"Prayers & Prophets"

A sermon by The Rev. Keenan Kelsey
Noe Valley Ministry, Presbyterian Church (USA)
September 19, 2004

Jeremiah 8:18-9:1

O my Comforter in sorrow, my heart is faint within me.
Listen to the cry of my people from a land far away:
"Is the LORD not in Zion? Is her King no longer there?"
"Why have they provoked me to anger with their images,
with their worthless foreign idols?"
"The harvest is past, the summer has ended, and we are not saved."
Since my people are crushed, I am crushed; I mourn, and horror grips me.
Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there?
Why then is there no healing for the wound of my people?
Oh, that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears!
I would weep day and night for the slain of my people.

PRAYER is always a good thing. That’s why we are committed to a service of prayer stations several times a year. This is a chance for each of you to have an opportunity for private prayer about anything on your heart, a prayer to be voiced with other people in a safe and sacred moment. This seems important, for sharing prayer is a powerful act, affecting both the ones praying, and the ones prayed for.

So today we get to pray. But how will you pray? For what or whom? With what kind of confidence or assurance?

Jeremiah offers us lament. In our reading today we hear this oracle shout his anger and frustration at a people who are doomed by their own actions; who, in the tumultuous years following the death of King Josiah, fell into ways of political intrigue and moral uncertainty. Yet the Hebrew people dismissed Jeremiah’s warnings, rejecting the idea of the city and temple being destroyed.

Jeremiah rails, but then Jeremiah laments. In fact, through the years Jeremiah has so personified the weeping soul that we named the words spoken by such a soul after him! A jeremiad is a lamentation or mournful complaint. And that's Jeremiah: a mournful complainer! One who laments even as he lambastes the situation of his people. One who is sorry for the sorry state of affairs in which he is called to minister, but to which he must still speak the truth. We can hear the anguish of soul in the heart of the prophet: “Since my people are crushed, I am crushed; I mourn, and horror grips me.”

Do you sometimes feel that all you can do is to stand with this weeping prophet? Is there anyone here who has not felt as Jeremiah felt? For all the good we do and all the work we do, nothing seems to change. Sometimes we keep trying and trying and crying and crying, and nothing seems to happen.

Up to my mid-30’s. I don’t think I ever prayed for anyone as much or as hard as I prayed for my mother. I prayed for her strength, for her sanity, for a freedom from her addictions, for a taste of joy. And at the end, I prayed just as hard for her to overcome cancer. But my prayers did not save my mother. She did not have a happy life, and she did not, or perhaps could not, stop smoking; and although at end of her life she had dementia and nerve disease, lung cancer ultimately claimed her.

I am sure that the people in the wake of recent hurricanes also prayed. In the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Yucatan, the southern United States; I bet folks were praying even as they were battening down or perhaps evacuating. But lives, homes, and security were lost or broken as the force of the storms battered and betrayed. Now we pray for speed and skill in bringing comfort and aid. But in Jeremiah-like frustration, we also pray for wisdom in political and economic choices. Just this week, scientists warn that global warming will increase the temperature of ocean water that fuels hurricanes, leading to stronger winds, heavier rains and larger storm surges. We pray with Jeremiah, “Why have they provoked me to anger with their images?”

We have all prayed, and fought, against AIDS. Even as we mourn the loss of life and community that come from the ravages of this illness, we think we are doing a good job controlling AIDS, approaching a cure. Yet the deadly virus is on the rise again, especially among teenagers in this country, in this city. In the African countries, there were 2 million new infections in 2003, and there were 2.3 million deaths. Yet in Gambia, a successful condom campaign angers a prominent Catholic cleric. And in America, people still call AIDS punishment for the drug users. Hear Jeremiah cry, “Why then is there no healing for the wound of my people?”

We pray every week in this church and around the world, for an end to the violence that plagues the world, pitting nation against nation, and neighbor against neighbor. We weep over the continued attacks in Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Afghanistan and Sudan. And when it is world power governments who seem to be feeding the violence and fear, we pray for a return to respect among all peoples, and for safety in which elections can be held, and new governments and administrations formed. We pray for patience in negotiating peace. What else can we do?

In Jeremiah we hear a growing despair among the people, a realization, too late, that all he had been saying was true. "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved." And so this prophet of doom now laments with them: “Is there no balm in Gilead?” Is there no medicine or miracle drug from this region of Israel known for healers and physicians, herbs and baths and ointments. Is there nothing that can help? True lament expresses true pain.

Into this abyss steps God. In Genesis when Joseph saved his brothers after they had been sent to Egypt, he explains to them, what humans beings intend for evil, God intends for good. (Gen 50:20) In the same way, Paul reassured his readers that all things work together for those who love God.

God promises that there is always a way out, a way through the pain – and often the surprise is that through lament, through expression of deep emotion, even despair, hope can be reborn, hope can break through. We are led to prayer and prayer leads us to patience and perseverance and eventually practice. Eventually God gets us through the grief and anger and uses those emotions to propel us into action, into partnership with God.

I don’t know why children die.
I don’t know why hurricanes make last minute turns, sparing some while bringing devastation to others.
I don’t why troubles seem only to multiply for some folks.
I don’t know why marriages fall apart.
I don’t know why diseases like AIDS develop.
I don’t know why healthy folks get cancer.
I don’t know why sometimes, God seems absent.

But I do know that after the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile into Babylon, God was understood to be present among the people in a new way. Shekinah was the cultic Hebrew word meaning God’s dwelling within the tabernacle or traveling ark that went with them in their wanderings. After the exile, shekinah came to mean God’s indwelling within the worshipping community, the very presence of God among the people, sharing joys and sorrows. This is the same Spirit that so indwelt Jesus Christ that he became God’s active presence among us.

In the days after 9/11, Stephen Jay Gould, professor and writer, along with his wife and stepdaughter, established a kind of street side depot to collect and deliver to the site items in short supply – facemasks, shoe inserts, hard hats, batteries. As they were leaving one evening, a neighborhood restaurant handed them a shopping bag: “Here’s a dozen Apple Brown Bettys our best dessert, still warm. Give them to the rescue workers.” Professor Gould thought, “How meaningless.” But nonetheless he put the bag atop several thousand facemasks and shoe inserts. Later he reflected, “I learned something important, that those 12 Apple Brown Bettys turned into drops of gold... We gave the last one to an older man in a young crowd, sitting alone in utter exhaustion as he inserted one of our shoe pads.” “Thank you", he said. "This is the most lovely thing I’ve seen in four days, and it is still warm!”

There is a balm in Gilead. It is made of love, God’s love in Jesus Christ that does not abandon us but experiences our loss and grief with us; love that will never let go; love that lives and heals and restores in simple miraculous acts of human kindness. Friends, the tear-stained face of Jesus is a reminder that our suffering is God’s suffering. Our pain is God’s pain. God became flesh in Jesus because God has promised not to leave us alone. The cross is the sign of God’s commitment to this world, God’s commitment to us, and God’s commitment to you. In the cross, God’s love intersects our sorrow. In the cross, our lives are inextricably linked with God’s life. You can see that for yourselves. You can see that in every cross. You can see that in your own life.

We begin with prayers. And then we move to prophesy. We are all Jeremiah, because we, as God's people, are called upon for the difficult role of the prophet, to stand in the breach, to cry out warnings about the dangers we will surely face if we continue down the road we have been traveling. Maybe some will listen. We can make a difference. In college I spent a week helping to relocate threatened sea turtle eggs into safer areas. Since then all I’ve done was pray for our animal species. This very week, from Mexico come reports that the Olive Ridley Sea Turtles are spawning in record numbers along Mexico's Pacific Coast this year, thanks largely to stepped up protection against poachers. Prayer, prophesy, pro-action- all things work together for those who love God.

As you come to prayer today, feel free to lament. Or to beg, or to surrender. Follow Paul's advise to Timothy and pray for our leaders. Pray for your friends and family. Pray for our world. But then remember to pray for deliverance, for people willing to work for change, for new trust levels and belief systems that might lead to peace, for healing of hearts and hurts, for healing of peoples and nations. May it be so.