Broken Cisterns
“Broken Cisterns”
Jeremiah 2:4-13
I like television series about lawyers, I especially like to see the process they use to prove their case to a jury. Many years back they had a series entitled: Matlock. He was a defense lawyer who would always prove that his client was innocent; usually in a dramatic way in open court. Today the series are more complex like Law and Order and Shark. Shark is more in line with Matlock. He is also a defense lawyer that always gets his client free, but in his case he is able to successfully defend innocent as well as guilty clients. Shark sees the court as a battle field that you enter to win at any cost. Tired of releasing guilty persons he becomes a prosecutor and now is able to convict every guilty person without ever losing a case.
The prophet Jeremiah presents a court case scenario. Jehovah God is before court to present his case against his own people. But before God presents his case he addresses the accused. It is as if God is more interested in reconciliation than in winning his case. The prophet Jeremiah has God asking the people: “What fault did your fathers find in me, that they strayed so far from me? They followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves. They did not ask, ‘Where is the Lord, who brought us up out of Egypt and led us through the wilderness?’ The Lord God go on to remind them that he brought them into a fertile land to eat its fruit and rich produce. But they came and defiled God’s land and made the Lord’s inheritance detestable.
Jeremiah singled out the three groups charged with leading the nation and exposed their lack of obedience. The priests who were to instruct the people in the ways of God did not know God, that is, they themselves did not have an intimate relationship with the One about whom they were teaching. The political and civil leaders appointed by God to guide and protect the nation. Ironically the ones who were to lead Judah were themselves in need of correction. They rebelled against the One who had appointed them to their task. The prophets were the third group charged with leading the nation. But instead of declaring God’s words of rebuke and correction, they prophesied by Baal and urged the people to follow worthless idols. They were basically preaching what they thought the people wanted to hear.
The priests, the leaders and the prophets became part of the problem rather than the solution for the people of Israel. A few years ago I read about a pastor in a church in Europe that told his congregation that he no longer believed in God. What struck me as odd was that the leaders of the denomination wanted to relieve him from pastoral duty but the congregation was committed to defending their pastor. They did not care that the pastor did not believe in God, they wanted him to stay. I cannot help but think that in that congregation God became irrelevant; that God was an unimportant piece of history. They outgrew their need for God and now they continue to meet as a church for other reasons than serving the God of the universe.
Idaho senator Larry Craig has been in the news for the past few days. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for his Minnesota men’s room encounter with the vice squad. Immediately after the news broke, the senator arranged for a news conference, and with his wife on his side he declared that he had done nothing wrong and to assure the American people that, in his own words: “I am not gay, I never have been gay.” The news media have reported about the condemnation of his former friends and colleagues as they distant themselves from the fallen senator. The September 10th edition of Times Magazine reports that there are 73 investigations into 5 billion in contracts that may have been tainted by rigged bits, product substitution or double billing. Unfortunately they involve army major and captains.
“Therefore I bring charges against you again,” declares the Lord. “And I will bring charges against your children’s children. Cross over to the coasts of Kittim and look, send to Kedar and observe closely; see if there has ever been anything like this: Has a nation ever changed its gods? (Yet they are not gods at all.) But my people have exchanged their Glory for worthless idols. Be appalled at this, O heavens, and shudder with great horror,” declares the Lord. My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”
We like the people of Israel of the days of the prophet Jeremiah have change Jehovah God for other more convenient gods. The associated Press early this year presented an article about what they called “material kids.” They report that the UCLA’s annual survey of college freshman, found that nearly three-quarters of those surveyed in 2006 thought it was essential or very important to be very well-off financially.” In another poll from the Pew Research Center found that about 80 percent of 18-25 year olds in this country see getting rich as a top life goal for their generation. Researchers say materialism is an obsession that cuts across socio-economic lines for American youth. The article goes on to say that one of the reasons for this is that “A lot of parents have developed an allergic reaction to their kids being unhappy.”
Newsweek magazine of September 3rd have an article about Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposal to pay parents for doing the right thing for their children. New York City will pay $25 for attending parent-teacher conferences, $50 for obtaining a library card, $50 for taking the PSAT, $400 for graduating, $100 to take a child to the dentist, and $150 for evaluating their child for possible learning disability. It seems that our leaders have concluded that the notion of doing the right thing is no longer valid. Our dollars still states that in God we trust, but the truth is that we trust in cash.
Why have we changed the Lord for the mighty dollar? I believe that it is because we believe that God is a push over. We use God when it is convenient; God has become an unnecessary piece of history in our lives. We have move from a belief in a God of judgment to a God that will forgive you even if you do not repent. Michael Vick, Atlanta Falcons quarterback, claimed that he has found salvation since pleading guilty to running a dog fighting ring. Time Magazine quote him as saying: “Through this situation, I found Jesus.”
The Asbury Park Press of Saturday, September 1st reported that Jim McGreevey will begin full-time studies at General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church in Manhattan this coming Tuesday. After McGreevey resigned as governor because of having an affair outside of his marriage, he decided to become a priest.
When the church loses its ability to be prophetic the stones speak out. One of the stones I hear often is Hollywood. Chanel TNT has a new television series entitled: “Saving Grace.” Grace is a police officer, who is extremely promiscuous and a heavy drinker. One day while driving she run over a man and stepping out of the car exclaims “Dear God, please help me.” Immediately an angel appears and asked her: “What do you need?” the series is then around the continual encounter of this angel with a woman that claims not to believe in God or angels. The narrator states that she is in a fast lane to hell. She has this running conversation with the angel even though she claims to believe that he is only an expression of a brain tumor that she believes to have. Is this how the Christian Church appears to the producers of this television show? And if so why?
“They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.” The prosecutor is God, but our defense lawyer is Christ. The writer of the book of Hebrews reminds us that: “ For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.” 1 Timothy say that: “There is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,” And Jesus in the gospel of John is quoted as saying: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
We have change God’s because we do not believe those words, we prefer to believe that there are many ways to God and Jesus is one of those. This is why most people are not too anxious about their friends and family not having a relationship with Christ. Some parents even believe that they should leave their children alone until they can decide for themselves whether they want to be Christian or not. The reason that we celebrate communion today is as a reminder that the love of God is combine with the justice of God; that the cross is a symbol of love and punishment.
1 John tell us that: “We accept man’s testimony, but God’s testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son. Anyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in his heart. Anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because he has not believed the testimony God has given about his Son. And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.”
