"LIVING IN THE MIDST OF A LONG ORDEAL"

Text: Jeremiah 29: 4-6, 10-13

Last Sunday, the military response in the war on terrorism began. From all I have heard and read, this war is not going to be like any we have been through or read about. This war will include military action, but final victory will not be attained merely by destroying things and killing people. This is a war in which blocking bank accounts will be as important as raids by special forces. And in the long run, bags of wheat and tools of education may well be more vital to victory than smart bombs and cruise missiles. This war will be no Desert Storm, with victory achieved in a few days or even a few weeks or even a few months. From all I have been able to understand, I think this war will probably go on for years, and final victory will be a gradual fading away of terrorism rather than a specific day of surrender.

It will be a long ordeal, and so an appropriate question for us to face is how we will live in the midst of this long ordeal. There is some wisdom in the passage from Jeremiah that the lectionary has suggested for this Sunday in the Church year.

Jeremiah and the people to whom he was writing were in the midst of a long, difficult ordeal. The people were in exile. They had been the leaders in Jerusalem and throughout Judea, but when Babylonia won the war, they had been forced to march hundreds of miles from their homeland to their place of exile in Babylon. The prophet Jeremiah had been left behind, and the passage we read today is an excerpt from a longer letter he wrote to the exiles.
When I met with the men Wednesday morning to have conversation about this passage, we agreed that although none of us have ever had the kind of exile experience the people to whom Jeremiah was writing, each of us knew something about living in exile. Certainly, since September 11, all of us have been forced into a type of exile. None of us is able to go back to that land of naive security where we lived before the attack by the terrorists. We now live in a type of exile in a land aware of its vulnerability to a variety of kinds of attack.

In a strange way, since September 11, we find ourselves having a great deal in common with the exiles to whom Jeremiah wrote. Like them, we can't go home again. We can't go back to the way it was before.
What did Jeremiah have to say to those exiles, and what is his message for us in our situation? In good Methodist preacher fashion, I see at least three messages.

First it is clearly evident that Jeremiah was aware things had changed and that there would be no quick fix. This is certainly our situation. We are in for a long ordeal. Of course, in Jeremiah's day -- there were voices that seemed dreamily to declare or imply that some special power was going to give them a special short cut to a solution and a swift return to the good old days. I suppose they have something in common with those in our day who think if we will just drop a few more bombs and deploy a few more troops, we can all be "home for Christmas" -- if not then, certainly by Easter.

But Jeremiah's message from God declared, it was going to be a long, long ordeal. Only when Babylon had lived through its life span, would an end to the exile come, and that was not going to happen soon. In fact, speaking to the young men in the audience he said: "Take wives and have children, and raise them to adulthood and have them get married, and then let them have children and raise those children. As Jeremiah understood God's message of reality, it was going to be several generations before the exile would end. And so it may well be in this war on terrorism.

Military might alone will not win this war. It will not be enough merely to destroy the terrorists of today. Surgery to get rid of the cancer will not be enough; we must build up the immune system. For there to be peace, we must win the hearts and minds of those from whose ranks terrorists come. Only when the frustrations, fears and angers that motivate persons to become terrorists are somehow alleviated will the war on terrorism be won. These frustrations, fears and angers have roots that go deep into the history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and some even centuries longer ago. Problems that have been so long in the making will not be solved easily or quickly. A significant part of Jeremiah's message from God to the people who were exile was: "Face reality. It is going to be a long time before this ordeal is over."

Another part of that message is: "Bloom where you are planted." "Build houses and live in them," the Lord said; "plant gardens and eat what they produce. Get on with the business of living. Get married; have children and grandchildren." Just because life is not the way it was does not mean we are to stop living, stop investing ourselves in life or stop being productive. We are to get on with the business of living.

Of course, life is not the way it was. But life is, and we are still alive. Even in our exile, life goes on and we are to go on living. Others in other nations have been living in conditions of insecurity that are much, much worse than what we are experiencing. They learned to live in a new life style of heightened alertness, and so can we.

Until I was in college, I spent my summers with my grandparents and roaming the hills of their ranch outside of San Saba. The ranch was rattlesnake country. I was coached to stay alert walking through the pasture or fishing in the creek. The presence and reality of rattlesnakes did not stop me from enjoying my summers.

When I lived in El Paso, one night I was robbed by a gang as I walked home from a Scout meeting. I learned how to be more alert and careful on my way home at night. The fact that there were gangs in area did not mean I had to give up Scouting.

The message from God that Jeremiah wrote to the exiles contained a similar message. If Jeremiah were writing to us, I think he would say something like this: "Face the reality of your situation, take appropriate precautions and then get on with the business of living."

The third part of the message I see in this passage has to do with what gives us the power to move on, even when we are in some sort of exile and unable to go home again. Listen to part of what God had to say. "For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your well being and not for harm, plans to give you a future with hope."

Even in the midst of what seem to be terrible times, the Gospel declares God is for us and not against us. Remember this line from the famous 23rd Psalm? "Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my enemies." Even in the presence of that which can destroy us, we are nourished by God.
My experience in life has been that it is especially those times when I am aware of having to face or go through what I am convinced can destroy me, that I have been most nourished by the grace of God. It is not that God is not trying to give me nourishment in the happier times; it is just that in the terrible times when I think going through what I must go through will kill me, I am most open to receive the nourishment God has been offering all along. It is understandable that the weekend after the attacks, churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples were filled to overflowing with people. Aware of the reality of enemies the people came to that table the Lord prepared to be given nourishment and strength for facing what had to be faced.

Jesus knew that being faithful persons does not exempt us from bad times. In a variety of ways throughout the New Testament we are told that part of life involves our having to deal with the reality of crucifixion. "Pick up your cross and follow me," Jesus said on more than one occasion. But the Gospel is more, much more, than merely the gift of strength to face bad times. The Gospel empowers us to pick up our crosses and move on, following Christ, and this empowerment comes from hope. It is the gift of faith, that enables us to live confidently trusting that crucifixion is not the last word in life. It is faith, trust, confidence in the resurrection that enables us to move on, even in the face of crucifixions. Our hope is rooted in the reality of the resurrection and what it means and implies -- especially in the face of crucifixions. And when we move on with this kind of hope, we do not move on as defeated, exhausted prisoners, dragging our feet as we shuffle into the unknown future. We who have embraced the Gospel that embraces us, move into the future -- unknown as it always is unknown -- not as defeated, despairing refugees but as confident pilgrims marching into a new future, trusting God does have a plan. And by faith we know, that somehow, some way -- by our relying on God's grace and living by God's grace -- we are part of that plan.
Because of our confidence in God and our faith in the grace of God, we are able to live, truly live, even when we find ourselves in some sort of exile. This and more is the message of God Jeremiah wrote to those exiles long ago. And this message still speaks to us today.

God, thank you for helping us face reality and for giving us the nourishment and the hope we need to move on with our lives. Amen.

Pastoral Prayer:
Let us thank God for the gifts and blessings we have received.

We have come here with a variety of concerns and problems. Let us ask God for guidance and help. God, we do not understand why we have been born into the opportunities that are ours while others have been born into circumstances of poverty, disease and limited opportunity.

God, this obvious inequity makes us feel so uncomfortable, we have a tendency to create explanations of why we deserve the gifts that are ours. But we know better. For all our careful explaining, we cannot finally escape the reality that we are blessed. We do not understand the mystery of our receiving such a bounty of opportunity, but we are grateful. We thank you for these many blessings that we do not deserve but nevertheless have received.

Enable us to be good stewards of our blessings. Protect us from subtle, yet arrogant, selfishness that ignores you and creates the myth that we somehow deserve all we have received and that what we have is really ours and exclusively ours. God, help us see we are not individuals, standing alone in life, but that we are part of a human family created to live together in a profound interdependence. As we come to realize, that all we are and have is a gift from you, teach us how to be responsible members of the human family. Enable us to live as Jesus was teaching us to live when he taught us to pray: "Our Father ...."