Close to the Heart
October 4, 2020
Jeremiah 31:7-14, 27-34
Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley
A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here https://youtu.be/_vUJUSuYpoU
We heard Jeremiah 31:7-14 which the lectionary assigns to the Christmas season. This is a passage of exceeding great joy, joy for reasons impossible for the people of Judah to imagine.
Up to this point in the book of Jeremiah, the images of war and violence and destruction have just piled up, one on top of another on top of another. The disaster that was the Babylonian occupation went on for decades. There had been three waves of deportations to Babylon. Every time, gifted leaders had been taken away to settle in Babylon, to have children there, to die there. Those left behind eked out an existence, or they died of hunger, poverty and disease. Judah was facing extinction by genocide.
And then, come these words which were probably impossible to believe. God tells them to sing and shout because God is going to bring back those who were dragged off to Babylon, or their descendants anyway. And no one is going to be left behind because of an underlying health condition – the blind and lame, expectant mothers, even women in active labor. They will come home and have farms and flocks and dance and be merry. In them, Judah will not be extinguished. In them, there is a future and a hope.
This reminds me of a wonderful video clip. It’s from a show called “That’s Life” on the British Broadcasting Company. Esther Rantzen is the host who faces a studio audience and tells the story of Nicholas Winton. When Winton was 28 years old, he organized the Czech kindertransport. Just before World War II broke out, Winton supervised the rescue of 669 children from Czechoslavakia. He did the incredible work of exerting diplomatic pressure and recruiting foster parents in Britain for each child and getting them onto eight trains and out to safety. Many of these children’s biological parents died in Auschwitz.
On the show, Ms. Rantzen explains all this and then she pulls out a scrapbook. Winton’s wife had found the scrapbook in their attic and given it to the BBC. It contains the names of all the children and their ages and tiny little black and white photos, copies of the ones used for their ID’s on the train. The show is being filmed in 1988, 50 years after the kindertransport. Ms.Rantzen points to one entry in the scrapbook, reading out loud “Vera age 10”. She says “Vera is with us here tonight.” And then to Vera she says, “I should tell you that you are sitting next to Nicholas Winton.” We see Vera take Winton’s hand and say hello. It is such an intense moment. What can be said to capture this kind of meeting? “Thank you” seems so inadequate, but so necessary. So as we watch, they exchange a few words, but their body language, their clasped hands, the wiping of their eyes, says so much more. Then the host calls on someone else, a woman who has brought with her the name tag that she wore around her neck and the pass that got her on the train. She was saved, along with her sister and her cousin. And she also hugs Winton and thanks him.
You can see where this is going. Ms Rantzen asks whether there is anyone else in the audience who owes their lives to Winton. More than two dozen people around him stand and applaud. Then she asks if anyone present is the child or the grandchild of one of those Winton saved. And the entire rest of the audience comes to their feet.[1]
When we watch this clip, what wells up in us in joy . . . and admiration for the courage and love of Nicholas Winton . . . and gratitude that those children were delivered, were spared what so many others were not. And the thought crosses our minds that he delivered not just 669 children but all of their descendants, that his actions made the last 50 years of their lives possible, and joy wells up again.
If you are feeling that joy right now, hold on to that for as long as you can, because that is the overwhelming mood of this chapter. The people of Judah will not perish from the earth. A remnant will come home from exile, they will be rescued from disaster and they will have children and grandchildren who will enjoy full and happy lives.
A time is coming, God says, when things will be different. A day is coming when overwhelming joy will displace the sorrow of the past.
In this time to come, God will put God’s teachings into the inmost parts of humans. God will inscribe their hearts with love and justice and compassion and all the principles of the covenant. And everyone will know God, from the least to the greatest. That sets everyone on an equal footing. It overcomes the social contracts and injustice inherent when some know more than others, when some rule over or exploit others with that knowledge. And in this time to come, God says, “I will forgive and remember their sins no more.” Divine forgiveness will set people free from the power of guilt, fear and resentment.[2]
The good news is that sin and despair do not have to go on and on. The new chance offered to the people of Judah requires repentance, an end to their attempts at self-sufficiency and the pretense of being right. But they cannot do this all for themselves. God is at work, to forgive, to release them from the bondage of sin. God who has been plucking up and pulling down, destroying and overthrowing, will now be building and planting for the people of Judah.
As Christians, we understand that what God did for Judah, breaking the cycle of sin and death, God also did for the whole world through the incarnation of Jesus the Christ. Jesus has done for us what we cannot do for ourselves.
A time is coming, God says, when things will be different. A day when overwhelming joy will replace the sorrow of the past, when we will trust each other without fear, intimidation or conflict. A time when covenant will be inscribed on our inmost being.
Sometimes we believe that day will never come. It sounds great, but naïve and unrealistic. And then, every once in a great while, we get a glimpse of those who already live in that reality, what some of us might call the Kingdom of God.
One of those people for me is Ray S. Ray is our denomination’s consultant on refugees and immigrants, but more importantly, Ray is one who loves Jesus, a person with covenant inscribed on his heart.
Ray was with us just last year. You have heard his stories. You know that he meets people all over the world, people who are caught up in systems that seem to want to punish them for simply wanting to live their lives, people who suffer because of racism and xenophobia, who are suffering the consequences of failed immigration policies held over from previous generations.
Ray meets people in all kinds of circumstances. He establishes relationships and stays in touch with them. I’m talking about 100’s of people that he cares for.
In November 2018, he met a family in Mexico City, one of the thousands of migrants in a caravan who were trying to reach asylum in the USA. They were deported back to Honduras last year. He stayed in touch. Last month, they lost their son to gang violence because they couldn’t pay the demanded extortion.
Last year, while in Tijuana, he met a young man from Russia. Nancy and Richard were there at the time of that meeting. “Alexander” (not his real name) is a pro-democracy activist who had to flee from government persecution in his homeland. He is seeking asylum and safety in the USA. He was able to cross the border from Tijuana in January and then spent 7 months in an ICE prison. His case was re-set several times causing great despair. Ray was in contact, encouraging him, all that time.
Remember that Ray only met Alexander through a what seemed like a chance encounter. But on the strength of that meeting, Ray agreed to be Alexander’s sponsor. He is actually also sponsoring others in ICE prisons right now.
In September, ICE dropped Alexander on the streets of San Diego, after Ray posted the $10,000 bond. There, kind volunteers met him and put him into a hotel for the night. They made sure he had everything he needed. The next day, they took him to the airport and accompanied him all the way to his gate for his flight to Philadelphia. He is now living with Ray and Adalia for the foreseeable future as he pursues his asylum request. In his first week out of detention, they went kayaking. Alexander, who wants to become a US citizen, was delighted with the appearance of a bald eagle that soared above and perched nearby, a symbol of hope.
Ray and Adalia work for International Ministries, but it is not an expectation of their jobs that they sponsor asylees, that they take strangers into their homes and care for them. They do it because they inhabit the kingdom of God. They do it because they know the heart of Jesus.
Friends, this is the mystery to which you and I are invited – to know the heart of Jesus, to live into the covenant inscribed on our hearts, to make our own limited and flawed and very conditional love the gateway for the unlimited and unconditional love of God. May it be so for you and for me. Amen.
[1] https://youtu.be/a0UqioyLBD0
[2] Walter Brueggemann, “The Gift of a New Chance” in The Collected Sermons of Walter Brueggemann, Vol 1 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2011), p. 353.