The Last Place You'd Look

21^st Sunday after Pentecost

Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7, 10-14

• You've heard the story of the psychiatrist, the pessimist, and the optimist... A psychiatrist wanted to help brighten the outlook of a pessimistic child, so he took him into a room filled with toys. Instead of delight, however, the child burst into tears. “What's the matter?” asked the psychiatrist, “don't you want to play with any of the toys?” “Yes,” the boy cried, “but I'd only break them.”

Next the psychiatrist wanted to bring the optimist a little closer to earth, get his head out of the clouds, so he took the boy into a room filled with manure. To his surprise the boy squealed with delight and began digging with his bare hands through the piles. “What are you doing?!” asked the bewildered psychiatrist. “Well,” replied the optimist, “with all this manure I'm just positive there's a pony in here somewhere!”

• The way we look at things in life can make a real big difference. And while I don't think God wants mere, simple optimism from us, I am convinced that God is very interested in how we respond to circumstances in life. How do we respond to abundance? And how do we respond to, well, manure?

• Our scripture lesson from Jeremiah takes place about 2,600 years ago. The Jews, God's chosen people, have lived in the promised land for 700 years or so (compare that to our measly 235 years). It's been a land of abundance, a time of abundance, a room filled with toys, but in general the leaders and the people have not embraced God, have not submitted themselves to Yahweh as LORD. Despite numerous leaders and prophets and even the judgment of their kindred tribes to the north, the people embrace other gods, and Yahweh says “Enough!” and allows the holy city of Jerusalem to be ransacked, and her people carried away.

• How do folks respond to abundance? And how do they respond to manure?

• Did you ever notice that when you lose your keys, you find them in the last place you look for them? If we had any smarts, we'd look there first, right?

No, we find things in the last place we look for them because after we find them we stop looking. I put on our church sign “Come to First Church after you've tried the others” as an invitation for this to be the last place people look, because once they come here they'll want to stay, they'll want to stop looking.

• Here's the thing. Even though God's chosen people have been taken away from the holy city into a foreign land, God still keeps relationship with them. In the last place they'd look, God says If you search for me with your whole heart, you will find me. In the last place they'd look, God says Settle down. Don't mope and whine, you're gonna be here for 70 years. Build houses, plant gardens, have kids, have grandkids. I will be with you, and I will eventually take you home. Pray for the land where I've put you. Do not abandon hope, do not pray for the demise of your captors. Instead, pray for their well-being. Their well-being is your well-being.

If you want, you can complain and kick and scream and moan, but it won't do anything but tire you out and make your situation feel worse. A lifestyle of complaining is bad for you physically, mentally, spiritually. Don't do it. Might as well make the most of things. I'm interested in how you respond to situations, much more interested in that than what you think you do with your life.

• Is there a “Babylon” feel in your life right now? Do your life circumstances make you feel like God is punishing you, exiling you? Do you feel like life is not the way it should be?

What are you going to do about it?

Could it be that God is there with you, even if you don't see him?

Could it be that God all this is temporary and God wants to see how you'll respond to things? Whether there will be something powerful enough to cause you to curse God instead of embracing him?

I think we see a great example in Jesus Christ, who faced some terrible circumstances but instead of letting them get the best of him, faced them head on and with constant communication with God the Father. Prayerful communication, patient, trusting communication.

• What we know is temporary. What God will do will outshine any of the temporary things we count as “negative.”

• You've heard the Serenity Prayer...

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

• The original, attributed to 20^th century American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr (circa 1943), is:

God, give me grace to accept with serenity

the things that cannot be changed,

Courage to change the things

which should be changed,

and the Wisdom to distinguish

the one from the other.

Living one day at a time,

Enjoying one moment at a time,

Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,

Taking, as Jesus did,

This sinful world as it is,

Not as I would have it,

Trusting that You will make all things right,

If I surrender to Your will,

So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,

And supremely happy with You forever in the next.

Amen.

• How will you respond to abundance? To manure? May it be with the faith of Jesus Christ, and for the glory of God, who will go through it all with you.

• Turn to #883 in your hymnals and let us confess our faith together