Proper 21 – September 26, 2010

Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15


(Note to St. Andrews friends - Sorry, I'd already written this before I realized we're using the alternate OT text from Amos!)

            Hope.  Promise.  Even in the midst of present chaos and destruction, the assurance of future restoration. 

We’re told in verse 2 that the Babylonians are “besieging Jerusalem,” and that Jeremiah himself has been put under house arrest by the king.  Why?  Well, the story is told in chapter 37 that the siege was briefly lifted and Jeremiah tried to leave Jerusalem to go to Anathoth, where his family had some land (more on that below).  When he got to the city gate, the guard accused him of deserting to the Babylonians and arrested him.  But here in chapter 32, in the verses that aren’t included in the Lectionary text, we get some added perspective.  In short, the king couldn’t understand why Jeremiah had been saying such terrible things – foretelling the destruction of Jerusalem and the capture of the king as foregone conclusions.  In other words, the political consequences of Jeremiah’s prophecy are interpreted as treason, betrayal.  (Cue the Hold Steady: “You can’t tell people what they wanna hear/ If you also wanna tell the truth”) 

            Suffice to say things are bad, for Judah and for Jeremiah.  And Jeremiah gets a word from God.  Jeremiah couldn’t really catch a break – he was always having to say and do things that were likely to result in people either being really mad at him or at the very least thinking he was kind of nuts – but that’s life for an Old Testament prophet.  Anyway, the word he gets is that a relative of his is going to come to him and ask him to buy some family land, “for the right of redemption by purchase is yours.”  The right of redemption is a Torah provision explained in Leviticus 25.  The idea is that, if a person falls on hard times and has to sell some of their land, their next of kin should come and buy it to keep the family from losing it altogether.  If the landowner has no relatives who can do this and ends up losing the land, but then later the landowner finds himself in a better situation, he can then buy the land back (though the person who has it gets compensated for their trouble).  Otherwise, in the jubilee year (every 50 years) ownership of the land will revert back to the original landowner anyway.  So ANYWAY, sure enough Jeremiah’s relative comes and asks him to buy some family land in Anathoth, just like God had said.

            So he does – and this is the part of the text that I love, because of the detail.  If you’ve ever bought a house, then you know what’s involved – a crazy amount of money, a loan stretching out for 30 years, signing paper after paper around a long conference table in a lawyer’s office.  It’s a big deal, and we tend to think about the major investment we’ve made.  Here Jeremiah rehearses each detail of his transaction – weighing the silver, signing the deed, sealing the deed, getting witnesses, taking the deed and handing it to his secretary Baruch in front of a bunch of people.  What’s ironic about it is that this is a terrible investment!  Jerusalem is under siege!  Not a great time to be buying real estate.  And that’s what makes this text so powerful:  Jeremiah tells Baruch to bury the deed in basically a time capsule, because God promises that there will be better times for God’s people.  Their life may look like a wasteland, but buried underneath it is a future that God will bring about.  This is real, theologically grounded hope – hope that’s based not on what things look like around us in the world, but on God’s promises.

1 Timothy 6:6-19

I notice two contrasts in this text.  First, there is the contrast between “contentment” and “wanting to be rich.”   This reminds me of something in the book Your Money or Your Life, by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin.  The authors talk about the importance of finding our “enough” point – the state where we are content with what we have, where we neither long for more nor feel crowded or burdened by our stuff.  That was an important concept for me when I first came across it, and it seems relevant here.  Notice, the problem for the author of 1 Timothy in verses 6-10 is not “being rich” but wanting to be rich; the problem is not money itself but the love of money; not what we have but what we’re striving for, where our sights are set.  The author counsels being content if we have food and clothing, the necessities.

The second contrast in the text is between holding onto the riches of the world and “taking hold of the eternal life…the life that really is life.”  The danger of being rich, the author says a little indirectly, is that it can lead to "haughtiness"--literally, "thinking highly" of yourself.  The other danger is that it can cause us to set our hopes on our finances rather than on God who richly provides for us. (I’ve experienced that – when there’s more money coming in, we get used to it and become “dependent” on it.)  The author of 1 Timothy says the antidote is to do good, to be generous, to share with others.  That’s how, in the midst of our life in this world, we take hold of eternal life.

As I see it, one of the difficulties with this text in our culture is that none of us really thinks we’re "rich" – everybody thinks they’re just getting by, because no matter what our income, there’s a lifestyle waiting to soak it up.  There’s a bigger house, a finer car, cooler clothes, less-processed food, that other CD or book I was wanting.  The author calls us back to contentment with what we have, and being “rich in good works.”

Luke 16:19-31

            In this part of Luke’s gospel, Jesus is “letting us have it” on the issue of money and possessions.  And like the parable in last week’s Gospel text, this one co-stars a “rich man.”  After what the 1 Timothy text said about being content with food and clothing, I think it’s funny how Jesus describes him: “dressed in purple and fine linen” (clothing), and “feasting sumptuously every day” (food).  Again, presumably the rich man thought he was just getting by.  Anyway, he is contrasted with Lazarus, lying outside the gate clothed only in his sores and just longing for some crumbs from the rich man’s table.  So then, in death their places are reversed – Lazarus is carried away by angels to the comfort of Abraham's lap, while the rich man goes to eternal torment.  And in verse 24, it’s now the rich man who is longing for some mercy: just as, in life, some crumbs would have made a difference for Lazarus, now just a few drops of water off the tip of Lazarus’s finger would refresh the rich man.  I notice the rich man says, “I am in agony in these flames,” as if he'd had no idea there could be suffering like that—even though the evidence had been right outside his gate all along.  But Abraham has bad news for him: (1) there’s now a chasm between Lazarus and him so that he’s stuck with his unfortunate lot; (2) if he’d paid attention to the Law he might not have ended up like that; and (3) if his family (whom he’s now concerned about) hasn't paid attention to the Law, chances are it won’t make a difference “even if someone rises from the dead.”  Hint, hint, Jesus says.

            Here’s the thing.  While the part of the parable that jolts us is the stark, apocalyptic warning of that chasm with Lazarus chilling on one side and the rich man burning up on the other, I don’t think that’s the point of the parable.  I think what Jesus is warning against is the other chasm in the parable – the earlier one between Lazarus at the gate and the rich man inside, between dire poverty and conspicuous wealth.  It’s really quite poignant – this picture of Lazarus right at the rich man’s doorstep, living a completely different life.  Jesus is saying, that’s not the world that the Torah envisions, and it’s certainly not the kingdom he has in mind.  He reminds us that there’s more than enough teaching in the Bible to guide us in this matter, if we’ll pay attention.  The parable suggests that small acts – crumbs and drops of water – can make a difference, and that such acts have eschatological (i.e., eternal, Kingdom-of-God) significance.

Works Consulted

Leo Perdue's notes to the the Jeremiah text in the HarperCollins Study Bible
Walter Bauer's Greek-English Lexicon of the NT (2nd Edition)
Harper's Bible Dictionary (yes, the same one I bought for Charles Talbert's NT class at WFU)