr. a prophet of God. I was old enough at the time to have heard and believed many of the accusations thrown his way. King was accused of being a communist, a womanizer, and a person inciting violence while preaching non-violence. Many folks I personally knew felt he had brought his death upon himself by being “uppity”. In the south it was generally understood some folks were only capable of achieving certain heights. If you aspired to raise your own personal bar you were “uppity” and had to be taught a lesson. There is no doubt King wanted to raise that bar, not just for himself, and not just for one group of people, but for a nation that much like ancient Jerusalem had lost its moral compass.  If we had all been listening to King’s words on August 28th, 1963, perhaps more of us might have wept bitter tears five years later.

I have tried to remember what I was doing on that Wednesday afternoon. CBS aired the entire three hours of the event but it was not until many years later that I finally viewed it. By then the names of the speakers and had become members of my own personal Hall of Fame. They included A. Phillip Randolph, James Farmer, John Lewis, and Roy Wilkens. Famous protest singers such as Joan Baez, Bob Dylan and Peter, Paul, and Mary all sang but they were completely upstaged by Mahalia Jackson’s rendition of “I’ve been ‘buked and I’ve been scorned.” Then, Dr. King was introduced.

When does one become a prophet? The real ones are seldom self-appointed because the real ones want to be anything but a prophet.  I think the ascension to this lonely post comes when God chooses to put the words on your lips.

On the night of August 27^th the leaders of the March gathered in one room to weigh in on how King was to close this historical event. The original dream did not belong to King. Randolph had tried to organize a march on Washington during the Truman Administration. He was the dean of the movement and King listened to every word he spoke. But there were also other voices in the room. Farmer and Wilkens had a different agenda. Lewis wanted to make sure his young volunteers were inspired. King wrote and rewrote until his trusted friend Ralph Abernathy leaned over and said, “Martin, take us to church.”

The next afternoon, after three hours of speechmaking and singing, A. Phillip Randolph introduced Dr. King as the “moral leader of the nation”. The mantle had been officially transferred. If you have listened to that speech, if you have listened carefully, you will note that King, tipping his hat to Lincoln and Jefferson, began a stylized dissertation that seemed aimed at the white intelligentsia of America.  It was well crafted and probably was a masterpiece in its own right. But King never got to the end of what he had prepared. If you watch carefully you will note that King seems to struggle with the written words before him. He hesitates, takes a deep breathe and that was all the time God needed. Mahalia Jackson, sitting directly behind King, said loud enough for many folks to hear, “Martin, tell them about the dream.” Using Jackson as a holy vessel, the word of the Lord was placed on the lips of Dr. King and the rest is history. Setting aside his prepared text, he began to preach. It wasn’t a new theme. King had introduced it in churches throughout Detroit before coming to Washington. It wasn’t even an original theme. Years before, King heard Howard Thurman preach, “Keep the dream alive; for as long as a man has a dream in his heart, he cannot lose the significance of living.”

It was not even King’s dream. It was the hope of every person on that mall, every mother growing weak in Mississippi, and every father growing old in the shadow of Stone Mountain. It echoed Jefferson’s dream that “All people would be created equal”. It celebrated Lincoln’s dream that “with malice toward none and clarity for all we would strive to finish the work before us.” But primarily it was and is God’s dream that “Good news will be brought to the oppressed, the broken hearted will be uplifted, and liberty will be proclaimed to the captives”.

Dr. King took folks to church that day. By the end of his speech everyone there realized someone finally had the courage to say in a public place what everyone had been thinking. Integration was not just a civil issue. It was not just a matter of morality. It was a holy cause and God Almighty was in front of the parade. God was about to tear down and build up and not everyone was going to be happy with the transition.

Fifty years after that historic moment, I often wonder what Dr. King would say if he were still with us.  History tells us prophets never live long but what if he had lived and was returning to Washington to speak a word or two. He would have been 84 years old. I know a lot of folks older than 84 who still have something to say.

I like to imagine he would have looked at the children and wondered out loud why we are cutting money from Head Start.

I like to think he would have looked at the male teenagers and said, “Pull up your pants, wear a belt and walk like you know where you are headed.”

I think after years of listening to Yolanda and Bernice, he would have reminded all young women that they are equal partners in life and glass ceilings can be eliminated by constantly swinging the hammer of justice.

I think after years of listening to Coretta, he would have had a serious talk to folks of all races and sexual orientations about how he had came to respect the covenant of marriage.

I think he would still preach nonviolence as a lifestyle, compassion as a holy standard and justice as a vocation.

I think he would have declared the God we call Yahweh, Jehovah and Allah is One in the same.

While he was a man of impeccable dress, I like to think he might have made the speech in a hoodie, reminding us that while we have come along way, the dream is not yet complete.

I hope he would have ended his speech with words from a sermon he wrote from one verse in the book of Jude.  “Our God is able. Let this affirmation be our ringing cry. It will give us courage to face the uncertainties of the future. It will give our tired feet new strength as we stride toward the city of freedom. When our days become dreary with low hovering clouds and our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a great power in this universe. God is able to make a way out of no way, and transform dark our yesterdays into bright tomorrows. This is our hope for becoming better people. This is our mandate for seeking a better world.”

Spoken like a true prophet of the Lord.

To God be the glory. Amen.