Fifth Sunday after Pentecost - Video of Divine Service at St. Luke and Text of Sermon
The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost 5
Romans 7:1-13
Matthew 10:34-42
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Who do you trust? Who do you believe? Someone who told you something that you don’t agree with or like? Or someone that tells you what you want to hear? Adam and Eve faced that choice in the Garden of Eden. The LORD God put restrictions on the one tree in the garden. They could eat of any other tree, but THAT ONE. Along comes Satan in the guise of a smooth-talking serpent and he tells them what they want to hear. As the Bible tells us, they saw that the fruit was indeed good to eat. They took. They ate. We are living through the rest of the story.
Adam and Eve had the pleasure of making their choice in the idyllic setting of the Garden of Eden. The choice to believe their creator or this creature was clear. They followed the desire of their heart and believed the tempter. For the rest of us who are living through “the rest of the story,” the choices we face are not in serene environments of abundance.
The prophet Jeremiah is speaking in Jerusalem, in the year of 594BC. Three years earlier, the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar and his ruthless army invaded Judah and penetrated the protective walls of Jerusalem. They were in the process of transporting captives into Babylon. The Temple was not yet destroyed but all that the Babylonians deemed valuable, the furnishings made of precious metals, had been taken away. The remainder of the protective walls and the Temple will be destroyed in coming campaigns.
In short, Jeremiah and those to whom he speaks, are in a war zone. Devastation is all about them. Relatives are dead, businesses ruined, family life disrupted, citizens are being forcibly removed from the homeland for service to the Babylonian empire. They lived through the horrors of war and invasion.
In that context, two prophets stand in the Temple before priests and the congregation assembled. Hananiah the prophet is the son of Azzur, the prophet from Gibeon. He offers a most welcome word of hope in the midst of despair. Speaking in the name of the Lord Hananiah declares the following:
2 “Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon. 3 Within two years I will bring back to this place all the vessels of the LORD's house, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took away from this place and carried to Babylon. 4 I will also bring back to this place Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and all the exiles from Judah who went to Babylon, declares the LORD, for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon.”
This is the kind of prophecy that the people want to hear. Restoration! Life will be back to normal. All that was lost and taken from them will be returned to them within a span of two years: People, leaders, the sacred vessels of the Lord’s house. Then, life can carry on as it did before. No repentance. No more punishment for their sins.
Jeremiah offers a different prophecy indeed. If you have read through the prophet Jeremiah, you know that Jeremiah’s response is polite and restrained. It would be nice if all that Hananiah says were true. But it is not. Jeremiah says this:
7 Yet hear now this word that I speak in your hearing and in the hearing of all the people. 8 The prophets who preceded you and me from ancient times prophesied war, famine, and pestilence against many countries and great kingdoms.
Because true sorrow, contrition, and repentance have yet to occur amongst all the people; because they still are engaging in idol worship, because those that remain still do not live as God commands, more is coming. The punishment of God will continue for 70 years. Only after 70 years, will Israel’s situation change and the captives will be free to return home and rebuild.
Two choices are before the people. Will you believe the sweet words of the false prophet Hananiah, or will you believe Jeremiah who prophesied the same things as the many other prophets sent to Jerusalem? God tells painful truths to people so that they can amend their thinking and behavior and return to the Lord.
Regardless of what they believe Jeremiah speaks a truism.
9 As for the prophet who prophesies peace, when the word of that prophet comes to pass, then it will be known that the LORD has truly sent the prophet.”
Well, destruction came as the truth telling prophets predicted. Amendment of heart and behavior did not occur as God desired. Punishment followed a generous time of grace. If Hananiah’s prophecy comes true, then his words will be affirmed. But, that was not the case. The Babylonians continued their decimation of the people, the land, the city, and the temple. And Hananiah died shortly after that exchange with Jeremiah.
Things did not have to turn out the way that they did. Adam and Eve had the clear Word of God about what their limits in the garden were. A simple law was given to them. They chose to transgress. By the time of the Babylonian invasion, the leaders and people had long had the Law of Moses. They had God’s Word of instruction. Each generation was taught the essentials of the faith including the Ten Commandments. Whether they chose to listen or not, be obedient or not, that is a different story. They knew God’s expectations. Just because the cultures and societies around them had different faith practices and life traditions, did not mean that they had to be joiners. In fact, the Word of God from the beginning, in the establishment of the covenant with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and subsequent generations in the bondage of Egypt, to the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai after the Exodus, has always been: “you are mine, I chose you, do not be like the others. Worship me, the Lord your God and nothing else.” The Lord gave the Law so that people will know what obedience and transgression look like. The Law shows what worship of the Lord looks like. It’s not only on the Sabbath. It is how you live, how you treat people. It’s your faith active in love. All aspects of our life are supposed to reflect our obedience to the first commandment: “2 “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 3 “You shall have no other gods before me. 4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
Who are you going to trust? Who are you going to believe? The Lord God or something else with sweet words that you prefer to hear?
God knows our hearts better than we know ourselves. Our record of failure as the people of God is not encouraging. The Law points us to the need for Christ. In the fullness of God’s time, Jesus is born for us. He is the final and complete sacrifice. On the cross, he bears all our failures, all our sins, upon Himself. He reconciles us to the Father. On account of His grace we are free to follow Jesus.
We trust the one who dies for us. We believe the God-Man. We pick up our cross and follow Jesus, knowing that should we lose our life for His sake, in His love abundant and eternal life will be given to us.
The world is still the world. The tempter is still the tempter. We are still faced with false choices. But, because Christ redeems us by His cross, we trust Jesus, no matter what the cost.
The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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