Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
September 26, 2010
Jeremiah 32:1-3; 6-15
Have you ever made a foolish or unwise purchase? Did you buy that Beta format VCR? Of course, now, who even buys VCRs? Ever try to unload an eight-track tape player at a garage sale? How about that salad shooter? Good as new, but you probably can’t re-gift it as a wedding gift though can you? There’s that ‘can’t miss stock purchase’ that somehow missed. And let’s not forget that Green Bay Packer necktie that looked so good in the catalog… you don’t own one of those? Would you like one? Yes, ever make an unwise or foolish purchase? But no matter what you may have bought, it is hard to imagine that your purchase was any more foolish that the purchase we read about in today’s text…Jeremiah’s purchase of a plot of land just outside Jerusalem. Let me tell you a little about the prophet, Jeremiah.
His tenure as a prophet coincided with a time of great turmoil and conflict in the Middle East during the 6th century, BCE. The great powers of Assyria, Egypt and Babylon struggled for supremacy in the region. The tiny, powerless, Hebrew kingdom of Judah was caught up in that struggle for dominance and basically became a vassal state of the king of Babylon. Well around 587, in an effort to break free from the clutches of Nebuchadnezzer and Babylon, Judah’s, King Zedekiah, sought an ill-fated alliance with Egypt. Jeremiah condemned this act as foolish and dangerous and spoke of the coming destruction of Judah and Jerusalem as God’s judgment on the king’s and people’s faithlessness. And so we read in Jeremiah 9, “’Therefore’, says the Lord, God of Hosts ‘…I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruin, a lair of jackals, and I will make the towns of Judah a desolation, without habitation.’” C’mon, Jeremiah, don’t beat around the bush, tell us what you really think! In response, in an interesting intersection of religion and politics, Zedekiah, the king, thanked Jeremiah for his kind and thoughtful words and put him under arrest. But before long, Nebuchadnezzer marched on Judah and surrounded Jerusalem.
And that is the context for this scripture today. Jerusalem is surrounded. The situation is hopeless. Judah does not stand a chance against the powerful army of Babylon. The taste of defeat and death is in the air. What will the future hold? Who will survive? Is this the end of our city and country? Why has God deserted us? What a great chance for old Jeremiah to look the king in the eye and say, “I told you so.” But that isn’t what he does. No, instead he calls his real estate agent and inquires about a piece of property. Well, that may not be exactly what happened…but it’s close.
According to Jeremiah it happened like this: “The word of the Lord came to me: Hanamel, son of your uncle Shallum, is going to come to you and say, ‘Buy my field that is a Anathoth, for the right of redemption by purchase is yours.’” So, let’s see now – Jerusalem is surrounded and is about to go up in flames. Judah’s army will be destroyed and the best and the brightest deported to Babylon. And God and Jeremiah are discussing real estate? Note that God doesn’t really tell Jeremiah to buy the land. He just suggests that soon Jeremiah will get an offer he can’t refuse. And that is exactly what happens. His cousin comes to him and says, “Buy my field.”
Now in an agrarian culture such as Judah, ownership of land was critically important. Keeping land in the family insured some measure of economic stability. If a person wanted to sell a piece of property, he had to go first to members of his own family to see if they would like to purchase it. This was called the right of redemption, rather like the right of first refusal. So Jeremiah’s cousin, before going to multiple listings, offers the land to Jeremiah and amazingly, incredibly, perhaps even stupidly, the crusty old prophet buys it.
As best I can tell, Anathoth was not far from the city wall of Jerusalem, really kind of a nice piece of real estate for building a little retreat away from the crowds and the noise of the city. There is just one small problem. When the offer is made, the armies of Nebuchadnezzer are camped on that field. You are not going to build, plant or graze anything there for a long, long time. The land is as worthless as land can be. So when the cousin comes and says, boy, have I got a deal for you, you don’t have to have a Harvard MBA to know the answer to his offer. You want me to buy the field, that one, right out there, with all those soldiers on it, that’s the one? Just how big of an idiot do you think I am? There is no rational reason to buy that field, so, of course, Jeremiah goes out and buys it. Why would a sane, intelligent, seemingly sensible person make such a foolish purchase? I mean a Packer tie or a fishing rod you don’t need, that I can understand, but the field at Anathoth? And he buys it with a flourish. You heard all the details, telling us way more than we need to know about property in 5th century BCE. What is going on here?
Old Testament scholar, Walter Brueggemann, has said this: “The task of prophetic imagination and ministry is to bring to public expression those very hopes and yearnings that have been denied so long and suppressed so deeply that we no longer know they are there. Hope, on the one hand, is an absurdity too embarrassing to speak about. Hope is the refusal to accept the reading of reality which is the majority opinion. Hope becomes subversive and I think that is precisely what Jeremiah is doing when he signs that deed. He is refusing to accept what he has been told about the facts; refusing to accept the majority opinion that all is lost, that all is hopeless. Indeed, after all the harsh words he has uttered against Judah, its leaders, its people, the final words we hear in our text are, “Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.” This is not the end, says the prophet, don’t you dare believe that God is finished, that God is defeated.
In a fear-filled time, in Jerusalem’s darkest hour, when it seemed that there would be no future for the land or its people, Jeremiah affirms that there is still hope. In word and in deed he proclaims his trust in God. This isn’t a statement of blind optimism – kind of a Pollyanna, just think good thoughts. This isn’t hope in the goodness of humanity, or in the inevitability of progress, or in the ultimate triumph of the market economy. This is hope in God, in God’s desire, intent, and promise to redeem, restore and renew the whole creation. In buying the land, Jeremiah doesn’t just talk about his hope and trust in God. He demonstrates it for all to see.
It would seem that a lot of Americans believe in God. At least that’s what poll after poll tells us. When asked, “Do you believe in God?” an overwhelming number of us respond positively. And I suppose that should be good news for someone in my line of work. And yet, what does it mean to say, “Yes” when asked if you believe in God? Is it real or merely an opinion? Could it be that faith is so much more than simply belief?
Henry Ward Beecher, perhaps the most noted preacher of the Civil War period, wrote of a childhood in which his family was often mired in poverty, close to starvation, with too few prospects. In one such moment, young Henry overheard his parents in a discussion - his mother expressing her deep despair and hopelessness. Then he heard his father say this: “My dear, I have trusted God now for over forty years. I have never regretted that trust. And I am not – however fearsome the future – going to begin to distrust God now.”
Reflecting on that moment, Beecher wrote, “My father had taught me the catechism, reading from the Bible. But none of that ever became the truth for me that my father became that night. His words sank into me. And when, during my life, I went through perils of sickness and poverty myself, and all forms of limitations and trouble, I could never forget that single scene from my childhood. There was the truth of faith. Not something to believe in, but someone in whom could be seen real trust of God. It is that – that truth – that taught me to trust.”
And isn’t this precisely what we see in Jeremiah? When he proclaims, “And I bought the field at Anathoth,” we aren’t witnessing some casual statement of belief or opinion about God. Again, Jeremiah demonstrates trust, he models true faith and hope in God, indeed he makes an investment in hope. In the words of biblical scholar, Sharon Burch, “By purchasing the land in the midst of Jerusalem’s destruction by Babylon and while he was imprisoned, Jeremiah defines what it means to have faith in God’s future. He attests to his conviction that God is present even in catastrophe. He declares that meaninglessness or nonbeing will not triumph. To the multitudes of our parishioners who suffer from hopelessness and despair of unexpected setbacks, Jeremiah underscores that, out of the chaos of change, God’s promises will be fulfilled.”
Jeremiah shows us what he believes in – better yet who he believes in and in whom he places ultimate trust. And us? Do we spend our days consumed in the search for certainty and security? Or are we willing to face the future with faith and hope, trusting in a God who permits us to grasp that future without demanding certainty? Yes, I find life a wondrous and maddening mystery. I see pain I cannot explain. I am angered by seemingly senseless things that happen everyday. But, for all my angers and fears and foibles, I believe and trust and hope that in the end, there will be God, the God who has met and embraced me in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. And so I leave you today with the words of another great old preacher George Whitfield, who in an early crossing to America from England by sailing ship, wrote this in his diary: “Our water is near gone, our food almost exhausted, our sails are torn, and the Captain cannot say where we are. But God knows, and that is sufficient.” God knows.