Sermon

“Word Watch” is a column published weekly in the Hartford Courant.   In this column, questions about words and their usage are explored and discussed.  Many times, people send in questions for the writer of the column, frequently asking about a word’s history and correct use.  I have always found it a thought-provoking column to read.

An example of the kind of word that the writer might be asked to explain is the word “embedded.”  My guess is that prior to the start of the Iraq War, few of us are likely to have used this word frequently, if ever.  But with the coverage of the war by journalists who were now “embedded” with the troops, it became a word that more people increasingly used. 

While the word “embedded” is fixed in our minds in regards to journalists melding with fighting troops, I would like to look today at a different type of embeddedness, the idea of embedded hope for people of faith.

The book of Jeremiah is not easy reading.  Written six centuries before the birth of Jesus, Jeremiah pulls no punches in speaking to Israel in the days prior to and early into the time of the Babylonian conquest.  He is unflinching in speaking the truth; defending God at a time in which the people felt betrayed and let down.  Defending God while reminding them of their pursuit of other gods, of the many ways in which they turned their face away from the Almighty.  It was a bleak time; the Temple was destroyed; the Ark of the Covenant missing, and Jerusalem lying in ruins once again.  It is no coincidence that the book of Jeremiah is followed by the book of Lamentations.  It was a sorrowful time in the history of the Jewish people.

The book of Jeremiah is made up of a series of poems, oracles, prophecies, sermons and warnings that were proclaimed over many years and bound together.  These many words were not compiled in a linear timely way, one after the other in a sequence in which they occurred.  No, this book makes references to things occurring out of the order in which they took place.  But almost in the precise center of the book, deeply embedded within it, are chapters 30-33, known as the Little Book of Consolation.

It is a way of writing which is foreign to our Western minds.  We are used to an orderly procession in telling a story.  Our stories of hope begin “once upon a time” and then tell of life and circumstances that alert us, before concluding with the promise of hope—“and they lived happily ever after.”

But in Jeremiah’s prophecy, hope is not the conclusion, as it is in the Gospels, which conclude with the promise of resurrection.  No, in Jeremiah, hope is in the center, surrounded on all sides with the words and reminders of life’s sorrows, trials, tragedies, and judgment.  It’s a little like when a parent is punishing their child, and although really angry with them, stops in the midst of the punishment to remind their child, “I love you.”  Prophetic warnings and judgments encompass these three chapters of hope, from which today’s lesson comes.

As Christians, as those bold enough to believe in the endless power of God in creation, we live with hope embedded within us.  We do not live as those who wandered for centuries in the wilderness; who lived their lives in exile.  We live instead, as Zechariah puts it, as “prisoners of hope.”  We follow in the way of Jesus, who lived and died with a sense of embedded hope.

In Gethsemane, Jesus prays to God, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will, but yours be done.”  (Luke 22: 42)  That is the prayer of one with a sense of embedded hope.

In the sacrament of Communion, we remember the words and actions of our Lord on that same night.  “On the night of his betrayal and desertion, as our Lord gathered with the disciples, he took the bread, and after giving thanks, broke it….”  Finding in your heart the ability to give thanks on the same night that one has been betrayed and would soon be deserted is certainly a sign of one who lives with embedded hope.

And what precisely is this embedded hope that Jeremiah proclaims?  To a people who have known and broken covenants, over and over; covenants of words and even covenants carved into stone tablets; to these people, God proclaims the promise of a new covenant.  Of a covenant written on the heart, a law embedded deep within.  A covenant  established once and for all, from the least to the greatest.  And this covenant will proclaim the unforgettable lesson, “I will be your God and you shall be my people.”

I am reminded that the principle owners and developers of Apple Computers, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, were known for their innovative ways of nurturing corporate morale.  And when they began to produce the MacIntosh line of computers, several decades ago, they had the autographed names of the designers printed inside the computer shell.  So that for as long as that computer was working, those designers’ names would be remembered, embedded right inside the hardware.  We love what we create.

There is a tradition in ship building, that when the mast of the ship is put into place, the ship builders place some coins from their pockets just beneath the mast, as a way of feeling invested in their creation.  We love what we create.

There’s a wonderful story told of a man who came upon a construction site where a new church was scheduled to be build.  He walked around the site asking different workers there what they were doing.   One man, who was standing by a large truck with a huge cylinder on the back which slowly rotated, said, “I’m mixing concrete.”   Another worker, who was sorting through a large pile of lumber said, “I’m measuring and cutting wood.”  And then he asked a third worker, who was carefully chipping away at a piece of rock that he then carefully placed within the wall of the building, who answered, “I’m building a cathedral.”  We love what we create.

So too with God.  God claims us over and over again as God’s own, wanting for us only to know the glory of that love and for us to live our lives faithfully.  And God seeks to embed that lesson within us, writing it upon our heart, so that we never forget who we are and whose we are.

The power of embedded hope is immeasurable.  It sustains and shapes lives in ways that amaze and inspire us.

Several years ago, a school teacher accepted the volunteer position of visiting and teaching children who were patients in a large city hospital.  One day, the phone rang and she received her first assignment as a new volunteer.  She got the name and room number of the young boy she would be teaching and was told by the boy’s school teacher that the boy was studying nouns and adverbs in his class before he was hospitalized.  It was not until the visiting teacher got outside the boy’s hospital room that she realized that he was a patient in the hospital’s burn unit.  She was prepared to teach English grammar, but she was not prepared to witness the horrible look and smell of badly burned human flesh.  She was not prepared to see a young boy in great pain either.  She wanted to hold her nose, to turn, and leave faster than she came, but she could not walk away.  So she clumsily stammered over to his bedside and simply said, “I am your hospital teacher and your school teacher sent me to help you with your nouns and adverbs.”  They spent some time going over the lesson before calling it a day.

As she braced herself and went in a few days later, a nurse from the burn unit asked her, “What did you do to that boy?”

The teacher began to apologize profusely, fearful that her initial reaction had upset the boy, but before she could finish, the nurse interrupted her, “You don’t understand.  We have been really worried about him.  His condition has been deteriorating over the past few days, because he had completely given up hope.  But ever since you were here with him, his whole attitude has changed and he is fighting back, responding to treatment.  It’s as though he has decided to live.”

Several weeks later, as the boy’s condition improved and he learned how to master nouns and adverbs, the nurse questioned him about his change in attitude.  The boy said, “I figured I was doomed, that I was gonna die, until I saw that teacher.”  As a tear ran down his face, he finished, “But when I saw her, I realized that they wouldn’t send a teacher to work on nouns and adverbs with a dying boy, would they?”  (Bill Adams, Trinity Episcopal Church, Sutter Creek CA, via Ecunet)

Embedded hope changes and saves lives each and every day.  In the days of trial and struggle, we are wise to find hope where it can be found.

“The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant….and the covenant I will make is this.  I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”  (Jeremiah 31, portions)

Let us thank God for the powerful sense of embedded hope that lies within us.  And let us live our lives with grateful hearts this day and forever. Thanks be to God.  Amen.