In the name of the God who is, and was, and is to come ☩ Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Amen.
There’s a
tension in the Christian faith between what God has done for us, which is
everything, and what our response ought to be. You see, when we say that God’s
grace is the only thing that matters and that none of the burden of salvation is
on us, sometimes we can slip into complacency. But if we overcorrect by
claiming that our actions are what bring about our righteousness or the Kingdom
of God, well, then we end up diminishing the finality, completeness, and
grandeur of what God has done for us in Christ. The trick, as it almost always
is, is to let the tension remain instead of trying to resolve it. Think of a
piece of string between two points, without tension, there is nothing, but with
enough tension between them, beautiful music can be made. Yes, faith rests
solely on the grace of God, but like a tree with the roots of this grace in our
lives there is an expectation of fruitfulness in word and deed.
This
morning’s Collect is a beautiful one that is well over a thousand years old and
has been in our Prayer Book tradition
for nearly 500 years. It serves as a wonderful guide to holding this tension
between God’s grace and its implications on our lives. The prayer asks that we
might be given the “fullness of God’s grace.” Of course, by the gift the Holy
Spirit we have been given the fullness of grace. The divine purpose with which
the Father created all that is and the divine love with which Jesus suffered
his Passion has been implanted in us through the gift of the Spirit that dwells
within us.
Grace
always begins and ends here – with the understanding that God doesn’t hold
anything back from us. We are given a purpose towards which to orient our
lives, we are given a mission of sharing the love of God with all people, we
are given a story of love and redemption to participate in. With abundance, we
have been given all that we need to flourish in love and there’s not a thing
that we need to do to earn or deserve this love. That is the message of grace
which is central to our lives and faith.
And with
grace at the core of it all, the prayer opens by saying “O God, you declare
your almighty power chiefly in showing mercy and pity.” If we stop and think
about that, we might realize just how absurd it is. Rarely do we ever equate power
with showing mercy and pity. When we talk about a political party being in power,
we mean that they can do whatever is on their agenda. It would be an oxymoron
to say that power is about showing mercy and pity. Often, we equate the
powerful with the rich. But as we heard in 1 Timothy, “The love of money is the
root of all kinds of evil.”
The
almighty power of God is quite different from this sort of aggressive and
domineering power that we’re used to praising and pursuing. Instead, God’s
power is seen chiefly in showing mercy and pity. In other words, God’s power
comes through grace. God’s power comes not through keeping score, but by
forgiving debts. And isn’t it interesting that the wisdom of the Church is to recognize
God’s power most clearly in the show of mercy and pity. God’s power, while
present in Creation and Judgment, is chiefly seen in being gracious.
Being
rooted in this abundant grace, the Collect then notes that we “run to obtain
God’s promises.” Grace is a catalyst, a call to action. There is an expectation
that grace will be manifest in our lives. When it comes to what it means to run
after God’s promises, we turn to today’s text from Jeremiah. There’s a decent
chance that when it was read that your attention was a bit less than focused
because this passage from Jeremiah is the story of a real estate closing. With
apologies to the attorneys in the congregation, real estate closings aren’t
known for the thrill of adventure. Courtroom dramas and fiery closing arguments,
sure, lots of movies include those. But I can’t recall ever seeing a closing in
a movie. But this ancient real estate transaction is actually full of power and
hope and shows us something about what it means to respond to the grace of God.
You’ll
recall from last Sunday that Jeremiah is a prophet writing in the days leading
up to the Babylonian invasion of Israel. The people have turned away from God and
towards their own selfish greed. In closing themselves off to God, they have
opened themselves to destruction. When this particular passage in Jeremiah is
happening, you can hear the footsteps of the Babylonian army approaching.
Destruction is not off in the distance, it’s coming across the horizon.
God tells
Jeremiah that his cousin is going to come to him with an offer to buy a field.
The way property laws worked was that when a piece of land became uninhabited,
it fell to the relative with the highest seniority to have the right of
purchase. Israel was a land-based, agrarian society. A field wasn’t just a piece
of property or an investment, it was a sign of God’s promise to give the people
the Promised Land. Land was a means of producing food and income. Land was a
means to ensure that the family would continue because land was a part of your
identity.
And so
Jeremiah closes on the property – the deed was signed, sealed, witnessed, money
was paid, a copy was made and filed in the appropriate way, and then these
documents were stored in a safe place. Really, it’s not all that different from
a modern-day real estate closing. But there’s an oddity with this God-given
mandate to buy this field: the timing. When you know that your land is about to
be invaded and taken over by a foreign army, why would you purchase property? This
is sort of like being given a cancer diagnosis and then pre-paying for a
vacation five years from now. It’s like putting a non-refundable deposit on a
beach house when there’s a Category 5 hurricane just off the coast. It’s like
planting a tree in the midst of a drought. Some might say it’s a bad
investment.
But it’s
also a tremendous show of faith and hope. In closing on this field, Jeremiah is
running to obtain God’s promise. In telling Jeremiah to buy this land, God is
reminding him that God’s promises are secure. Yes, there may be an invading
army coming. Yes, the land might be owned by an idolatrous nation for a while.
But there will come a day when that deed will come in handy, when the people of
God will again inherit the Promised Land. To purchase this field in the face of
doom is to put trust and hope in God to continue showing mercy and pity.
This is the
work of faith. Faith is not what we do in order to earn grace, rather it is our
response to it. It’s about running after those promises even when we cannot see
them, about trusting that God’s grace is sufficient, about giving our
allegiance to God above all else. That is the fruit of our faith: a heart that
is turned towards God and a life that is running towards this abundant life
that we are given. We are certainly free to run in the other direction, to
chase after prestige, worldly power, wealth, and status. Faith though is about
running towards the open arms of God’s gracious and healing love.
I wonder,
with Jeremiah’s example in mind, how might we audaciously put a down-payment on
hope? What might we do to signal our commitment to God? How can we invest in
the Kingdom of God? Of one thing I am sure – I don’t have all the answers. If
you have ideas for how we can do this as individuals and as a congregation,
please share them with me. As I’ve been praying with this text all week, a few
things have come to my mind, but it’s not an exhaustive list.
Later this
week, you’re going to receive a pledge card in the mail, and if you don’t, you’ll
see them in the pews soon. Right now, across the wider church, attendance and
participation are on the decline. But you believe in the power of hope and
Resurrection, that’s why you’re here. So though the trends in data aren’t
looking good, remember, things weren’t looking good for Jeremiah. I believe
that the Church in this country is about to face a massive challenge – no longer
are people coming to church out of habit and no longer can we count of the levels
of funding that we used to. But if we want to the Church to be here for our
grandchildren and their grandchildren, it’s going to take a down payment of
hope and commitment.
Another way
that we can invest in hope is to take steps towards slowing down climate
change. The impacts of rising temperatures and sea levels are just as menacing
as the approaching Babylonian army, and unless something drastic changes, there’s
going to be a lot of death and destruction. But we can still have hope that God
will not abandon Creation – so we do our part. When it comes to Becoming the
Beloved Community, we can participate in uncomfortable conversations of
truth-telling as a means of putting our trust in God’s power to reconcile all
things. If you have some doubts about faith, you can know that, for one, that’s
normal; but you might also put a down payment of trust in the ability of light
to shine in the darkness, trusting that this light is none other than the light
of Christ. In the coming week, spend some time in thought and prayer – how can
you respond in faith and invest in the grace of God?
Finally,
the Collect concludes by noting that as we run to obtain God’s promises, that
we will “become partakers of God’s heavenly treasure.” It’s a reminder that we
begin and end in grace. Notice that the prayer is not that by our good deeds
will we become “recipients” of the heavenly treasure, but rather “partakers.”
The treasure of God’s grace has already been given to each of us and to all of
us. We run to obtain these promises, we do good works, we attend church, we
give financially, we serve the poor not to earn a heavenly reward, but rather
to participate in what God has already given us.
It’s always
about God’s grace and never what we do to earn God’s mercy and pity. God loves
you – that isn’t up for debate. But grace isn’t just an idea that’s supposed to
give us peace of mind, which it may very well do. Grace is also a path that
leads us deeper into this love. Grace is something that we can participate in,
and as we do, we flourish in the abundant life God intends for us. Again, it’s
not that we get good things by doing good things, but rather we are given the
opportunity to participate in the good things that God is already doing –
things like generosity, forgiveness, humility, peacefulness. Our response to
grace and our works of faith are about going with the grain of God’s love
instead of against it.
As you
reflect on God’s abundant grace and consider how you might invest in hope and
run towards the promise of God’s love, I’ll leave you with a wonderful prayer
from our Prayer Book. It’s called “A
Prayer of Self-Dedication” and is found on page 832, and I commend it to you to
pray throughout this upcoming week: Almighty and eternal God, so draw our
hearts to you, so guide our minds, so fill our imaginations, so control our wills,
that we may be wholly yours, utterly dedicated to you; and then use us, we pray,
as you will, and always to your glory and the welfare of your people; through
our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
