Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
Emotion Tone
Anger
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Disgust
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Fear
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Joy
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Sadness
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Language Tone
Analytical
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Confident
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Tentative
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Social Tone
Openness
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Conscientiousness
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Extraversion
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Agreeableness
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Emotional Range
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Anger
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Origin Story
If you are ever in a fight, and you discover that your opponent is an orphan boy, lost at sea, raised by pirates or wolves or something, is seeking his lost love… and maybe looks suspiciously like the long-lost King.
Just quit.
Go home.
They are obviously the hero destined for victory!
Unless you have an even more tragic backstory.
Like you’re a double-orphan, and the prophecy of the ages mentions your initials or something.
This is a great board game, somewhat cooperative that the kids and I play.
Basically your are trying to build the most interesting character, playing on all the tropes of “heroes journey” type stories.
The chosen one succeeds.
The hero wins.
That’s just how it works.
Or… that’s how it’s supposed to work.
Chosen One - Jeremiah
We remember Josiah, the “great” king… but just not great enough to make up for the evils of his Grandfather, Manasseh.
We can see in the fact that there’s a string of Josiah’s kids inheriting… it isn’t going well for them.
The years after Josiah’s death is filled with turmoil, because Babylon is coming.
But it’s okay, because here comes the origin story.
Here comes the hero.
There’s a lot of great birth stories… Jeremiah tops them with “womb” stories.
Crafted in his mother’s womb, consecrated before birth, known by God even before being formed in the womb.
(Does that mean pre-existence of souls before conception, or was it before a certain stage of forming in the womb, or just God’s foreknowledge????
Not the point.
God knew Jeremiah.)
Jeremiah means “Exalted in the Lord”.
He is of the priestly line, so he is prophet and priest… he’s got credentials!
And God gives him words of encouragement, of coming victory:
Sweet!
That’s a guaranteed victory, right there.
If God is for you, who can be against you?
How do you expect that to work out?
You may not know exactly how the hero is going to win, but you know it’s coming.
Babylon is threatening, it is growing in power… but here comes Jeremiah.
He is warning everyone, he is speaking the truth.
And it isn’t hopeless, God is giving real options here, conditional prophecies based on their choices.
Stop the idolatry.
Start practicing “justice and righteousness” or “love” to the hurt and needy among you.
He has a whole chapter on keeping the Sabbath, which is also an act of grace and freedom to the oppressed.
Repent and there can be victory.
And they have to listen… because Jeremiah is the hero.
Right?
Right?
Spoilers.
No.
In fact Jeremiah gets just wrecked over and over again.
Sounds like he’s winning?
Maybe Jeremiah is still confident of victory.
We get his thoughts on the matter:
Roller coaster of emotion there.
God is with me!!!
But also… I wish I was never born!
Courage and despair hand in hand.
Maybe the next king will listen?
His scribe Baruch reads the scroll in the temple and in the “hearing of all the people.”
Maybe he next King, King Zedekiah?
Accuses Jeremiah of joining the Chaldeans, beats him, throws him in a dungeon then...
Now… Jeremiah doesn’t die there.
Some people rescue him and hide him.
And then Jeremiah has to watch the worst come to pass.
Conquered
Soon after they burn the temple… and so ends “Solomon’s Temple”, they burn all the houses of Jerusalem.
Nebuchadnezzar spares Jeremiah.
Jeremiah prophesies against fleeing to Egypt… but the remaining remnant of Judah flee to Egypt anyway… and forcefully take Jeremiah with them… and he dies there.
He’s got something to teach about mourning, about suffering, about Lamentations.
In fact, we’ll spend some time on that in the coming weeks.
Jeremiah is called the weeping prophet.
Not because of what happens to him, or not just because of that… but because he is heart broken for the coming, and then the actual destruction of the people.
In every way we would count “victory” or “success”, Jeremiah - the Chosen One, he loses.
And even the most famous passage in all Jeremiah.
The bumper sticker one.
Anyone know it?
That is in a letter from Jeremiah to the exiles in Babylon saying “get comfortable in your exile, God’s going to keep you there for a few generations.”
For 70 years!
Not how I would have told the story of “Jeremiah, the Chosen One.”
Not the happy ending anyone, including Jeremiah, was hoping and praying for… and really expecting giving the auspicious start.
Trouble
What did Jesus, the ultimate Chosen One, say?
God doesn’t define success by your standards.
And thank God.
And He doesn’t see the finish line were you see the finish line.
Our timeline is short, our horizon is half a mile away, our patience gives out in months or weeks, not decades or centuries or millennia.
We are terrible at being God.
And yet, in our hearts we criticize God and question His plans constantly!
This can’t be right, it’s taking too long!
That must have been a mistake, it isn’t working.
It looks like failure, feels like failure.
If Jeremiah was basing his ministry on results, he would have quit a LONG time ago.
And yet, again and again, Jeremiah is faithful.
“Thus says the LORD.”
He recognizes the voice of God, the will of God, and he is faithful to hear from God and say what He says.
That is faithfulness.
Be Faithful.
That is Victory.
And no matter what any other appearance may tell you… that is victory.
It isn’t the way Jeremiah probably would have defined victory.
But look at him, one of the most famous prophets and poets of all time.
Because He was faithful.
Why is this important?
When you have trouble in your marriage.
It is easy to sit back and think “I’ve made a huge mistake.”
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