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Sermon for the week of Trinity 8
Jeremiah 15:19-21 + Acts 20:17-38
This week’s focus, drawn, as usual, from Sunday’s Gospel, is on doctrine—true vs. false—and on the prophets who preach it—true vs. false. In the second lesson this evening, St. Paul warned the elders of Ephesus about false teachers who would come in like wolves, while, on the other hand, he reminded them of his own example, that he had revealed to them the whole counsel of God, in spite of the opposition he had faced, in spite of the sufferings he knew he was about to face. Paul is an example of a prophet or Christian minister who always proved reliable under pressure; we aren’t told of any stumbling in Paul’s ministry. But that’s rare. The Gospels show us Jesus’ twelve apostles often struggling and stumbling. Peter stumbled at least once after the Day of Pentecost, when he was under pressure from certain Judaizers, and Paul had to confront him about it.
When we look back into the Old Testament, we find a few prophets, like Daniel, for example, who were shining examples of steadfastness in the face of opposition. But, again, that was rare. Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Elijah—they all stumbled, in one way or another. And so did the prophet Jeremiah.
Not greatly, like David did on a few occasions. But still, Jeremiah began to stumble. Remember when he prophesied, in the years right before God’s patience with Judah ran out, just as Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon was about to come into Jerusalem and plunder it, over the course of about 20 years, until he finally destroyed the temple and took all the Jews captive. That means that Jeremiah was living during the darkest times Jerusalem had ever seen, or would ever see. He lived in terrible times, when wickedness among those who were supposed to be God’s chosen people was at its height, and when violence and utter destruction were about to sweep in.
But that wasn’t even the worst of it. Jeremiah complains earlier in his book that he saw how the wicked still prospered at that time, and he couldn’t understand why God would allow it. He also saw many false prophets standing against him, every one of them claiming to be true prophets sent by God, every one of them calling Jeremiah a liar, because he was prophesying the destruction of Jerusalem. He was calling the people to repentance for their wickedness, while the false prophets were telling the people what they wanted to hear, that God was smiling on them, because He loved them, because they were special. So, as you can imagine, the itching ears of the people of Jerusalem loved those false prophets, while they hated Jeremiah. In fact, they hated him so much that the very people to whom God had sent him to prophesy, came against him, and plotted to kill him. And he began to doubt.
These were the words Jeremiah wrote before the Lord’s reply that you heard in tonight’s Lesson: Woe is me, my mother, that you have borne me, a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth!…Why is my pain unceasing, my wound incurable, refusing to be healed? O Lord, will you be to me like a deceitful brook, like waters that fail?
Now, you have to understand. Jeremiah didn’t go into this prophet thing thinking it would be a bed of roses. The Lord had told him exactly what he would face from the people over the course of what would be a forty-year ministry. But the Lord had also said this: And I, behold, I make you this day a fortified city, an iron pillar, and bronze walls, against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests, and the people of the land. They will fight against you, but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, declares the LORD, to deliver you.
Well, there you have it, don’t you? The Lord told him both that the people would fight against him and that the Lord would be with him to deliver him. That should have been enough. Any promise from the Lord God should always be enough. But sinful human beings, when we’re confronted with hostility, confronted with threats, confronted with people who lie about us and wish to bring us harm—we often, sinfully, begin to wonder whether the Lord will really prove faithful this time.
Jeremiah spoke the question that you or I may not be brave enough to speak, even if we’re thinking it. Will God be to me like a deceitful brook, like waters that fail? Hear the Lord’s response to Jeremiah: Therefore thus says the Lord: “If you return, I will restore you, and you shall stand before me. If you utter what is precious, and not what is worthless, you shall be as my mouth.
The accusatory question that Jeremiah dared to ask was a challenge to God, a test, and an unfair one at that. God had been nothing but faithful to His word. Jeremiah had no reason to challenge God’s promise to deliver him. He let his sinful flesh get the better of him. And so God mercifully and gently rebukes him, identifies Jeremiah’s words as worthless, calls upon him to return, that is, to repent and turn away from the doubt and unbelief that had begun to grow in his heart, to turn back to God in faith. And then he calls upon him to be His spokesman again, to be the mouth of the Lord, not the mouth of unbelief, which, in the end, is the mouth of the devil.
They shall turn to you, but you shall not turn to them. The false prophet turns to the people and asks, “What do you want to hear?” The true prophet, on the other hand, turns to God and says, “What do You want me to say?” And then he speaks to the people only what God has commanded, nothing more, and nothing less, whether or not they want to hear it.
If Jeremiah would turn back to God for precious words (and he would), then God would graciously do what He had already promised to do, repeating the promise to Jeremiah: And I will make you to this people a fortified wall of bronze; they will fight against you, but they shall not prevail over you, for I am with you to save you and deliver you, declares the Lord. I will deliver you out of the hand of the wicked, and redeem you from the grasp of the ruthless.”
Jeremiah did turn back to the Lord and went on to minister for about three more decades, all of which were full of opposition and hardship and destruction and lamentation. Where did the strength come from for Jeremiah to handle a ministry like that? Only from God and His promise to make him a bronze wall toward the people, beaten and battered, but also indestructible.
This is how St. Paul also characterized his ministry. We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed—always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.
In one way or another, every faithful minister will be characterized like this, with the obstacles sometimes coming from the world, sometimes from his own congregation, sometimes from a church body, sometimes from within. And even the faithful may begin to stumble over those obstacles from time to time. But the Lord graciously calls them back, even as He calls us all back from self-pity, and from the doubts that rise up straight from the pits of hell, to return to the Lord in humility and faith, and to keep bearing the cross until God says, “That’s enough.” The faithful minister, the true prophet, will hear God’s promises again, and be lifted up from his sinful stumbling, and made again into a bronze wall, able to withstand the assaults of Satan and every evil, from every direction, until the Lord decides that his ministry has been completed.
This brings us back to Sunday’s warning: Watch out for false prophets. Suffering and hardships are not the infallible sign of a true prophet, but great popularity, success, and little opposition are almost always signs that a prophet is false. And what is true for prophets is true, to some degree, for Christians in general: a cross-less life is not a Christian life, because such a life doesn’t resemble the life of Christ, our Teacher and Lord. But with the cross always comes the Lord’s promise to be with you, and to help you bear it, and, if necessary, to make you, too, into a bronze wall, against whom even the gates of hell will not be able to prevail. Soon, soon the time for ministry, and for cross-bearing, will be over for all God’s children, and the time for resting will begin! Until then, may the Lord have mercy on us all when we begin to stumble under the cross, and graciously call us back to His service. Amen.
