Hope Beyond Disaster

People of Judah thought they were God’s gift to the world .: they could do whatever they wanted to. Jeremiah’s message was that their selfishness would lead to destruction. Not very popular

Arrested - under house arrest in the Royal palace in Jerusalem.

Babylonian army under Nebechudnezzar laying siege.

People were terrified. Thought the world was going to end.

At first, this seems totally different, instead of thinking that nothing could ever hurt them, they had become convinced that the sky was falling.

But if we look a little closer, we see that both of these positions have one thing in common - The people of Judah thought they could look at what was before their eyes, and understand what was going to happen. That they had the understanding to know aht the future would hold.

In both cases, they were ignoring the big picture of God’s story of love and redemption for the world.

They thought they had it all figured out.

We see that in our world too

We’ve got it all figured out too.

And when we’ve got it figured out, then we’re in charge, we’re in control

But, all too often, it also means that we can’t see beyond the end of our own noses

Global scale - climate change activism and denial, Greta Thunberg & Donald Trump, we get so caught up in our own point of view, that we treat it like it’s the absolute truth. Like the people of Judah, we even put God’s name to our own vested interests.

We’re so caught up in ourselves, that we leave no room for God to be at work.

Personal level also true

How often to we see an obstacle in front of us, and it becomes so huge in our minds, that we can no longer see beyond it?

How often do we become so convinced that our own way is the right way, that we set ourselves up for a fall?

We need balance.

We need perspective.

We need a hope that comes from beyond ourselves and what we can or cannot achieve.

We need to listen to God and his message.

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Jeremiah is a prophet, a carrier of God’s message, so what message does he carry?

Jerusalem will be destroyed, and the king carried off into exile

and then… quite a lot of detail about a real estate transaction?

Jeremiah had been prophesying Judah’s destruction.

· Needless to say, it didn’t make him very popular with the king.

· In fact, it got him confined in a sort of house arrest in the courts of the palace, next to the temple in Jerusalem.

· In the meantime, the military situation had gone from bad to worse.

· In a fury, the king bails him up and asks “Well, what have you got to say for yourself! Look what a mess we’re in now.”

· Jeremiah’s reply? “My cousin sold me a field in my home town.”

· What kind of non-answer is that? It’s bizarre.

· It’s like your parents ask if you’ve done your homework and you reply “My brother won’t let me share his Lego”. OK, maybe it’s not so bizarre. But it’s definitely a non-answer, isn’t it?

· Even then, it seemed like a strange thing to have in such an important passage in the Bible.

· The Israelites are about to lose the Rugby World Cup, or at least be carried off to exile in Babylon, which is nearly as bad, and instead of taking the opportunity to preach repentance to the King, Jeremiah starts talking about real estate.

· What’s going on here?

the thing about Anathoth is that it’s close to Jerusalem. Almost within touching distance. Anathoth is on a hill about four miles north of Jerusalem. It’s about as far from the Temple Mount as we are from Mountainview Village.

· And because it’s on a hill, you can see it from Jerusalem, Jeremiah can see it from the Temple courts. This is the view of Jerusalem today, looking back from the direction of Anathoth. In the middle you can see the dome of the Rock.

· But there’s another hill half way in between. <slide> A hill called Mount Scopus. Today, Mt. Scopus is houses the Jerusalem university and the Ministry of Defence, but in Jeremiah’s day it housed the besieging Babylonian army.

· So Jeremiah could see the field he was buying. But to do so, he had to look beyond the besieging army.

· Jeremiah’s hope was different from the king’s. His hope was not based in self-confidence, in having everything figured out and under control, Jeremiah’s hope was based on confidence in God.

· Hanamel, Jeremiah’s cousin saw the human hopelessness of the situation. He knew he would never see his field again and he was trying to make the best of a bad situation. Jeremiah saw beyond the besieging army to a hope that could only come from God. To a hope that could only be fulfilled by God.

A hope that acknowledges the harsh realities of our broken world, but sees beyond them to God’s future. A future that we’re invited to participate in.

You’re going to get smashed, but that’s not the end of the story - a new life is coming your way

Yes, it’s a message of doom, but it’s also a message of hope

Our troubles won’t magically disappear because we have hope and faith in God

The people of Judah spent years in exile in Babylon, but it was not their days of glory in Jersualem that taught them to truly have faith in God - when things were going well, they convinced themselves that nothing could go wrong. It was the times of hardship that forged them as God’s people, listening to his voice in the wilderness.

On a global level

Listening for God’s voice won’t make our climate crisis disappear, but it may help us to find our places as stewards of God’s creation.

On a personal level

Listening to God’s message of hope won’t make all of our troubles disappear, or money fall from the sky, but it will help us to find who we are truly created to be.

- we’re called to participate in building His future - but God’s never-ending promise to us is that the army besieging us will not have the last word.

Jeremiah had been prophesying Judah’s destruction.

· We’ve been on a real roller-coaster ride. We got so excited, we thought there was no way we could lose, and then it all came crashing down around us.

· What a mess

· When it was 8-1, and journalists were polishing trophy cabinets, how were you feeling? What about when it was 8-3? What about 8-5? What about 8 all?

· What would Jeremiah think of it all?

· Today we’ve dipped out feet in Jeremiah’s story. And, not to put too fine a point on it, Jeremiah was a prophet of doom.

· He was the kind of guy who would look a picture like <this> and say “We’re definitely going to lose, because God doesn’t want us to win!”

· Needless to say, it didn’t make him very popular with the king.

· In fact, it got him confined in a sort of house arrest in the courts of the palace, next to the temple in Jerusalem.

· In the meantime, the military situation had gone from bad to worse.

· In a fury, the king bails him up and asks “Well, what have you got to say for yourself! Look what a mess we’re in now.”

· Jeremiah’s reply? “My cousin sold me a field in my home town.”

· What kind of non-answer is that? It’s bizarre.

· It’s like your parents ask if you’ve done your homework and you reply “My brother won’t let me share his Lego”. OK, maybe it’s not so bizarre. But it’s definitely a non-answer, isn’t it?

· Even then, it seemed like a strange thing to have in such an important passage in the Bible.

· The Israelites are about to lose the Rugby World Cup, or at least be carried off to exile in Babylon, which is nearly as bad, and instead of taking the opportunity to preach repentance to the King, Jeremiah starts talking about real estate.

· What’s going on here?

· Now I’m all for messages of hope, but sometimes hope is false. The Israelites believed they could defeat the Babylonians. A false hope. We all believed Team New Zealand could defeat Oracle. A false hope. So what kind of hope was Jeremiah’s?

· <this> is what Anathoth looks like today. Not a picture that immediately inspires hope.

the thing about Anathoth is that it’s close to Jerusalem. Almost within touching distance. Anathoth is on a hill about four miles north of Jerusalem. It’s about as far from the Temple Mount as we are from Mountainview Village.

· And because it’s on a hill, you can see it from Jerusalem, Jeremiah can see it from the Temple courts. This is the view of Jerusalem today, looking back from the direction of Anathoth. In the middle you can see the dome of the Rock.

· But there’s another hill half way in between. <slide> A hill called Mount Scopus. Today, Mt. Scopus is houses the Jerusalem university and the Ministry of Defence, but in Jeremiah’s day it housed the besieging Babylonian army.

· So Jeremiah could see the field he was buying. But to do so, he had to look beyond the besieging army.

· Jeremiah’s hope was different from the king’s. His hope was not based in self-confidence, in having everything figured out and under control, Jeremiah’s hope was based on confidence in God.

· Hanamel, Jeremiah’s cousin saw the human hopelessness of the situation. He knew he would never see his field again and he was trying to make the best of a bad situation. Jeremiah saw beyond the besieging army to a hope that could only come from God. To a hope that could only be fulfilled by God.

· Which one was foolish?

· If our journey on the MAP together was like the America’s Cup, then what would the score be?

· Do we have a self-confidence that we are within ourselves? That we can achieve what we set out to through our own means? Or is it beyond us? Because beyond us is God. What sort of hope are we prepared to have? The hope of Jeremiah, or the hope of Hanamel and the King?

· The first time I preached onthis passage was in Ngongotaha. Ngongotaha was a congregation a bit like this, but it had dwindled to around a dozen people attending worship on Sunday, but little energy for anything else. Within a year, they voted unanimously at their AGM to close the parish and join with the big church in town. It felt like the end. But I preached hope to them that day, and I preach hope to you today. God’s hope, not our hope. Two years after Ngongotaha dissolved their parish, Sunday worship has grown. Young families have arrived, and the people are beginning to re-connect with their community. Life is still hard, and things are still fragile, but there are green shoots. Hope springs.

· In the midst of the turmoil of change that we’re going through, with more change in the offing, there are green shoots here too.

· Hope springs eternal