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Twinbrook Baptist Church Rockville, MD First Sunday in Advent December 03, 2006 Pastor: Kip Ingram Kipi1@aol.com |
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II begin today with a tale of two cities. Or rather, with a look at the city from two very different perspectives. The first is from well known R&B singer Stevie Wonder, from his popular song in the 1970s about the economic stresses and racial strains of family life in the modern city. This portrayal of city life by Stevie Wonder speaks to the tensions and challenges that we all of us know to some degreeBthe challenge of family life and raising children, the challenge of work and economic well being and making do with what we have, the challenge of race relations and of justice for every person, the challenge of worrying only about ourselves and giving just enough to get by in the city or working to make the city a better place. This searching song reminds us that we are all of us city people, and this means acknowledging the challenges of life together with others. The second perspective on the city is from a recent semi-popular Christmas song in this area called ”It´s Christmas Eve in Washington.” This second perspective on city life is in stark contrast to the first one. It´s more of a rosy, syrupy sweet, feel good song about area landmarks and sentimental families and generic platitudes. There is always a temptation, when we think of the cities in which we live, to overlook the struggles and shortcomings and strains which exist just under the surface of our dreaming innocence, yet in our more honest moments, we know, we all know in different ways that city life is a mixed bag that reflects the best and worst of human beings. I ask you: is God concerned about the city? Do Rockville and Silver Spring and Gaithersburg and DC matter in the care and purposes of God? How about New York or New Orleans or Baghdad or Jerusalem? In Hebrew history, King David and Solomon both reigned over a united Jewish people. After Solomon died, the kingdom was split up into a northern kingdom called Israel and a southern kingdom called Judah. The northern kingdom of Israel fell in 714 BC to the conquering Assyrians. But the southern kingdom of Judah, with its capital city of Jerusalem, continued to survive for more than a century. Finally, the Babylonian empire emerged and, in spreading its dominance, laid siege to Jerusalem, and when Jerusalem fell, the army of Babylon ransacked the city, destroyed the temple and deported back to Babylon all the leaders and influential residents throughout the kingdom of Judah. The prophet Jeremiah lived in the city of Jerusalem in the time when it was threatened by Babylon, during its siege and in the aftermath of its destruction and loss. Jeremiah understood the importance of that city to the Hebrew people. Most likely, the prophet had come to love and care about that city, maybe even thought of it as home. Now the city lay in the ruins of memory. The temple, the very home of God, was lost. King Zedekiah of Judah, part of the promised house of David´s royal line which was supposed to last forever, was gone. The kingdom of Judah and the city of Jerusalem were only history now. Jeremiah, of all people, knew that it had not always been this way. Jerusalem and Judah had been a place of promise when he was younger. Yet Jeremiah had seen the city slip away in faithfulness long before it ever fell. He had seen Jerusalem´s inhabitants pay lip service to God´s ways then choose to live something less. They exploited the poor in court with bribes to the right people. They followed after other Gods which promised riches and success. They put their trust in the fading promises of political power. In short, they virtually ignored God´s righteous purposes and God´s call to right and just ways of living. The result was that Jerusalem was not a safe city, not safe from the threatening power of Babylon, to be sure, but even more, not safe from the injustice and mistrust and violence happening between people. And as the country of Judah became occupied by an invading army, and the city of Jerusalem came under siege, the times grew more desperate for people. I imagine that, much like present day Baghdad, Jerusalem became a desperate, unsafe place to be. When people lose trust in one another, when they lose the capacity to live rightly, when they lose confidence and hope that things will get better, when they live under constant threat and exposure to violence, then people become desperate. And desperate people will do things they cannot imagine doing at other times in their lives. Jeremiah is sometimes called ”the weeping prophet,” and he wept, I believe, not only because people missed God´s purposes in their lives, but also because he could look out upon a desperate city and watch through tearful eyes as it all came unraveled. In the aftermath what would he say? The people of Jerusalem had experienced the horrific descent into chaos and then exile. Was there a word from the Lord to people who had lost everything? Here is part of Jeremiah´s response: AThe days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfil the promise I made to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah. In those days and in that time I will cause a righteous branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the name by which it will be called: ”the Lord is our righteousness.” Imagine hearing this promise for the first time after living through the loss of Jerusalem. God had not given up on them after all. There was hope for coming days, hope for the people of God in the promise of something new springing up, a righteous branch in the line of David. This new leader will work for righteousness and justice. The nation of Judah will come to know God´s saving ways once again and the city of Jerusalem will live in safety. Instead of living in unrighteous and unjust ways, people will one day live by the guiding words of faith: ”the Lord is our righteousness.” There is hope in this message of Jeremiah, hope that a once desperate and now defeated city will one day know the fulness of God´s blessing in safety. We don´t usually think of God´s purposes in terms of safety, and I think part of the reason is because we have reduced the idea of safety simply to not getting hurt in a given situation. We are like the tourist who wanted to visit an old monastery on a secluded mountaintop. The problem was that the only way someone could get up to it was by getting in a large basket and being pulled up by a rope with several monks pulling on the other end. The tourist considered it and thought it to be safe enough, so he got in the basket with his guide and was slowly pulled upward. After going most of the way up, the tourist looked at the rope closely for the first time and realized that it was looking old and worn. He began to worry and asked his guide: ”how often do they change the rope?” The guide thought about it for a moment then responded matter-of-factly: ”whenever it breaks.” That kind of immediate concern for safety is important, to be sure, but safety is a richer and more profound reality than simply not getting hurt in a certain situation. The key to understanding safety is given to us in the message of Jeremiah where it is connected with righteousness and justice. The hopeful purpose of God is that a time will come when righteousness and justice will be practiced among people, when people will acknowledge ”the Lord is my righteousness.” Righteousness is doing what is right, following God´s right purposes and doing right by people. As long as there is unrighteous living, as long as we are not doing right by people, we will not know the reality of safety which God intends. But righteousness is not just doing right by some people, it means all peopleBthe children who attend our schools and the sick who show up at our hospitals, the families in our neighborhoods and the homeless in our shelters, the residents in our nursing homes and the immigrants in our shopping centers, the leaders in our businesses and the officials in our government, the police on our streets and the judges in our courts. In order to know the deep reality of God´s safety, we need to work toward doing right by the people in our city. You see, as we work in righteousness, we can build structures of accountability so that people will be treated justly and right. Then, right ways of living begin to encourage trust between people, and when we can live in trust, then we can start to know the blessing of safety. But where there is not just and right living, and no trust built between people, there will be no real safety, no matter how many locks we put on our doors. Do you see the important connection between righteousness and trust and safety? The prophet Isaiah proclaimed that the result of righteousness will be ”quietness and trust forever.” Safety comes as a gift when we grow toward God´s ways of doing right, building experiences of trust with others so that the city becomes a place of safety. Violence happens when trust and doing right break down, when people can´t talk with each other, understand each other, live with each other. God´s way of safety is not something we cling to anxiously; it is taking the initiative to do right by others, to build trust with others, to reflect God´s gracious goodness before others. Safety is another one of those great paradoxes of faithful living: if we cling to personal safety too tightly then we miss the opportunity to reach out and work with others toward real safety, which only comes through the adventure of righteousness and trust-building. I invite you sometime to stop in the entranceway at the front of our church and pause in front of the stained-glass window there. It was given by Florence Gaither in memory of her husband Dan. I did not know Dan; he died before I came here. So I always think of that window in connection with Florence. As many of you know, she was the first African-American crossing guard in Montgomery County. In the early days, she knew the reality of racism in her job. She used to say that she sometimes felt like a pinball when people would veer toward her in their car with dirty looks. She´d say that people would call her everything in the book, and she´d just pretend she didn´t quite hear them. In it all, however, there was a strength in Florence that did not let her retreat in individual fear for her safety. She not only continued faithfully in her job for decades, helping children to get safely across busy streets, but she also worked toward a deeper safety as she sought to do right by the people around herBthose at church or in her neighborhood or on the job or in doing ministry. In her own way, she was a faithful believer in God and in God´s ways of justice and righteousness. It´s no accident that the stained glass window in the entranceway is about the parable of the sheep and the goats, where Jesus calls us to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and tend the sick, in short, to do right by people. It is truly a window about the deeper meaning of safety. We who are Christian believe that God´s promise in Jeremiah about righteous living and safety finds a unique focus in the life of Jesus Christ, for Jesus did right by all those around him, reaching out to build trust in others for God and God´s ways. Jesus taught us by his life and words that safety is not something to be grasped and held tightly. It is, rather, a courageous journey of righteous living. Nevertheless, Jesus knew the violence of the city of Jerusalem in a different way centuries after Jeremiah. In his death, we see violence rear its ugly head and claim ultimate victory, yet the living Christ still journeys with us and calls us to the work of righteous living and safety. In fact, God´s promise shows us that the place of violence can also be the very place of hope. Jeremiah looked out upon the defeated streets of Jerusalem and saw God´s promise for a better day. The earliest followers of Jesus looked back upon the cross of Jesus and saw it as the very place of God´s victory. Today in communion, we remember the death of Jesus as we gather around a table, and yet around this very table we can find a new beginning for our lives and our city. For we can look at our lives through the promise of God, and whether we live downtown or in a suburb, in an apartment a condo or a house, we are all city people. i. For the general idea for this series, I am indebted to Paul Sponheim, ”Looking to the City: The Old Testament Lessons for Advent and Christmas Day (Year C),” Word and World (Fall 1994): 446-452. |
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