The struggle and the joy 25-06-2023

Jeremiah 20:7-13, lament, pastor adrian kitson, sorrowing song, The struggle and the joy

You deceived me, Lord, and I was deceived^]
    you overpowered me and prevailed.
I am ridiculed all day long;
    everyone mocks me.
⁸Whenever I speak, I cry out
    proclaiming violence and destruction.
So the word of the Lord has brought me
    insult and reproach all day long.
⁹But if I say, ‘I will not mention his word
    or speak any more in his name,’
his word is in my heart like a fire,
    a fire shut up in my bones.
I am weary of holding it in;
    indeed, I cannot.
¹⁰I hear many whispering,
    ‘Terror on every side!
    Denounce him! Let’s denounce him!’
All my friends
    are waiting for me to slip, saying,
‘Perhaps he will be deceived;
    then we will prevail over him
    and take our revenge on him.’

¹¹But the Lord is with me like a mighty warrior;
    so my persecutors will stumble and not prevail.
They will fail and be thoroughly disgraced;
    their dishonour will never be forgotten.
¹²Lord Almighty, you who examine the righteous
    and probe the heart and mind,
let me see your vengeance on them,
    for to you I have committed my cause.

¹³Sing to the Lord!
Give praise to the Lord!
He rescues the life of the needy
from the hands of the wicked.

So the word of the Lord has brought me
    insult and reproach all day long.
⁹But if I say, ‘I will not mention his word
    or speak any more in his name,’
his word is in my heart like a fire,
    a fire shut up in my bones.
I am weary of holding it in;
    indeed, I cannot.

Friends, what a crisis to live in and battle to walk through.

We have a fire in our belly to speak and live the good news of God’s love and hope for all, and yet so often people we know and love don’t believe us or want to hear of the hope we have in his love.

Jeremiah lived this struggle for about forty years. Around the midpoint of this time, the Babylonian empire, similar to China now, started to rise in the world.

Like the Tibetans now, Israel was very much under threat. As God’s person called to speak God’s truth, Jeremiah had the unwelcomed job of warning the people of this threat and how it was God’s means for dealing with their sin and getting them back to his grace.

They did not want to hear it. I am not surprised. Who does? Sometimes I don’t want to hear it.

Jeremiah is squeezed between the God who has called him and insists on him speaking this difficult truth and a people who refuse to believe what he says. He is stuck between an insistent God and a resistant people.

Sounds like us – living between and insistent God speaking and a resistant people un-listening!

No wonder Jeremiah has a melt-down. He has an all-out crisis of vocation.

In chapters 11-20 we hear six long laments (sorrowing songs). They are bold and they are brash.

We might struggle to hear them. We don’t talk to God in lament much.

Somehow, we assume, honest or even angry words complaining about God to God might offend God. We seem to think that God might not be able to handle our complaint. So, we keep these things to ourselves lest we find ourselves being ‘unholy’ or unfaithful or wrong before God – stewing away as the bitterness and joyless unbelief builds …

Not Jeremiah! He lets the fire out!

You deceived me, Lord, and I was deceived;
you overpowered me and prevailed.
I am ridiculed all day long; everyone mocks me.
⁸Whenever I speak, I cry out proclaiming violence and destruction.
So the word of the Lord has brought me
insult and reproach all day long.

“God, I am speaking and living what I hear you say, and it causes me nothing but trouble among my friends and family. You have tricked me into this! This was not in the job description! Being your person among people was never meant to be hard. It was meant to be blessed, comfortable, calm, peaceful …

But I am trapped. You have trapped me.

⁹… if I say, ‘I will not mention his word or speak any more in his name,’
his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones.
I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.

The fire of the life-giving news of the underserved forgiveness, love and acceptance of this Lord whom I know now burns within me and I simply have to share it.

It is like that amazing place I saw, the incredible experience of which I was part, the good news of a new baby, a promotion to that sought after job, that engagement announcement … , I just have to share it …

But when I do, it costs me. People don’t get it, share the love of you, know you, want you or these words I share …

Jeremiah is close to giving up. You may be too:

Cursed be the day I was born!

May the day my mother bore me not be blessed! (Jeremiah 20:14-18)

Now this is how you complain!!

Note that this strong talk is not a lack of faith. This is faith. Jeremiah is complaining TO GOD, after all. He has faith that God can handle it, won’t be offended and is listening, and possibly might act.

This is the gift of lamenting, and it is everywhere in God’s word.

Did you know that there are sixty of the one hundred and fifty psalms that are sorrowing songs?

Psalm 13:1-2: “How Long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long must I bear pain in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all day long?”
Psalm 44:23: “Rouse yourself! Why do you sleep, O Lord? Wake up, do not cast us off forever.”
Lamentations 5:20, (an entire book of laments, often related to Jeremiah): “Why have you forgotten us completely? Why have you forsaken us these many days?”

This is not just an ‘Old Testament thing’. Jesus speaks some of these laments too. Remember,

“My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? (Psalm 22)”

And even after the best day the world ever had – the day dath and darkness and evil were put back in their box by Jesus – resurrection day, th church prayed these psalms … : Peter, John and the first believers after Peter and John had been let off by the Sanhedrin (Acts 4:25) from Psalm 2

‘“Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?

The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together

against the Lord and against his anointed one …

I guess praying these feelings and strong words all depends on the kind of God to whom you are complaining.

If God is some distant overseer sitting on the front veranda of his heaven watching the world go by, including you and your suffering, from afar; unmoved and uninterested …

…. an absent landlord in a tight rental market who seldom takes your calls and hardly ever does anything to the property, you would pray these words or maybe any words.

If God is an absolute monarch who is in total control of things and demands your obedient perfect behaviour, but is really is messing up the management of the world, you would not pray these strong words. You might say something wrong. S, you grin and bear it and not utter a word lest he punish you or people pity you.

If God is just a ‘nice person’ who will bend over backward to help anyone and never say a bad word about anyone and never take a stand on anything or have anything challenging or even ‘offensive’ to say to you, you would not bother speaking like this with him because he never seems to (or maybe he can’t) can’t do or saying anything meaningful?

But this is not Jeremiah’s God, or mine or yours according to Jesus.

In Jesus we see God close – real close and real dirty and real hungry and real bloody and real dead.
In Jesus we see God managing the word upside down in grace, ruing in our opposites lest we try and keep ruling ourselves to death.
In Jesus we see God taking a stand against The Enemy, at great personal cost – and all for us while we are still unaware, unable and unfit for his purposes.

Jesus shows that God is neither a distant immovable, nor uninterested, incapable or just a nice and friendly helper for our life project. He is the one and only God who loves, who hears, who speaks with real fire in his belly.

Friend, you can speak – speak it all and speak it often. Speak it to him and speak of him.

And what if you do?

Maybe, like Jeremiah, you will ‘stay in the game’ with God with your life.

It is what we are called to be and do…..

Jesus says it:

²⁴‘The student is not above the teacher, nor a servant above his master. ²⁵It is enough for students to be like their teachers, and servants like their masters.

³²‘Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. ³³But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven.

³⁹Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it. (Matthew 10:24, 32, 39)

This sounds hard! But Jesus simply names what he knows – the difficulty. He knows the difficulty of where we live and gives hope to you in it. He lived it and lives it with you.

²⁶‘ … do not be afraid of them, for there is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known.

All unfairness and injustice and bad words and behaviour will be known and justly and fairly dealt with by him.

²⁷What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs. ²⁸

No secret faith. Speak it. It all counts even if it is not all accepted.

And in it all and quite beautifully:

Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul … Be afraid (or freely live in) the One who can kill both!

Why?

²⁹Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. ³⁰And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. ³¹So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.

Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul … Be afraid (or freely live in) the One who can kill both!

Why?

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The struggle and the joy 25-06-2023