First Lutheran Church in Brainerd, Minnesota
Texts: Jeremiah 20:7-13 — Romans 6:1b-11
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
a little over a week ago…
i turned 61….
And last night,
I returned from my parents place in sioux falls
My dad is 95 and my mom is 90
And we are needing to deal with some difficult decisions
related to my father…
If you have a little extra time for prayer
Keep he and my mom in your prayers….
All this has gotten me thinking
about getting older
And how one of the things
that happens
as we get older
is that we lose some illusions
we may have carried
earlier in life
When we’re young,
we tend to think
life is going to make sense.
If we work hard,
things will work out.
If we do the right thing,
people will appreciate it.
If we are honest,
others will be honest in return.
if we tell the truth
others will also tell the truth…
If we love people,
they will love us back.
And then life happens.
We discover that families can be messy.
Workplaces can be messy.
Communities can be messy.
even churches
churches can be messy.
And sometimes
even our own hearts can be messy.
ever since a seminary course at wartburg
introduced me to him
i have always loved the prophet Jeremiah..
One of the things I appreciate about Jeremiah
is that he doesn’t pretend otherwise.
Jeremiah is exhausted.
He’s frustrated.
He’s discouraged.
He’s burnt out….
He sounds like someone
who has discovered
that doing what God asked him to do
has not made his life easier
he’s learned that lesson
in spades….
In fact,
it has made his life harder.
He says:
“O Lord, you have enticed me.”
And then he describes being mocked.
Ridiculed.
Ignored.
Opposed.
This is not the triumphant prophet
standing on the mountaintop.
winning the battle of prophetical stars….
This is a weary prophet
wondering if it is worth it.
And perhaps that is one reason this text still speaks to us.
Because most of us know something about disappointment.
Not necessarily some huge, dramatic, disappointment
But ordinary disappointment.
The disappointment of discovering
life is more complicated than we imagined.
The disappointment of realizing
people are imperfect.
The disappointment of learning
even that which we love
can let us down.
At some point in life
most of us discover that the future we dreamed about
is not exactly the future we received.
And that can be painful.
Jeremiah certainly knew that.
Yet there is something fascinating about this passage.
Jeremiah says he wants to quit.
But he can’t.
He says God’s word is like a fire shut up in his bones.
He is weary from holding it in.
And he cannot.
Even in his frustration.
Even in his disappointment.
Even in his exhaustion.
God is not done with him.
Now if Jeremiah were the only reading today,
we might conclude that faith
is simply a matter of hanging on.
and my sermon might be…
come on people….
Dig deeper.
Try harder.
Find more strength
than you think you have…
But then we hear Paul’s words from Romans.
And Paul takes us in a completely different direction.
He reminds us of our baptism.
He reminds us
that we have been united with Christ in his death.
And united with Christ in his resurrection.
Think about that.
Paul does not tell discouraged Christians
to try harder.
He does not tell weary Christians
to become stronger.
He points them back
to something God has already done.
Their baptism.
Their identity.
Their belonging.
In other words,
Paul is saying
the deepest truth about your life
is not found in your circumstances.
It is not found in your successes.
AND
It is not found in your disappointments.
It is not found in the things
that have gone wrong.
The deepest truth about your life
is that you belong to Jesus Christ.
Years ago, Martin Luther was going through a difficult period.
The story is told that he would sometimes say to himself:
“I am baptized.”
Not because he had forgotten.
Not because he needed a history lesson.
But because baptism was God’s promise.
A reminder that God’s claim on his life
was deeper than whatever he happened
to be feeling that day.
I think that’s a word many of us need to hear.
Because there are days
when our feelings tell us one thing.
And God’s promises tell us another.
Our feelings say:
man – I am really, really… tired.
God says:
You are my child.
Our feelings say:
Nothing is working out for me…
i’m a failure….
God says:
You belong to Christ.
Our feelings say:
I don’t know what comes next
God says:
i have joined you to the death
and resurrection of my Son.
Our feelings say:
Everything is changing.
God says:
I am not.
having turned 61 last week…
it’s been an odd thing to stand
on the threshold of being retired…
not really sure if I am retired – or i’m not retired….
…and having been helping my parents now
for the last year….
negotiate living life in the 90s…
which has presented several new challenges…
i’ve learned…
that one of the gifts of getting older
is that eventually
we stop putting our trust in illusions.
We stop expecting perfection from ourselves.
Or from other people.
Or from the church.
Or from life.
And perhaps that is not a loss.
Perhaps it is an invitation.
An invitation to place our trust where it belongs
Not in ourselves.
Not in our plans.
Not in our circumstances.
But in Christ.
Jeremiah discovered that God was not finished with him.
Paul reminds us that God is not finished with us either.
Because in baptism God has already spoken the most important word over our lives.
Not failure.
Not success.
Not disappointment.
Not fear.
But beloved.
Child of God.
my wife and i have gotten a laugh – over the years….
of one particular phrase
that her parents drilled into their kids….
that sum it all up….
you are a child of God….
…and nothing else matters…
we need to hear that …
we’ve laughed about it a lot…
because we’ve needed to hear it a lot….
we all do… in fact….
why don’t you say it to the person sitting next to you..
you are a beloved child of God
and nothing else matters…
you ARE a child of God…
And that promise remains true.
When our plans change.
When our health changes.
When our circumstances change.
When our feelings change.
God’s promise remains.
The older I get, the more I find comfort in that.
Because there are many things in life that change.
But the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ does not.
The promises spoken at our baptism do not.
The grace of God does not.
And the God who claimed us as his own is not finished with us yet.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
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