Jeremiah 15:15-21

William F. Schnell

August 31, 2008

   Today marks the conclusion of our summer worship schedule.  Next Sunday we begin a new program year at The Church in Aurora.  I have had a fabulous summer with lots of vacation time built in.  The only trouble with vacations is coming home to email, snail mail and voice mail that have collected while away.  Then there is that first staff meeting where you find out what has gone awry while you have been gone.  Maybe the computer network is down or there are fires to put out or urgent needs require immediate attention. 

    I need a few days to get into a vacation frame of mind, and I need a few days to get out of one.  This is something our otherwise astute staff fails to appreciate.  So I have found a cartoon that I want to share with them at the first staff meeting following a week off.  The boss is sitting at the head of a board room table with his associates seated around him, and he says to them: “Before you go any further, let me reiterate that I, for one, see nothing wrong with killing the messenger.”

    The metaphoric phrase, “killing the messenger” or “shooting the messenger” has a long history that goes all the way back to Shakespeare’s  plays where it is found in both Henry IV and Antony and Cleopatra.  In ancient times--before cell phones and email—people exchanged communications over long distances by human envoys who either hand-delivered written messages or verbally recited them to intended recipients from memory.

     Sometimes those exchanging such communications were the commanders of enemy armies.  For example, your enemy might send to you one of their envoys with the following message: “You are out-gunned, out-manned and completely surrounded.  Surrender immediately or face annihilation.”  Now a general could either buy that assessment and send back a message signifying his willingness to surrender, or he could take a contrary view and send back a different kind of message as did American General Anthony Clement McAuliffe when he received a surrender ultimatum from the Germans while surrounded during the siege of Bastogne.  His single word answer was, “Nuts!”

    An even more creative reply in ancient times, however, would be to load the messenger into a catapult and shoot him back to the enemy who would certainly not miss the point.  I can see the poor, hapless envoy now being loaded into the catapult: “Don’t shoot me—don’t kill me--I’m just the messenger.”  It is a phrase that has stuck over the intervening years as people have borne the brunt of others’ displeasure for being the bearers of bad news.

    This is the burden of the prophet who, as God’s spokesperson, is called to communicate things people do not always want to hear.  Sometimes people don’t want to hear it so badly that they are inclined to kill God’s messengers, as was the case for a prophet named Jeremiah.  We are going to explore his story in our message for this morning.  We are also going to explore God’s response, which contains a surpassing blessing—a blessing that surpasses the burden. 

    Finally, we are going to explore how this message is relevant to all of us who are called to the prophetic ministry—who are called to be envoys of God’s Word to those who need to hear, and who need to hear it from us more than from anyone else.  How will we be able to bear the burden of our prophetic calling unless we are first assured of a surpassing blessing that will make the effort more than worthwhile?  Let us learn about both in our message entitled, “The Prophet’s Burden and Blessing.”

    In our text the prophet Jeremiah pours out his heart to God.  You understand, O Lord; remember me and care for me.  Avenge me on my persecutors.  You are long-suffering—do not take me away; think of how I suffer reproach for your sake (Verse 15).  Jeremiah has suffered reproach for the sake of the Lord.  He has not suffered for his own sinful folly, but for faithfully saying what God wanted him to say.  In the New Testament this is called “cross-bearing” and “suffering for righteousness’ sake.”

    Jeremiah did not know he was in for this when God first called him to the prophetic ministry.  He reports, When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart’s delight, for I bear your name, O Lord God Almighty (Verse 16).  Jeremiah was thrilled when God made his will and way and Word known to him.  Jeremiah ate it up—he digested everything God made known to him.  But then came the awesome responsibility to reveal that revelation to others who needed to hear it but who did not want to hear it. 

    One outcome was the social marginalization of Jeremiah.  He continues: I never sat in the company of revelers, never made merry with them; I sat alone because your hand was on me and you had filled me with indignation (Verse 17).  What a party pooper Jeremiah was.  He was filled with indignation because his contemporaries were reveling in merrymaking.  But God had enabled Jeremiah to see something very clearly that his contemporaries were unable and unwilling to see.  Their self-indulgent lifestyle was becoming self-destructive.

    Unless the people of Judah turned from self-centered living to God-centered living, they could expect the party to end very soon.  God was going to empower their enemies, the Babylonians, to burn their cultivated countryside and to destroy their cities—including the capital city of Jerusalem.  They themselves would be exiled from the land of promise to become slaves in the land of their captors.  This was the vision an indignant Jeremiah shared with his indulgent people, but they would hear nothing of it.

    Indeed, they were so disturbed by the message that they plotted to kill the messenger.  When Jeremiah got wind of their plot, he complained to God: Why is my pain unending and my wound grievous and incurable?  Will you be to me like a deceptive brook, like a spring that fails? (Verse 18).  As Oliver Hardy used to say to Stan Laurel, so Jeremiah says to God, “’Here’s another fine mess you’ve gotten us into.”  Jeremiah wants to know if God is going to get him out of this mess, or if he is going to prove in the end to be like a deceptive brook or spring that fails—a supposed source of life-giving sustenance that dries up when needed most.

    Therefore this is what the Lord says: “If you repent, I will restore you that you may serve me; if you utter worthy, not worthless, words, you will be my spokesman.  Let this people turn to you, but you must not turn to them (Verse 19).  In short, God is saying to Jeremiah, “Quit your worthless whining and stick to the script.”  Don’t become a faithless fool like them.  Let them see what a man of faith is like.  Stand firm and put your trust in me.

    I will make you a wall to this people, a fortified wall of bronze; they will fight against you but will not overcome you, for I am with you to rescue and save you,” declares the Lord.  “I will save you from the hands of the wicked and redeem you from the grasp of the cruel” (Verses 20-21).  God’s promised salvation is the blessing that far surpasses the burden of the prophetic calling.  Yes in the meantime there may be a cross to bear, but it cannot compare to the crown it will achieve for us by the resurrecting power and redeeming promise of God.

    God’s promised salvation and our ultimate vindication are blessed assurances that are absolutely indispensable when we are called to bear the burden of the prophetic ministry.  That’s right; God not only calls biblical exemplars of faith like Jeremiah and Isaiah to the prophetic ministry.  He calls regular folks like you and me to the same ministry.  He calls us to be his mouthpieces so that his Word can reach those within the sphere of our influence. 

    We are not talking about wandering the streets of downtown Cleveland with a sign that says, “The End is Near.”  We are not talking about becoming an obnoxious religious know-it-all who presumes to tell everybody what to do.  Why?  Because we are basically ignorant about when the end will come or what that means, just as we are basically ignorant about the complex circumstances of others’ lives.  In truth, we are basically ignorant about most things.  Most of us are ignorant about how to rebuild a Ford 8N tractor, or about how to cook a decent pot of borscht or about when to sell or buy.

    But every once in a while God enables us to see something very clearly that it is not given others to see as clearly.  I have heard it said that the Lord gives every preacher just one good sermon that he or she spends an entire ministry preaching.  We may be ignorant about most things, but we are not completely ignorant about what is in the best interest of our children or, sometimes, our parents, or our friends or others whom God has placed within the sphere of our influence. 

    Maybe God has placed a friend within the sphere of our influence whose life we know better than most.  Maybe we are in a position to see some things about that person which are hidden from the view of others.  Maybe we see clearly that self-indulgent behaviors are becoming self-destructive for that person and that person’s loved ones.  Maybe we are one of the few people God has at his disposal to reach that person with a Word of concern and compassion.  Maybe God is calling us to the prophetic ministry.

    If so, we can begin to appreciate how Jeremiah felt.  Do we want to risk losing a friend by saying what God wants us to say?  What if we alienate that person with our intrusion?  What if we become socially marginalized like Jeremiah?  Or what if that person attacks us with hurtful, hateful words or worse?  What if that person is our child, our sister, our father or our very best friend?  Would we be willing to risk that relationship by becoming bearers of the brutal truth that they need to hear?

    A few weeks ago I became pretty emotional in worship because I had just received a phone call that my Mom had suffered a stroke and been taken to the hospital.  As it happened, it was a temporary stroke—a TIA—from which she has largely recovered.  But since she suffered a permanent stroke last November, I feared the worst.  My love for my mother is so deep that I cannot control my emotions under those circumstances.  I wish I could, but I cannot, and I will tell you why.

    My mother was in my face and in my case every single day of my life.  She absolutely would not settle for me being one bit less than what God created me to be.  Some times I became alienated from her for awhile.  I tried to make her pay for her intrusions, but her love was more stubborn than my rebellion and I would eventually come around.  But I always knew without a shadow of a doubt who had my best interest at heart, and who would risk all for my wellbeing. 

    I have had the best mother in the world.  I have tried to be the best father in the world.  I have hacked my kids off plenty over the years, to the point of alienation, but I was able to remain stubborn in prophetically tough love because I knew from personal experience how God would work to save the relationship in the end.  And not only save it, but cause it to grow and blossom on the surface and deepen on the inside beyond the point of any emotional control. 

    Is the Prophet’s blessing worth the burden?  Ask any mother or father who happens to be the best in the world to their children.  Ask any true friend who is willing to risk all to speak the truth in love to someone who might only be able to hear it from them.  Ask any prophet who has faithfully lent their voice to God, who has paid a price for their faithfulness, and who has ultimately been rewarded in a surpassing way.  Ask them about “The Prophet’s Burden and Blessing,” so that you too can answer the call when it comes.

    I chose the hymn printed on the front of our bulletin because of the closing stanza:  “Bane and blessing, pain and pleasure, By the cross are sanctified; Peace is there that knows no measure, Joys that thro’ all time abide.”