Investing in Hope [Proper 21C - Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15]

 The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson

Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15

 

Investing in Hope

St. Luke’s on the Hill, Mechanicville

 

Jeremiah didn’t really need another property.  He already had a home.  And he spent all of his time there.  Because he was under house arrest.  As a political prisoner.  Because of treason.  King Zedekiah, it seems, was not a fan of Jeremiah’s work.  He did not like those poems at all.   

 

Already plenty stressed out, it does not appear to be the ideal time for the prophet to get into real estate.  But you know what they say, “Strike while the iron is hot.”  And, in Jeremiah’s defense, there were some deals to be had.  For sale signs were popping up everywhere.  Folks, like Jeremiah’s cousin Hanamel, were desperate to unload their properties.  But still Jeremiah wasn’t exactly living in, what you might call, a buyer’s market.  Because of the siege.

 

Yeah, so the military siege meant that it wasn’t exactly the ideal time to buy properties in Judah.  Because those properties were about to be stolen and occupied by a conquering nation: the Babylonians.  And that was happening; the nation was being conquered – just as Jeremiah had prophesied.  He was under arrest for that prophesy, but it was very much coming true.

 

Soon the walls would fall.  Soon the Temple would be reduced to rubble.  Soon fires would devour a place the people called home.  Soon starvation and sword would line the streets with lifeless bodies.  Soon the survivors would be dragged off into exile.  And there they would remain, for decades.

 

The nation was coming apart.  And Jeremiah was buying real estate, in a war zone. 

 

Because God told him to.  Though perhaps that should have given Jeremiah pause.  Everything that God told him to do and say got him into trouble.  God was the reason he was under house arrest.  God was the reason the king hated him.  God was the reason his head was a spring of water and his eyes a fountain of tears.    

 

And God was the reason Jeremiah was a pariah in Anathoth, in the very place his cousin owned a field.  The people drove Jeremiah out of his ancestral lands because they, like the king, hated his words.  The words felt cruel, even though they were just true.  But, despite the truth, the people of Anathoth never wanted to see Jeremiah’s face again.  In summary, Jeremiah could not have picked a worse place or time to buy land.  And that is exactly where and what he does.

 

Because of the property laws in Leviticus, Jeremiah had the right of first refusal on that field in Anathoth.  The spirit of that law was to ensure that greed, or desperation, did not undermine the divine inheritance that God carved into the land.  Because of the law, Hanamel visited Jeremiah, his next of kin, in his prison – likely with low expectations, given the circumstances.  But God visited Jeremiah in prison before the cousin and so Jeremiah was ready to buy a field in a village that despised him, in a land under siege. 

 

It made no sense.  Then again, investing in hope rarely does. 

 

And that is what this story is about.  Jeremiah buys a field – knowing full well that he will never plow that field; he will never sow there seeds; he will never build a house on the plot.  It is likely that he never even laid eyes on the property.  But he did buy it.  He bought it not for himself but for the future.

 

According to the word of God, Jeremiah tells his secretary to take the deed and seal it in an earthenware jar, so that the papyrus would survive in this world of decay. 

 

The deed was sealed because Jeremiah could see into the future.  He knew what came next.  He knew the worst was yet to come and that the worst was coming soon.  And that the worst would last for a long time.

 

But not forever.  One day, decades in the future, the earthenware would be opened and Jeremiah’s people would live on the land.  God gave the prophet a vision of hope in a season of despair.  And that hope was powerful and resilient and stubborn.  Not even the worst could dim his audacious hope.  Because of hope, Jeremiah made this foolish purchase before a live studio audience.  He signed the deed in public.  He boldly and openly invested in some worthless property.  And everybody saw it.  And it made no sense.  Then again, investing in hope rarely does.

 

Jeremiah put his money where his mouth was.  He had predicted disaster.  And that made everybody, from king to villagers, hate him.  But the disaster was true.  And the disaster was devastating.

 

But the disaster was not the end of the story.  God was still speaking, and so there was more to the message.  After signing the deed, Jeremiah speaks a word of God to and for the bewildered witnesses.  He says, “I will bring them back to this place, and I will settle them in safety.  They shall be my people and I will be their God…. I will rejoice in doing good to them, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul.”

 

The disaster wasn’t the end.  It couldn’t be.  Because God loved them too much.

 

The world is a scary place.  Still.  Violence and division and war are rattling the gates.  The foundations are shaking.  Despair has gone viral.  As temperatures rise, contagions spread, and misinformation multiplies, the future feels uncertain. 

 

And God is asking us to buy fields.  To invest in this world of these people.  To risk our hearts and lives on a Kingdom that is unseen but is coming.  To believe that the destiny for this place is love and justice.  To dream of a future that seems impossible. 

 

I know it doesn’t make sense.  But investing in hope rarely does.  And yet like the imprisoned and besieged prophet, God is asking us to see the miracle through the mess, to plan Easter brunch on Good Friday.  Our witness is only as powerful as our willingness to invest our lives in hope, the hope that all will one day be well. 

 

Just as Jeremiah reminded a people under siege, God’s story never ends in disaster or despair.  I’ve read the story.  And that is why I have hope.  The story doesn’t end until God wipes away every last tear.  I have hope because the story that God is writing, even though some of the chapters are about real estate, is actually a perfect love story with the happiest ending.