Jeremiah 17:5-8
Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany
11 February 2007
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
This past Thursday, about noontime, came the shocking news out of Hollywood, Florida: Anna Nicole Smith, famed Playboy bunny, Hollywood actress, widow of an 89-year-old Texas oil tycoon-billionaire, was dead at age 39. If you were like me, you probably responded to that news first by asking, “What?” Then, again if you were like me, you responded to the news by asking, “Really?” Even if you, like me, didn’t really care about her personally; if you, like me, weren’t a fan of hers; if you, like me, were actually somewhat annoyed and irritated by her and her voice and her antics, yet in that news that came out of Hollywood, Florida there were the elements of a truly great tragedy, something truly macabre, a life that should have been a life full of blessings and happiness and contentment that was instead a life that truly seemed plagued by scandal and heartache and problems, one right after the other.
That news that came out of Hollywood, Florida, this past Thursday sadly provides a great illustration of what the prophet Jeremiah wrote: “This is what the Lord says, ‘Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the Lord. He will be like a bush in the wastelands. He will not see prosperity when it comes. He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives’” [Jeremiah 17:5-6].
I use the sad news of this past to ask you, “How is your life today?” On whom do you depend? To whom do you turn? Do you feel beat up? Do you feel dried up, parched? Are the trials and stresses of life piling up in your life and getting heavier and heavier? Do you feel alone? If you do, don’t despair. Hang in there with me for a few minutes.
Fifteen years ago this summer, when this big city boy arrived in Gillette, Wyoming to spend his year of vicarage or ministry internship, the locals had a fascination about me. First of all, I wore a tie to the office my first day. I may have been the only person in the entire town wearing a tie that day – bolo ties excluded. Secondly I did certain things that the locals didn’t do – things like taking my keys out of my car when I left it; things like rolling up my windows and locking my car doors; things like having not one but two alarms on my car.
As fascinated as they were with my alien actions, there were also many who were honestly a little concerned about me and who kindly went out of their way to teach me some lessons about life on the high plains that I needed to know before I needed to know them – lessons like not slamming on your car brakes when you saw a deer or an antelope alongside the road (the change in the sound of your car approaching is what actually could cause them to jump in front of your car); lessons like how much you could drive over the speed limit before getting ticketed (that lesson came from one of my elders who was also a state highway patrol officer); lessons like, in the days before cell phones, when your car broke down on a desolate road where it could easily be a couple of hours before another vehicle would pass by, look for any tree on the horizon, even if you had to walk some distance, because, in Wyoming especially, where there was a tree, there was water, something nourishing that tree and causing it to grow in an otherwise unforgiving landscape.
That wise piece of advice actually well illustrates what else the prophet Isaiah wrote: “But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when the heat comes. Its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit” [Jeremiah 7-8].
That’s quite a contrast, isn’t it? That’s quite the contrast between those who trust in human beings and those who trust in God Almighty!
Honestly I know nothing about her personal life, but I would guess, simply looking at her actions and at her lifestyle, that Anna Nicole Smith was not a woman of faith, not someone who trusted in God Almighty, but someone who “bet the bank” on human beings and unfortunately found the utter poverty of that decision.
Again I ask you, “How is your life today?” On whom do you depend? To whom do you turn? Do you feel beat up? Do you feel dried up, parched? Are the trials and stresses of life piling up in your life and getting heavier and heavier? Do you feel alone? If you do, don’t despair. You’re actually in good company.
Remember the Old Testament character by the name of Job. There’s actually an entire book of the Bible written about him and about his trials and tribulations. Juts in case you think you gave it bad, here’s just a short list of Job’s trials: his oxen and donkeys were stolen [Job 1:14-15], his servants were killed [Job 1:15]; his sheep were burned to death after being struck by lightning [Job 1:16]; his camels were stolen [Job 1:17]; a horrific tornado struck a house and killed all his children [Job 1:19]; he was afflicted by painful sores from the top of his head to the soles of his feet, sores so painful that he could only find relief by scraping and scratching them with broken pieces of pottery [Job 2:7]; his wife turned on him, advising him to “Curse God and die” [Job 2:9]; because of his sores his best friends didn’t recognize him at first, then they absolutely didn’t know what to say, sitting with him in silence for seven days [Job 2:11-13], then finally spouting off such bad advice to him [Job 4-5, 8, 11] that Job basically found himself totally alone and abandoned by everyone and everything. In that moment of total abandonment, yet Job did not transfer his trust from God Almighty to human beings and human solutions. Instead, despite all the afflictions thrown him by the devil, Job proclaimed his unshakeable faith in God: “I know that my Redeemer lives and that in the end He will stand upon the earth and, after my skin has been destroyed, yet, in my flesh, I will see God” [Job 19:25-26].
That’s exactly what St. Paul wrote about [ 1 Cor. 15:1-20]. It’s the pure, basic, elemental foundation of our Christian faith, the one thing upon which our entire faith stands or falls: the message of the Gospel; the message of the love of God for us expressed in Jesus Christ; the message about Christ crucified and Christ risen from the dead. St. Paul summarized that simple foundation of our faith by writing that, “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men. But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep in Him” [1 Cor 15:19-20].
If, some 2,000 years before Jesus Christ, Job could find such comfort and strength and confidence in knowing the promise of the eternal love of God despite facing such complete and total devastation in his life, how much more should we not, living 2,000 years after Jesus Christ, find comfort and strength and confidence in knowing the fulfillment of the eternal love of God?
For the twenty years of their marriage, a husband was awakened almost nightly by his wife who often couldn’t sleep because she worried that their home would be burglarized. Then one night, the husband himself heard the tell-tale sound of breaking glass and softened footsteps in the middle of the night. Going downstairs, he found a burglar in their house and he said to him, “Please come upstairs and meet my wife. She’s been waiting 20 years to meet you.” And when they got upstairs, they found the wife soundly asleep, probably the best sleep she had experienced in 20 years. Ironic, isn’t it? All those years of worry and fear and anxiety yielded nothing but worry and fear and anxiety, then led to an unexplainable peace when there should have been worry and fear and anxiety. How much of our lives do we spend being worried without need?
Again I ask you, “How is your life today?” On whom do you truly depend? To whom do you truly turn? Do you feel beat up? Do you feel dried up, parched? Are the trials and stresses of life piling up in your life and getting heavier and heavier? Do you feel alone? If you do, don’t despair. Instead, look up. Know that your Redeemer lives. Know without any doubt that Jesus Christ lived and suffered and died and rose again for you and that the confidence of knowing that love of God feeds you and nourishes you and blesses you and insulates you against the storms of life.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Pastor Christopher Schaar
Historic First Lutheran Church of Pasadena