Jeremiah 20:7–13
Saint Matthew 10:24–39
The photograph you have just seen is of The Very Reverend Randolph Marshall Hollerith the very fine Dean of the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. It was taken on Pentecost Sunday of this year and he is looking out over approximately 4,000 empty seats.
I have been watching online and every Sunday it has been like that for him and his staff and they lead worship in a virtually empty church. The organists are still there as are the lectors. There are a few choristers spread around to lead the singing at appropriate social distances from each other. Other than that, the place is empty as is ours.
Here is a picture of what Our Savior looked like yesterday taken from the pulpit. We have fewer empty seats but all of the seats are empty never-the-less.
All of us pray that in a few weeks that won’t be the case when some of us make our way back to worship with preventative measures still in place to keep everyone safe.
For now worship is still on-line for most churches and some are able to master the craft better than others.
Some churches have been “live streaming” for years and they are quite good at it. In their current offerings there is still congregational hymn singing recorded on some far off date. The choir and soloist still offer an anthem or a solo that was either pre-taped during the week or comes from an early worship service.
Sometimes, like Dean Hollerith, the sermons are preached from the pulpit with the occasional glimpse of lots and lots of empty pews in front of the preacher. Other churches shift, too disconcertingly for my tastes, from prerecorded music to the pastor’s home where he or she preaches and prays.
Even with that judgmental statement being made I try not to be too critical because all of us are in uncharted waters.
This caused me to think of what it must be like for Joel Osteen and the other prosperity gospellers. Not only does he have 16,800 empty seats on his hands but he is committed to messages that God wants to bring heath, wealth, happiness and victory to your life.
I wonder how that message is working for him and his people in the midst of a global pandemic, an economic meltdown and racial strife.
Osteen is just one of the many preachers, mostly in mega-churches with vast and expensive television ministries who have given in to what Dr. William H. Willimon has termed North American Christianity.
We North American Christians keep thinking that somehow we have found a way to follow Jesus without getting hurt. Being a Christian is roughly synonymous with being a sensitive, compassionate, and caring American. Jesus [God] is the one who keeps families together, who confirms our highest and best values and institutions.1
Then along comes the prophet Jeremiah and Jesus and suddenly we are confronted again with the uncomfortable reality that God has a very different way of looking at things than we do.
If we start to proclaim that things should be the way God thinks they should be we probably won’t be needing a converted basketball arena that seats close to 17,000 fans but might just find as alone as Dean Hollerith looks as he waits for the crises to be over.
The dear Dean may have felt – as I do sometimes – a little like the prophet Jeremiah when he cried out angrily to God: “O Lord, you deceived me when you promised me your help. I have to give them your messages because you are stronger than I am, but now I am the laughingstock of the city, mocked by all.”
Being a prophet was a tough job. Prophets . . . functioned as social critics and had the unfortunate task of delivering God’s insight and message – usually critical – to the people and those in power. They, in short, had the job of scolding the community about its mistakes. As a result, they were frequently, though not always, the bearers of bad news. Jeremiah complains that the only messages God gives him to convey to the people are negative ones predicting doom and gloom.3
The implications that Jesus lays out for discipleship are equally grim. The one whom we know as Prince of Peace says:
“Never think I have come to bring peace upon the earth. No, I have not come to bring peace but a sword! For I have come to set a man against his own father, a daughter against her own mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A man’s enemies will be those who live in his own house."4
Oh swell. That’s good news for these tumultuous times, more tumult. And, by the way dads, happy Father’s Day.
The gospel can divide but sometimes for the wrong reason. That happens when it is used as a club.
Billy Graham used to include in all of his altar calls: “Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, he will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, he will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.”5
I have no doubt that Graham was well-meaning but what he was doing was scaring the people into not making the busses wait any longer and coming forward to confess Christ. The thinly veiled implication was that those who remained in their seats while the organ played and the choir sang “Just As I Am” for the umteenth time were going to be, if not toast, at least in deep trouble on the day of judgement.
The always wise Dr. James Howell reminds us that this is not the double-dare you predicament the in which one of Billy Graham’s altar call places us. Jesus wants to be acknowledged, not denied.
What does denial look like in 2020? Myriad stuff, like conventional living, fitting in, letting a racist slur slide on by, on and on. I wonder if piety can be a paradoxical denial of Jesus? You make sugary but harmful theological remarks (“God doesn’t give you more than you can handle,” or “Everything happens for a reason”) – which deny the more robust reality of Jesus who doesn’t deny but embraces suffering?6
What Jesus and Jeremiah were talking about was something far more radical than personal salvation. They are telling us that confessing faith in God, faith in Christ may lead to persecution.
While preachers proclaim a “what’s in it for me Gospel” where the temptation is to focus on what we can get rather than how we are to act. They attract big crowds. They have big homes and draw huge salaries. They may get a little grief every once and awhile when the finances don’t add up but for the most part they are living the dream, the American dream.
But the followers of the living God are called upon to do what Jesus did – – expose evil, challenge power, demand change and undermine the status quo.
Followers of Jesus and the living God call into question corrupt corporations whose executives bail out on golden parachutes leaving behind broken business and abandoned employees.
Followers of Jesus turn their back on those politicians who make decisions based only on reelection considerations rather than the good of the nation.
It is so easy for a follower to become discouraged but there is a promise tucked away in this text that has sustained God’s people for years. It is better known to us is the lyrics of a song than the exact verse of scripture.
In 1905 Civille Martin wrote a song that became a staple for artists like Ethel Waters and Mahalia Jackson in the mid 20th Century and has lived on in ours in recordings by Gladys Knight, Whitney Houston, Jennifer Holliday, Marvin Gaye whose common experience helps them put real feeling, real meaning in the words “His Eye is on the sparrow and I know he watches me.”
As you might have noticed, I’m a white guy and I do think I have any business commenting on the experience of others but I will lift before you what one friend said to me that helped me think again what a difference skin color can make. He said, “You have to realize that I am one illegal left-turn away from having my life inalterably changed.”
What’s so lovely about the hymn is that it doesn’t pledge or expect a quick fix or any fix at all. It’s not God will do what I ask, or God will repair everything tomorrow. It’s simply that God cares. God sees. God sees the sparrow, and you and me. And it’s not just a passing glance.
That is the hope for all of us individually and it is our hope for our common life together. It is to see each other in the same way God sees us, as precious, worthy, loved, and people to be respected. That is what we are to proclaim as powerfully as the prophets who came before us.
We don’t have to proclaim it by shouting it from the housetops but in the living out of our lives.
When the Cathedrals and churches are full again may we remember this time -- this tumultuous and painful time – and remember just how much we needed each other to get through this.
When we meet again, may we meet as better people and more committed followers of Jesus who promises to care for each and every one of his children and asks only that we live out that care for each other in return.
____________
1. William H. Willimon, “Disruption,” Pulpit Resource 36, no. 2 (2008): pp. 49-52.
2. Jeremiah 20:7. (TLB) [TLB=The Living Bible. Carol Stream, Illinois: Tyndale House, 1971]
3. Song-Mi Suzie Park, “Jeremiah 20:7-13. Commentary 1: Connecting the Reading with Scripture,” Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship 3 (Louisville: Westminister|John Knox Press, 2020): pp. 26-29
4. St. Matthew 10:34-36. (PHILLIPS) [J. B. Phillips, The New Testament in Modern English (London: HarperCollins, 2000).]
5. St. Matthew 10:32-33. (KJV) [KJV=King James Version]
6. James C. Howell, "What Can We Say? Pentecost 2A." January 1, 2019,
https://jameshowellsweeklypreachingnotions.blogspot.com/.
7. Ibid.
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