The Jesus Field...

 “The Jesus Field”

 

Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15
32:1 The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD in the tenth year of King Zedekiah of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar.

32:2 At that time the army of the king of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem, and the prophet Jeremiah was confined in the court of the guard that was in the palace of the king of Judah,

32:3a where King Zedekiah of Judah had confined him.

32:6 Jeremiah said, The word of the LORD came to me:

32:7 Hanamel son of your uncle Shallum is going to come to you and say, "Buy my field that is at Anathoth, for the right of redemption by purchase is yours."

32:8 Then my cousin Hanamel came to me in the court of the guard, in accordance with the word of the LORD, and said to me, "Buy my field that is at Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, for the right of possession and redemption is yours; buy it for yourself." Then I knew that this was the word of the LORD.

32:9 And I bought the field at Anathoth from my cousin Hanamel, and weighed out the money to him, seventeen shekels of silver.

32:10 I signed the deed, sealed it, got witnesses, and weighed the money on scales.

32:11 Then I took the sealed deed of purchase, containing the terms and conditions, and the open copy;

32:12 and I gave the deed of purchase to Baruch son of Neriah son of Mahseiah, in the presence of my cousin Hanamel, in the presence of the witnesses who signed the deed of purchase, and in the presence of all the Judeans who were sitting in the court of the guard.

32:13 In their presence I charged Baruch, saying,

32:14 Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Take these deeds, both this sealed deed of purchase and this open deed, and put them in an earthenware jar, in order that they may last for a long time.

32:15 For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.

 

The commentaries tell us that this chapter begins with an historical “place marker” that puts this prophecy of judgment around 588 B.C.E, just before the second siege of Jerusalem, and just before the eventual fall of the city in 587. Remember that prophets aren’t sent to warn the people that if they don’t repent, something WILL happen, but to tell them the water is already over the dam, and the result of their disobedience is about to befall them. That is the case here—Jerusalem will fall. 

 

We can get into a big theological debate over whether God is “causing” the fall of Jerusalem as a punishment (judgment) against the people, whether God is “permitting” it to happen, or whether God is sending the prophet to bring the “word” that it WILL happen, because the people’s disobedience has set it up. I guess we could all agree that God does at least “permit” it to happen, because it does, and this goes to whether your theology requires God to be involved in every happening, or whether God is capable of “sitting out” an occurrence as a kind of divine spectator, letting God’s children learn a tough lesson they brought upon themselves. I tend toward the latter argument, and I think this fits in more with the Judeo-Christian idea of deity who tends to “act” more human (anthropomorphic) rather than as the “unmoved mover” of the Greco-Roman world. I think our people have been mostly schooled in the latter, but hope for the former, and it is up to us as preachers to connect them with the more biblical view of God. 

 

The problem with the “unmoved mover” view of God is that God is detached in this model. A detached God too easily becomes a distant God, not affected to any great degree by the suffering of human creature, and most especially when it comes to the one. This God is “high and lifted up,” as Isaiah stated, and doesn’t seem like the type to take a “field trip” into the middle of the human condition. This God is also a rule-maker, predominantly. On one hand, the rules are “commanded” to keep human beings from wiping each other out, thus preserving the whole of creation. On the other hand, the rules “handed down” divinely by deity may be viewed as “what makes God happy,” and therefore we are coerced to obey them by this “on high” authority. The Hellenistic society of Jesus’ day would affirm this “in charge” view of God, and its leaders took their authority from a god like that and transferred it downward, empowering their leadership over their lesser “subjects.” Maybe this is why Jesus arrived when he did? Maybe this gravitation of the human species toward the “divine authority” of God signaled such a threat to the future of it that God saw this as “the fullness of time,” the appropriate era to intervene in human history.

 

The Jews had a quite different view of God, as I alluded to earlier. They saw themselves as so connected to their Creator that it was unimaginable to think of life without God. They obeyed God’s commands simply because it was a sign of both respect and honor to the one who was the “source” of all that was precious to them, and when they neglected God’s commands, it was more likely that their “sin” was taking God’s continuous presence with them so much for granted that they felt immune from any negative effects of doing so, kind of like the teenager who regularly steps one step beyond what is safe. Jews worship God, but they also argue with God. They keep God’s commandments, but they also push the edges of that “envelope” in experiencing life and standing up for justice. Jews believe in God’s divine power, but believe God has told them to “fix the world”—a loose translation of the Hebrew phrase, tikkun olam. Thanks to millennia of “life with God,” they believe as much in God’s ability and willingness to “pull them back from the brink” as they do in God’s good guidance to safer paths. The prophets served at both ends of this “risk vs. reward” continuum. This is why they generally weren’t popular in their day, and yet are venerated by the Jewish faith community today.

 

With that in mind, let’s talk about hope again! Even when the most horrible thing that Israel can imagine—the fall of Jerusalem—is about to occur, the message from the prophet is one of hope for what God will next do to help them pick up the pieces. As we learned earlier in Jeremiah, God will not give up on the “clay,” and will keep trying to rework it, if we give ascent to this. The commentators also remind us that the prophets often “give the word” by carrying out some symbolic action, in this case, Jeremiah buys a field. When a siege is underway, and the fall of the capital city is imminent, putting money into real estate seems like a really bad idea, but this is the point! There is a future for Israel, for Jerusalem, and God will help them rebuild their land. 

 

Think about a time when you, or someone you love did something like Jeremiah as a hopeful gesture when things looked bleak. I remember when I was a kid, we were about to leave on a family vacation (which were always just “get in the car and go” affairs, with little planning, other than a possible destination, or two in mind). We were waiting for the mail to arrive with my dad’s commission check, the day we were to leave. The check arrived, but due to a dishonest manager he had at that time, it was about HALF of what he was counting on. I remember my mother bursting into tears, and telling us kids were weren’t going to be able to go on vacation. We started to cry, too. My dad stepped in and boldly announced: “No, we’re GOING! Let’s load the car!” We were as excited as mom was perplexed. It had been a difficult year, with my dad’s company moving its headquarters to a faraway state, and his losing his job, unless he chose to move, too. He had taken a new job as an insurance salesman, and was living on commission, which proved to be quite a change from a steady paycheck, and a parasitic boss didn’t help. I’m guessing that the vacation we eventually took was much scaled down from what the original “plans” encompassed, but we kids didn’t know any better, and we had a blast! This is Jeremiah’s field. How about you? I’ll bet you have a few stories of your own that can well explain the “hopeful action” of Jeremiah in this text!

 

Hope is a powerful thing—maybe one of the most potent forces in the universe. It rescues those in distress and gives rise to super-human coping skills on one end, and absolute heroism, on the other. As Paul said, “hope does not disappoint.” And as another Paul reminded us, hope helps us “take a sad song and make it better.” 

 

If you tuned in the most recent Ken Burns special on PBS—the episode on the Holocaust--you saw how the people who were almost wiped clean from the face of the earth—the Jews—rode the beam of hope to persist, survive, and to thrive again. For many who survived, it was some specific element of hope that provided the extra energy to overcome the hate and horror of the Nazis. In his famous book, Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl tells his story (and that of others) of Nazi death camp survival. Frankl says that every day, he imagined himself standing at the front of a university class teaching psychology to his students. This image was the seed of hope that he needed to persist. For those who were not outright murdered by the Nazis, survival was almost always connected with hope. 

 

With all of this in mind, we come to the “Jesus field.” Could there be anything greater than God sending God’s own Son into our world to bring not just a word, but actions of hope for all of humankind? This time, God chose not to just send a prophet, but to “come himself” into our realm. In doing so, God buys the ultimate field of hope! The price God pays for this field, and for the salvation it brought to us all, was extremely high—Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross. But it must have also been a great sacrifice for Jesus to “empty himself” of all of the “perks” of life in God’s realm to “tent” among us. The “field” that God bought becomes a beachhead against sin, evil, and suffering. Even those who may not yet fully believe in or accept the redeeming grace of God in Jesus Christ have hope that this grace is so monumental that they may never be shut out from it. And even the act of recognizing this, on their part, may actually provide their redemption. Jesus made clear the lessons of Judaism that God desires a relationship with us, but until an individual “gets it,” they are free to receive God’s pardon. Grace is that big. Few of the people Jesus heals and redeems asks for it, but they gladly accepted it. So it is with many today. Still, God’s ultimate aim is to relate to us as loving Creator to loved creatures. We have so over-empathized the idea of “original sin” and how it separated us from God, we have missed the “bigger picture” of what God really wants—to restore the kind of relationship between God and the creation—including us—that first existed. In this understanding, sin is anything that attenuates or blocks the reconciliation of this relationship, not just the “big nasty acts” that we tend to focus on. Salvation is less “forgiveness” than it is “disinfecting” any “disease” that harms our relationship with God and others. Unfortunately, the lure of the kind of “sins” that distance us from God is too often the illegitimate power they give us for self-determination and selfish gain. 

 

The “Jesus field” is not a cemetery for unrepentant “sinners,” but a field of dreams for all of God’s people. In establishing it here on earth, God never gives up hope for the restoration of God’s relationship with all of humankind. In fact, Jesus’ teachings make clear that this hope belongs to all of us, and even as it got Israel through its most challenging—and even life-threatening—times, it will see us all through, as well. If you are already in a loving relationship with Christ, hope is a tool available to you when “life happens.” If you are still one of those engaged in “independently” exploring life, not yet ready to yield to God’s saving grace, hope is for you a “lighthouse” beacon, pulsing often enough that you do not lose your way. The cash crop of the “Jesus Field” is hope. Amen!