Proper 17 - Year C

Good morning Church. Last week at the Charge Picnic, Mike preached on the idea of the Church being a healing agent in the world, That the Church isn’t just this act of Confession we do at the beginning of our belief, but it’s also an act of healing we continue to receive, and also share with others, throughout our lives. I want to expand on this idea a tiny bit, on one of the many ways we can heal others. We witness a world that is filled with an insatiable hunger for things to distract, things to keep us away from what reality is. Whether it’s TV, news, video games, whatever, we find ourselves distracted. This sort of spiritual junkfood can harm us when it is not kept tempered.

We return to the Book of Jeremiah today, to reflect on this idea some, of a people who have found themselves swapping out God for other lower-case gods, idols. Jeremiah as a prophet is concerned for the people of Israel, because while the people don’t recall what God did for them, he does. He recalls that the Lord is who freed them from Egypt, the lord is who gave them all good things. We are going to see what this act of idol worship does to the heart. It breaks our hearts, it leaves cracks, causing water to spill. Let’s read it now.

Old Testament Reading - Jeremiah 2:4–13

Jeremiah 2:4–13 NRSV

Hear the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel. Thus says the Lord: What wrong did your ancestors find in me that they went far from me, and went after worthless things, and became worthless themselves? They did not say, “Where is the Lord who brought us up from the land of Egypt, who led us in the wilderness, in a land of deserts and pits, in a land of drought and deep darkness, in a land that no one passes through, where no one lives?” I brought you into a plentiful land to eat its fruits and its good things. But when you entered you defiled my land, and made my heritage an abomination. The priests did not say, “Where is the Lord?” Those who handle the law did not know me; the rulers transgressed against me; the prophets prophesied by Baal, and went after things that do not profit. Therefore once more I accuse you, says the Lord, and I accuse your children’s children. Cross to the coasts of Cyprus and look, send to Kedar and examine with care; see if there has ever been such a thing. Has a nation changed its gods, even though they are no gods? But my people have changed their glory for something that does not profit. Be appalled, O heavens, at this, be shocked, be utterly desolate, says the Lord, for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water.

Living Water

The first evil that Israel committed is forsaking the fountain of living water, the tree of life, God. Yahweh has been replaced with other idols, whether it be power, money, or foreign gods promising wealth and prosperity to the people. This rejection of the living water, makes the people thirst, they find themselves trying to find more junkfood to keep their hearts and minds going. For a time this water holds, but it eventually is dispelled as waste, as it never is able to provide anything. Just like electrolytes help us retain water, the Holy Spirit helps us retain a well of living water in our hearts. When we reject this well, we are doing not just God but ourselves a disservice too, we are separating ourselves from that which breathed into us life, Ruac, the breath of life.

Cracked Cisterns

With the Rejection of God, they have created cisterns that which for a time can hold water, but like poor soil in the country without anything growing on it, the water simple erodes, and the water leaves damage in its wake. These cisterns can’t keep the water like a deep well might. The foundation to begin with is terrible. To help paint the picture here, I recall my Grandma Schafer’s house on Pricketts Fort Road, it was originally a small hunting cabin, but on that land was a small pond on your left as you drive up the really long driveway. My brothers and I loved that pond. At some point, the state department of highway had to tear out the road and redo it and some ditches, somehow, they had broken up whatever strong foundation was keeping the water in that lake, possible some barriers that might have been there, or some hard rock that was holding the water in. After that it was never the same, we could only play in it right after a heavy storm, because it would always just get too low to fish in or use the boat. Now it’s just dried up, caked mud today. That is the same image I see when I think of cisterns.

Old Testament Point #3

This reading prepares us to reflect on, what parts in my life, are those cracked cisterns? what am I putting stakes in that really, will only bleed you dry? I recall one time a lifetime life insurance policy being explained to me as a bucket with a hole in it, where you put all this money in, but only a drip comes out as the fees are paid, meaning you eventually find yourself with a heavy chunk of change almost as an investment when it’s time to cash in. What they don’t tell you, is the interest rates you make on that money isn’t great, and the fees they charge to let you keep a life insurance policy that long instead of a term one, are not great either. The difference would be to directly put a firm foundation on that money by putting it into an investment or savings account, where it slowly fills up the bucket on its own as you keep putting more in and accrue interest. Now that policy might work for some folks and I’m not a financial advisor, but that’s another Image that helps me imagine the cracked cistern, a cracked bucket, you fill up the bucket, make it back to th ehouse only to find half the water is gone. All that effort, for half the output. That is what it is like rejecting God. We are fighting through the drudgery of life, alone, rejecting help along the way. Our egos tell us we have to fight this alone, that only by our own efforts can we prove to the world what we are made of. This ego, that wants to exalt itself, is why we deliberately make cracked cisterns. Jesus Christ, wants us to reflect a different way of living, one where we are not exalting ourselves, but exalting Him alone.

New Testament Reading - Luke 14:1, 7–14

Luke 14:1, 7–14

Luke 14:7–14 NRSV

When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, ‘Give this person your place,’ and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher’; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” He said also to the one who had invited him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”