I’m late again today, sorry about that. Today is La Donna’s Dad’s birthday, so we got up this morning earlier than some of us really wanted to on a Saturday and drove the nearly two hours to Crumstown Cemetery. It was gray and rainy as we drove, sleeting part of the time, or rain with chunks in it, as La Donna says. We didn’t say a lot as we drove, but I know all of us were praying that the rain would let up before we got there. And it did. The wind still whipped across the little open ground cemetery, making us wish we had reclaimed the winter coats, but at least it was dry.
We had the little vault that would hold his ashes, but were also searching for La Donna’s mom’s ashes which were just in the black box and buried there almost six years ago. We wanted to put them together in the same vault and then re-bury it all together there in front of the stone that had been newly carved with Don’s date of death. La Donna’s brother dug in the rocky ground and we tried to remember how far down the first box was placed. After a couple of attempts and nearly giving up and burying them separately, we found her, a little deeper than we remembered, a little closer to the headstone than we thought. But we put them together and squeezed the little tube of epoxy that the funeral home gave us to seal the vault and then set it in the hole.
Shivering we pushed the dirt over the top and then relaid the sod, stomping it down as best we could. When it was done we stood, shivering in the wind for a moment, unsure what to say or do next. Until La Donna, ever the practical one, looked at me and said “Well, say a prayer and let’s get in the cars where it is warm.”
We all laughed at that, and I obediently prayed. With tears in our eyes from the cold air and the months old grief, we said goodbye on a gray and windy day. We hustled to our cars, shrugged into our inadequate coats, ready for warmth and another drive home. But, we lingered, as though unwilling to release the moment. We stood on the grassy gravel of the drive and talked about our lives since last we were together. La Donna had some business with her brother, farm business. I watched her walk over to his truck with papers in hand. Things have not been good between them since their father died. Differences of opinion on how to proceed, how to honor the past and prepare for the future. Anger and hurt, threats even, it is sad. It happens in families, I must have seen it a thousand times, but it is hard to watch from this vantage point.
I don’t know what the business was, or what they needed to talk about, but I watched them every moment, in case. In case of what, I don’t know, but just in case. After a few moment, I saw her laugh at something. It seemed genuine and true, as if the clouds had parted for a moment and the sun peeked through. I relaxed, just a little bit.
Jeremiah had a tough job. It was a cold and windy period in the history of God’s people. There were enemies without and disagreements within. And, as is so often the case when the prophets were called to speak, the people seemed to have forgotten who they were.
Or maybe not who they were, but whose they were. They had released their grip on the vision that had brought them through a wilderness, they had settled back from the hard work of living in the community that had given them an identity. They abandoned the law that was handed them and chose to live by the law of convenience or circumstance, the law of every man for himself, the law of expediency and profit, of power and getting even. The law that felt good when feelings were raw.
So, Jeremiah was charged with poking them in those raw feelings, correcting them when they didn’t feel like they were doing anything wrong, or not doing anything that anybody else wasn’t doing. He had to point out their flawed logic, their self-centered motives. He had to remind them of their failings as members of a covenant community.
Worse than that, he had to point out the consequences. You keep doing that, he would say sounding a lot like their mothers, then here’s what is going to happen. The rot at the center of their thinking would take them over, eating away at them until they were nothing but shells, empty and hurting and not understanding why. They would turn on each other, eating away at whatever dignity they thought they could cling to.
Who would want to listen to that? He was hated, to put it mildly. Tossed in prison, thrown in pits, ignored by most, jeered at by others. His name has become descriptive of a rant of negativity - a jeremiad is “a woeful, wrathful bad-news bearing message or messenger,” says one commentator
Hardly a source for a sermon series titled “Laugh Out Loud,” the Aldersgate folks are thinking by now. At least I hope they are thinking that. But actually it makes perfect sense to get a hopeful, joy-filled message from Jeremiah, if you know where to look. If you are reading through the bible this year with us, then your Fridays are filled with dour messages from Jeremiah. But hold on, we are almost there. And where is there? To the “Little Book of Consolation” as it is called. Chapters 30 through 33 in Jeremiah take on a completely different tone from the rest of the book. It is as if God knew that Jeremiah was wearing out and needed a respite, or the people were languishing under the bad news and needed to hear something else, so these chapters were tucked in here as an oasis to keep us going in the dry and thirsty desert. Our reading for this week comes from that little book of consolation and sounds just the right note. Take a look:
Jeremiah 31:10-13 Hear the word of the LORD, O nations, and declare it in the coastlands far away; say, "He who scattered Israel will gather him, and will keep him as a shepherd a flock." 11 For the LORD has ransomed Jacob, and has redeemed him from hands too strong for him. 12 They shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion, and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the LORD, over the grain, the wine, and the oil, and over the young of the flock and the herd; their life shall become like a watered garden, and they shall never languish again. 13 Then shall the young women rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the old shall be merry. I will turn their mourning into joy, I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow.
“I will give them gladness for sorrow.” Gladness isn’t just relief, isn’t just a grim smile in a difficult moment. Gladness is about joy abounding. In the bible, the word gladness is usually used to talk about weddings. And for the people of Israel, there was no better party than a wedding party. Gladness appears seven times in the book of Jeremiah, and four of them are about the end of gladness. It is taken away, it is ended, it is no more, because of the hard-headedness of the people. But three times (all of them in the little book of consolation) is it a promise and a hope.
The sweetest joy comes in the midst of sorrow. The deepest laughter comes bordered by tears. Or perhaps the most healing laughter, the most transforming joy comes in the midst of struggle and brokenness. A worship series about laughter is not about ignoring the realities of a world of hurt and suffering. It is about acknowledging hope in the midst of a darkest of days. It is about trusting with more than resignation and the burden of slogging our way through our own lives, but with the lightness of heart that allows there to be laughter in the cemetery.
I will give them gladness for sorrow. It is a promise we can live with.
Shalom,
Derek
We had the little vault that would hold his ashes, but were also searching for La Donna’s mom’s ashes which were just in the black box and buried there almost six years ago. We wanted to put them together in the same vault and then re-bury it all together there in front of the stone that had been newly carved with Don’s date of death. La Donna’s brother dug in the rocky ground and we tried to remember how far down the first box was placed. After a couple of attempts and nearly giving up and burying them separately, we found her, a little deeper than we remembered, a little closer to the headstone than we thought. But we put them together and squeezed the little tube of epoxy that the funeral home gave us to seal the vault and then set it in the hole.
Shivering we pushed the dirt over the top and then relaid the sod, stomping it down as best we could. When it was done we stood, shivering in the wind for a moment, unsure what to say or do next. Until La Donna, ever the practical one, looked at me and said “Well, say a prayer and let’s get in the cars where it is warm.”
We all laughed at that, and I obediently prayed. With tears in our eyes from the cold air and the months old grief, we said goodbye on a gray and windy day. We hustled to our cars, shrugged into our inadequate coats, ready for warmth and another drive home. But, we lingered, as though unwilling to release the moment. We stood on the grassy gravel of the drive and talked about our lives since last we were together. La Donna had some business with her brother, farm business. I watched her walk over to his truck with papers in hand. Things have not been good between them since their father died. Differences of opinion on how to proceed, how to honor the past and prepare for the future. Anger and hurt, threats even, it is sad. It happens in families, I must have seen it a thousand times, but it is hard to watch from this vantage point.
I don’t know what the business was, or what they needed to talk about, but I watched them every moment, in case. In case of what, I don’t know, but just in case. After a few moment, I saw her laugh at something. It seemed genuine and true, as if the clouds had parted for a moment and the sun peeked through. I relaxed, just a little bit.
Jeremiah had a tough job. It was a cold and windy period in the history of God’s people. There were enemies without and disagreements within. And, as is so often the case when the prophets were called to speak, the people seemed to have forgotten who they were.
Or maybe not who they were, but whose they were. They had released their grip on the vision that had brought them through a wilderness, they had settled back from the hard work of living in the community that had given them an identity. They abandoned the law that was handed them and chose to live by the law of convenience or circumstance, the law of every man for himself, the law of expediency and profit, of power and getting even. The law that felt good when feelings were raw.
So, Jeremiah was charged with poking them in those raw feelings, correcting them when they didn’t feel like they were doing anything wrong, or not doing anything that anybody else wasn’t doing. He had to point out their flawed logic, their self-centered motives. He had to remind them of their failings as members of a covenant community.
Worse than that, he had to point out the consequences. You keep doing that, he would say sounding a lot like their mothers, then here’s what is going to happen. The rot at the center of their thinking would take them over, eating away at them until they were nothing but shells, empty and hurting and not understanding why. They would turn on each other, eating away at whatever dignity they thought they could cling to.
Who would want to listen to that? He was hated, to put it mildly. Tossed in prison, thrown in pits, ignored by most, jeered at by others. His name has become descriptive of a rant of negativity - a jeremiad is “a woeful, wrathful bad-news bearing message or messenger,” says one commentator
Hardly a source for a sermon series titled “Laugh Out Loud,” the Aldersgate folks are thinking by now. At least I hope they are thinking that. But actually it makes perfect sense to get a hopeful, joy-filled message from Jeremiah, if you know where to look. If you are reading through the bible this year with us, then your Fridays are filled with dour messages from Jeremiah. But hold on, we are almost there. And where is there? To the “Little Book of Consolation” as it is called. Chapters 30 through 33 in Jeremiah take on a completely different tone from the rest of the book. It is as if God knew that Jeremiah was wearing out and needed a respite, or the people were languishing under the bad news and needed to hear something else, so these chapters were tucked in here as an oasis to keep us going in the dry and thirsty desert. Our reading for this week comes from that little book of consolation and sounds just the right note. Take a look:
Jeremiah 31:10-13 Hear the word of the LORD, O nations, and declare it in the coastlands far away; say, "He who scattered Israel will gather him, and will keep him as a shepherd a flock." 11 For the LORD has ransomed Jacob, and has redeemed him from hands too strong for him. 12 They shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion, and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the LORD, over the grain, the wine, and the oil, and over the young of the flock and the herd; their life shall become like a watered garden, and they shall never languish again. 13 Then shall the young women rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the old shall be merry. I will turn their mourning into joy, I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow.
“I will give them gladness for sorrow.” Gladness isn’t just relief, isn’t just a grim smile in a difficult moment. Gladness is about joy abounding. In the bible, the word gladness is usually used to talk about weddings. And for the people of Israel, there was no better party than a wedding party. Gladness appears seven times in the book of Jeremiah, and four of them are about the end of gladness. It is taken away, it is ended, it is no more, because of the hard-headedness of the people. But three times (all of them in the little book of consolation) is it a promise and a hope.
The sweetest joy comes in the midst of sorrow. The deepest laughter comes bordered by tears. Or perhaps the most healing laughter, the most transforming joy comes in the midst of struggle and brokenness. A worship series about laughter is not about ignoring the realities of a world of hurt and suffering. It is about acknowledging hope in the midst of a darkest of days. It is about trusting with more than resignation and the burden of slogging our way through our own lives, but with the lightness of heart that allows there to be laughter in the cemetery.
I will give them gladness for sorrow. It is a promise we can live with.
Shalom,
Derek
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