Musical Prelude and Service.

Jeremiah 3:27-37 & Luke 18:1-8
I feel confident that people look at the world around us right now and feel a sense of dread.
We hear or observe so many stories of people living in fear. We hear stories of people being abused
or thrown in jail with no opportunity to defend themselves. We hear stories of people who have lived
their lives pushed to the margins, now being named as the example of what is wrong with our
society. I am speaking of politicians labelling trans people as a threat to our stability and our comfort.
We are living in a time of fear, of suspicion and violence. We are living in a time when increased
tensions and dread for what might happen tomorrow – or next week, or next month, or perhaps next
year. And our concern and fears for our safety, or the safety of our loved ones and the safety of
people we have yet to meet, is real and it is justified.
But here’s the thing. These conditions, these realities of our world, are not new. We can look at so
many different times in our recent and longer history and see similar periods. It doesn’t make our
suffering and our heartbreak any less significant, but perhaps we can find a way to look forward to a
time when these tensions seem a little less pronounced. We can look forward to a time when we can
envision a world that puts more value on peace, on compassion and justice. A world that is more
welcoming and that celebrates our differences and diversity.
Jeremiah lived at time when Judah was terrified of what was coming from the empire of Babylon.
Babylon is threatening to invade and conquer Judah and Jerusalem. The people of Judah will suffer
as a conquered people, and part of that process will involve a great many of the ruling class; the
educated and the priestly class being hauled off into exile. Why is this happening to them?
The prophet points to the kingdom of Judah and the people and levels of his accusation that they
have all broken the covenant they have with God. They have abused the stranger. They have
exploited the poor; they have failed to look after the orphan and the widow, and have cheated
people of their land. They have created a society of injustice. They have lost sight of compassion and
mercy. There is no generosity. And as a result, God has abandoned them. Jeremiah spends a great
many pages articulating this point. The sins of Judah have brought about the bitter fruit they are now
eating.
But…Jeremiah now makes a turn in his prose. He insists that despite God’s disappointment in the
people of Judah, God’s love for the people is unending. The prophet has been directed to pluck up
and pull down, to destroy and overthrow, and finally to build and to plant.
There is a time of destruction. There is a time when the status quo that brings too much suffering for
so many must be pulled down and overthrown. But the fear and the agony that is a part of that
violent change comes with a praise of building and planting. The creation of something new for all.
God’s love endures. And so, Jeremiah, as well as being the prophet that calls out the sins of society
and the destruction that follows, is also the prophet that assures us of God’s love and the promise of
hope and a new life. A new life that foretells of a new covenant between God and God’s children.
Jeremiah says that the idea of communal sin that is so much a part of society’s view of the world,
will be no more. Communal sin insists that the sin of parents follows their children; that the bitter
fruit harvested by one generation will be tasted by the children who follow. Jeremiah promises that
that will be no more. That people will be responsible for their own fate; their own actions.
Jeremiah envisions a world that halts the downward spiral and offers a return to the Garden of Eden.
This is a prophetic imagination. Describing the world that is to come. It offers a sense of hope for
what will come in the future. In part, that is Jeremiah foreseeing a time when those who will be
exiled will return to Jerusalem. That they will be offered the opportunity to build a new Jerusalem.
It is a new heaven and a new earth in which people will not depend upon the teaching and discipline
of a ruling authority to maintain a form of peace. This new covenant will not be held in place by the
law which provides direction from outside, but will be written on our hearts. We will not require an
external law to provide the boundaries and disciple to live in peace with one another. Our devotion to
God and our connection to God, becomes so integrated it nurtures into who we are. That is the
dream Jeremiah offers. It is also the vision of God’s abiding love for us, now.
While we may stumble and fall, while we may forget our place and our relationship with God; our
commitments to God, God never gives up on us and continues to love us and to encourage us.
God persists in guiding us to a world of justice and peace; to world of generosity and abundance and
of love.
The parable Jesus offered this morning is a puzzling one. We often struggle to locate God within
these teaching stories of Jesus. Are we expected to recognize God in one f the characters we
experience in theses teaching stories? So, is Jesus encouraging us to compare God to the unjust
judge? The judge who neither fears God nor loves justice? I struggle with that idea. In what we are
taught and experience, God is nothing like this judge.
So where is God? This parable is a lesson that comes in Jesus teaching his followers to pray. To
never stop. To persist, even when it may seem that God is not responding. If the persistent widow
who demands justice can provoke a response from an unjust God, how can we expect less than that
from our loving and just God?
One of the readings I took in while preparing this message, suggests we can find God in the
persistent widow. The one who never relents in her demand for justice. The one who eventually
overcomes the judge who does not fear God. Because God does in God’s way, demand justice.
God does insist on a world of love and mercy. When we are left feeling despair. When we are
tempted to lose hope; to give up and accept that a status quo that does not fear God and has no use
for justice is all we can expect, then we should be inspired by the widow who persists in demanding
justice. We should find courage and direction through the one who persists in being heard and
respected. God does not give up on us. How can we then give up in our quest for the world God
promises us? A world that demands justice. A world that thrives on love and mercy. A world that sees
compassion and empathy for the qualities they truly are. Values that bring us closer to a world of
love and gratitude and generosity, not problems that must be opposed by an empire that seeks to
divide us and encourage us to live with fear and suspicion, interested only in our own survival,
isolated from our neighbours and our community.
Last week was a Sunday to reflect on all the ways we are grateful for the work of God in our lives in
so many different ways. It was a chance to reflect on and recognize that God has not abandoned us,
but in fact continues to be at work in our lives, all around us and even working through us.
As we integrate and truly live out that sense of gratitude, may we be filled with the hope that follows.
The hope that as bleak as our world may sometimes seem, as difficult as it is to see how things
improve, God has not given up on us. God still loves us and works in and through us. God still
expects us to persist in demanding better of God’s world.
So let us keep working and loving and persisting in creating world of love.
A world of welcome.
A world of true justice and true peace.
Not a peace devoid of justice. Not a peace built on fear and the threat of further violence, but one
that comes from empathy, compassion and gratitude for the love that God still offers us.
So let us join our hearts and our hands in taking on the work persisting in our love and our
compassion, so that we may, as a community of faith, the body of Christ say with all our hearts,
Thanks be to God. Amen
Rev. Warner Bloomfield

Music provided with permission through licensing with CCLI License number
2701258 and One License # A-731789