Eating Sour Grapes by Tom Sikes Jeremiah 31 Just as I have watched over them to pluck up and break down, to overthrow, destroy, and bring evil, so I will watch over them to build and to plant... All shall die for their own sins; the teeth of everyone who eats sour grapes shall be set on edge. The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant...I will put my Torah within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.. for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more. This has been quite a week. We have struggled in a land similar to the days of Jeremiah. Babylon, captive, exiled from our home land. Struggling with our identity. Hoping for things the way they were. The good old days of freedom and family, honesty and hard work. Jeremiah had a tough job as the Prophet for Yahweh when the people turned their back on God. He had the difficult job of speaking for Yahweh who called a spade a spade. God was there in the destroying, the overthrowing of power structures. God was there in the debauchery and the maligning of neighbors. And God is watching our land today. God has not dissipated to the Pearly Gates, shutting his door and his ears to our cries. Where is God in all of our disarray and the land of the free and the home of the brave? As Congress battles on the edge of the cliff waiting for one side to fall? Leaving workers and families in crisis mode trying to pay their bills? From legislators to the stock market to the banking industry, we find ourselves unable to get a voice, a good interest rate, and are struggling to have faith. And it is exactly in this setting, this context that God of the Covenant speaks. God knows our situation. And Jeremiahs situation led to parents eating sour grapes. And when you eat a sour grape, what happens? It is not what you expected. It looks fresh. It looks inviting and delicious. On the outside it looks perfect. But once you bite into it, what happens? You immediately realize that something is terribly wrong. It takes a millisecond to discover that what you thought was going to be good, is not. The taste buds on your tongue immediately trigger to your brain that this is sour. And your brain sends signals to your face for all to see. I want to invite three children to come forward to eat a sour candy. Lets watch their faces. What did you see? It is the way of the world. The world ushers us into what appears to be good. But really, once we bite into it, we discover the harshness of their philosophies. The world in which we live has vicious cycles. The Bible thinks honestly and painfully about these cycles. It knows that most of us, at some place in our life, are caught in vicious cycles. Cycles from which we want to be freed. An addiction, an alienation, a hurt, a guilt, a habit, a quarrel, A policy that goes on and on hopelessly. Even communities and nation-states get trapped in old, irreversible mistakes in which we seem endlessly enmeshed. Example: The debt ceiling, health care, and the gridlock to legislate beyond party lines. We play the same patterns over and over. We ache for a way out. We yearn for a way out. But such a way out we either cannot find at all, or the cost is too high. This text in Jeremiah 31 is a reflection on that ache and yearning and the quest for a way out. Jeremiah brings the reader deep down into the abyss of reality. The realities of evil, corruption, greed, and self-absorption. And just as we can read and listen to these realities no more, Just as we find ourselves tied in knots and at our wits end... Just as we name the destructive forces of power and politics and ploys to overthrow and destroy, what happens? We read a surprising way out. There is a newness that can ease our anxiety if we will only listen to Yahweh. As the Senate chaplain sought in his prayer this past week for the Congress to not be stubborn, God enters that stubbornness and cold heartedness with words of hope that we need to hear today. Walter Brueggemann shares: 1. This newness will be genuinely covenental. The new chance God gives us is trusting communication without fear, intimidation or conflict. Being open and vulnerable to each other. That covenental prospect is in contrast to what? To our old patterns and modes of life based on power. Enacted as fear and brutality. The new covenant means an end of having it or wanting it our way, in which we are given freedom to yield, knowing that we will not be exploited. God says that the old covenant between Moses people and Pharaoh is now over. No longer will the Torah be on stone and placed like pool rules by the shallow end. 2. Gods expectation (Torah) will be in our hearts. We move beyond rules and regulations and obedience by memorizing the texts. The Torah will be in our hearts. We will know right from wrong and act obediently because we want clean hearts. We want an end to restless resistance and self-sufficiency that we know so well. Now there will be solidarity that comes in trust. I know at this point you are thinking: THIS WILL NEVER HAPPEN. WE ARE ENTRENCHED IN POLARIZING DEBATES. Republican and Democrat, North and South, White and Black, Working and Welfare. And yet, if we believe in God, we believe in Gods breaking into history. And God breaks into history through persons who boldly speak truth in the marketplace. This past week I watched a rant of a television anchor who for three years had led a show. But this week he reached his boiling point. He spoke the truth loudly and clearly of what was happening in our nation. And he offered a solution that included the President, the Financial Institutions, and Congress. It is a mathematical fact. Tens of trillions of dollars are being extracted from America. Democrats are not doing it. Republicans are not doing it. Taxing System, the Trading System, the Market System have created this pattern. Created by both parties over two decades is at work on our entire country right now. The United States of America is being extracted. It is being extracted through banking, through trade, and through taxation. And there is not a single politician that has stepped forward to deliver us. This same dialogue happened in the days of Jeremiah. Babylon, a foreign land with foreign gods, and the loss of the faithful to find hope. Who will step forward for our nation and be our Jeremiah? Who will share the hope of a Yahweh that dares to speak on the talk shows. To remind us that we have the Torah written in our hearts, the people and the politicians. And that Torah demands courage to step outside of fear and intimidation. To do the right thing for the generations that come behind us. Is it possible? Answer that question. If you say No, then I surmise you are in good company. Things will never change. We are in a spiral. Things will only get worse. We will be taxed to death, imprisoned in our own homes, and living in fear. I come down on Saturdays to pray and get ready for worship. But lately I have felt a bit scared being here. People come up and down this alley beside the church. Who knows what will happen? I struggle to be a Christian minister with hope in one pocket and wanting to pack heat in the other. Will we find relief or will it only get worse? Will we put our homes on the market or buy bars for our windows? Will we no longer open our own business because we are being taxed beyond imagination? I know the story. I understand the situation. And so do you. We come in here on Sundays and this is no Polly Anna view of life. We come inside these red doors but we are well aware of the breaking down around us. I stand before you today behind this pulpit to say: Read the news and be aware of what is going on. But as you set the newspapers down and grimace at the television anchors, As you join me in eating the sour grapes of politicans and power plays and ploys. Then what? Set down the sour grapes. Set down the sour grapes. Quit whining and moaning and retreating and closing up. Remember Jeremiah 31 and Gods words for us today. Behold the days are coming. I will make a new covenant, a new set of relations, a new community, a new communion. It will not be like the old covenant which you broke. I will put my Torah, my requirements, my expectations, in your heart. Everyone will know exactly what I require. They shall all know me, from the least to the greatest. I will forgive them and their sin I will remember no more. My friends, we need God in our land, our community. From the coffee clubs to the radio stations, we are seeing people eating sour grapes. Diatribes, dialogues gone bad as people no longer listen to the other side. From Capitol Hill to Sandhill, we yearn and ache to break these old patterns. Where is Jeremiah today? Who is the Prophet in our midst but the Pulpiteers on every corner right now. Reading the same text - the Episcopalians, the Presbyterians, the Methodists, the Catholics, the Disciples, the Lutherans - All of us are hearing this text today... What will we do after we leave here? When we meet at Weidmanns or Outback, or Mulligans or the Country Club... what will we do with this text? I invite you to talk about this sermon text. Discuss this sermon. And see if you are Jeremiah for those who are tired of ... Eating Sour Grapes. Speak a new pattern of language not belittling others but lifting them up. Forgive as we have been forgiven. Remember the old patterns of speech and violence no more. Bruggemann writes, You see the problem is that our actions toward each other are so irreversible. We make a gesture, speak a word, post on Facebook or Twitter, take an action. We may do it maliciously or carelessly. In either case, that word or gesture or action generates what? Misunderstanding, distrust, hostility, alienation and we live with it forever and ever. There is no way out of that old pattern and things grow more abrasive. Marriages stay frozen, parents and children are at deep odds. Nations war and battle and line up their missiles. Pride and Prejudice goes on and on and so does its poison. We ache for a chance to start again. But it demands not falling into the old patterns. Can we do it? You might say NO.. God says YES. Things need not go on and on. The cycle can be broken. A new chance is offered though it is demanding. It takes a broken heart, an end to self-sufficiency, abandoning a pretense of always being right. This gospel is not just advice on acting differently. This gospel is not advice but assurance. God came into the world to break the cycle of Egypt, then Babylon, then Rome. So if you feel like you are in exile like the people in Jeremiahs day... Pay attention to his writings. Read his book and see how it can help change your old patterns. God enters our ache and offers newness right now. Amen. I say, May we be the Body of Christ beyond this table where we dont eat sour grapes... (This Sermon was inspired also by the words of Walter Brueggemann in his sermon The Gift of a New Chance.)
Posted on: Mon, 21 Oct 2013 14:05:09 +0000
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