1 SERMON: "GOD'S TEARS" SCRIPTURE: JEREMIAH 8:18-9:1 DATE: OCTOBER 26, 2014 Jeremiah 8:18-9:1 (NIV) You who are my Comforter in sorrow, my heart is faint within me. 19 Listen to the cry of my people from a land far away: Is the Lord not in Zion? Is her King no longer there? Why have they aroused my anger with their images, with their worthless foreign idols? 20 The harvest is past, the summer has ended, and we are not saved. 21 Since my people are crushed, I am crushed; I mourn, and horror grips me. 22 Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is there no healing for the wound of my people? 9 Oh, that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears! In his book, "People Of The Lie," Dr. M. Scott Peck tells of a counselling session that helped lead him to see that evil is a genuine reality in the world. Bobby was a 15-year-old boy who was sent by the court to see Dr. Peck because his grades in school were falling, he was depressed and
2 he had an accident with a stolen car. Dr. Peck met with Bobby and heard his story. He noticed that Bobby's face was dull and expressionless, the kind of face one sees in people in a concentration camp. Dr. Peck was alarmed by what he saw. He was even more alarmed by what he heard. He learned that Bobby's older brother, Stuart, had committed suicide in June the year before. Stuart had shot himself with a.22 calibre rifle. Stuart's suicide had clearly been the cause for Bobby's academic slide and personal depression. But there was more. At Christmas time Bobby's parents gave him a.22 rifle. "Isn't that the same kind of gun your brother used to kill himself?" an amazed Dr. Peck said to Bobby. "It wasn't the same kind of gun," Bobby replied. "It was the same gun." Dr. Peck called the parents to his office. They seemed to be quite normal, church-going, hard-working folks. Dr. Peck confronted them with their deed. "Don't you see that giving Bobby this gun was like telling him to go out and kill himself?" They refused to acknowledge Dr. Peck's concerns. In his continued work with Bobby and his parents Dr. Peck began to formulate the thesis that these parents were evil. (Richard A. Jensen, Tales For The Lectionary, CSS Publishing, Lima, Ohio, 1994.) On Monday and Wednesday of this past week evil expressed itself in our country. It was evil on a larger scale than referred to by Dr. Peck. It was an evil that goes back to 9/11. It's an evil that is perhaps impossible to comprehend. The targeted death of two soldiers. One innocently walking in a parking lot. The other ceremonially guarding our national War Memorial.
3 Both killed simply because they wore a uniform---a uniform worn with pride by the soldiers but a uniform which represents something terrible to a small group of extremists. Horror, shock, disbelief and anger engulfed our nation. Canada was traumatized. How could this happen? How could anyone do such things? How could the security of Parliament Hill be breached so effortlessly? How could anyone born and raised in Canada hate what this country stands for so very much? How will retaliation and revenge be enacted? How will all this affect the world, as we know it? And some questions that I didn't hear on the news but I know were being asked, "Where was God? What was God doing?" We don't know the answers to the first set of questions. Some may never be answered. But our Scripture lesson offers us a clue about God's reaction to this incredible evil. God was weeping. Jeremiah's role as a prophet meant he was continually bringing warnings to God's people. They had gone astray and were worshipping false gods---the gods of neighbouring nations. They had turned their backs upon the true God who had cared for them generation after generation. It was Jeremiah who had to constantly bring them the bad
4 news of God's disfavour. It was Jeremiah who had to bear the brunt of the people's apathy and anger toward God's messages. Our lesson tells of Jeremiah's response to all this. Above all, the prophet cared for God's people. Jeremiah genuinely wanted Israel to turn around and embrace God again. He wasn't doing this because it was a job. He wasn't doing it simply because God had called him to do it. Jeremiah loved the people God loved, even though they treated him almost as badly as they treated the Lord. Listen to the pain in Jeremiah's voice as our lesson concludes: 21 Since my people are crushed, I am crushed; I mourn, and horror grips me. 22 Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is there no healing for the wound of my people? 1 Oh, that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears! I would weep day and night for the slain of my people. Scholars believe that Jeremiah, while expressing his own pain, is also reflecting the pain of God. As Jeremiah despairs for the people, so too God despairs. As Jeremiah fills up with tears, so too God weeps. A despairing, weeping God is so hard for us to comprehend. We are used to talking about the sovereignty of God---that God is in control no matter what. That's true but, paradoxically, by allowing human beings free will God is also affected by the decisions we make and the actions we take. Many decisions and actions, while freely made, do little to support the image that human beings are a civilized, caring, loving reflection of our Creator.
5 This week's events showed that. The last thirteen years of war waged in Iraq and Afghanistan with thousands and thousands and thousands of lives lost to pay for the loss of 2977 on 9/11 puts us all in a harsh and tragic light. In the midst of the anger, hatred, injustice and horror, God weeps. God weeps because God feels for us. God weeps because God wants things to be so much better for us and our world. Could God have stopped all this bloodshed? Yes, God has the power to stop it. But God has chosen to allow us to decide for ourselves what we do as human beings and how we react to what others do to us. That freedom to choose is what makes us human. Without the ability to choose the bad we could never choose the good. Without the ability to choose anger and hate we could never choose love and compassion. In the midst of our anguish and shock we might think that we'd be better off without such an awesome freedom to choose. Yet that freedom is what makes us God's crowning creation. We have the image of God within us. We have all the complexity of feelings that God has. We have the power to decide for ourselves. We do not live by instinct. We live by choice---the choice God has given us---the choice God, Himself, lives by. Without it we would not be who we are. We would not be human. And so with the right to choose, people can choose to hijack planes and kill thousands of people. People can choose to seek revenge.
6 People can choose to perpetuate the violence and the evil instead of seeking to look back at past violence and evil and try to bring justice to bear on decades of injustice. People can choose to stigmatize all Muslims as violent and untrustworthy. People can choose to shake their fist at God and cry out that it isn't fair. But people can also choose to feel the intense sorrow of empathy with those directly affected. People can choose to compassionately respond by seeking ways to help those who are suffering---dare we say: on all sides. People can choose not to brand an entire religion and all who follow it as evil. People can choose to seek justice when extremists kill but also choose to understand how someone could get so twisted and evil and then look to resolving root causes rather than always reacting with more violence. People can choose to rest in the outstretched arms of the Lord and, there, find comfort and hope. People can choose to weep as Jeremiah wept, as God is weeping: "Oh, that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears! I would weep day and night for the slain of my people."
7 From the beginning of time human beings have made decisions. All too often they have been awful decisions. Decisions of hate, war, revenge, devastation, inhumanity---evil decisions. Because of those decisions God made a decision. God's decision was to send His Son to this world of nobility and sinfulness. Jesus made a decision to come to us to teach, show and enact out the decision God prefers---love. Jesus became a victim of our unjust decisions. God knew that would happen. Jesus knew that would happen. God let it happen. Jesus let it happen. It happened to show that, once and for all, love is the decision that can deal with all the hate, vengeance, atrocities and evil---the sin of the world. Love defeated it all because Jesus Christ died and rose triumphantly from the grave. Jesus is the victor and He seeks to share that victory with the world---the world made up of individuals who must decide for themselves what they will do about hate and war, love and compassion. Last week in Quebec and on Parliament Hill, what was God doing? God was weeping. Evil won a battle. 2000 years ago, what was God doing? God was weeping while watching His Son suffer and die on the Cross.
8 But through those tears God knew that the war has ultimately been won. We have a choice: what we've been doing for the last 13 years or perhaps I should say forever---that s the easy choice OR we could choose the hard way: God's way. (1578) The Rev. Dennis Cook, St. Timothy s Presbyterian Church, Ajax, ON, Canada