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On Being a Remnant
Sermon by Cynthia A. Jarvis October 28, 2007, Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill Jeremiah 42:1-17; 43:1-7 Mark 13:9-13
Remnant, according to Webster’s New World in the first place, is “a small part of something that remains after the rest has gone.” Just shy of five hundred years after Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Thesis to the door of the church in Wittenberg and Ulrich Zwingli began preaching through the Old Testament from the pulpit of the Grossmunster Cathedral in Zurich, the Reformed tradition is but a remnant throughout Europe: a small part of something that remains after the rest has gone. Of that remnant in this country, Lutherans and Presbyterians alone are in the top ten denominational communions numerically. Presbyterians, in fact, occupy the ninth position and are declining; Assemblies of God occupy the tenth position and are the fastest growing of all communions. Held in the providence of God, our status as a remnant may be exceedingly good news, news that places us at a crossroads not unlike that faced by the remnant left in Jerusalem after the last deportation. The situation in Jerusalem, to say the least, was sorry. It is 587 B.C. The political situation had collapsed, public life was in disarray, most of Judah had been exiled to Babylon, the governor lay dead at the hands of insurgents. Terrorism reigned. Think Burma. Think Baghdad. Think Karachi. Think Camden. Johanan, now the leader of the remnant of Jews in Jerusalem, knew the only secure alternative was to set off for Egypt. Yet before setting out knowing where they were going, something compelled Johanan and all the people, from the least to the greatest, to approach Jeremiah. “We are but a few of many,” they said to Jeremiah. This is not a population report, says Walter Brueggemann, “but a recognition that the whole history of deliverance is now in deep jeopardy and is in a process of reversal.” God’s witness is the world is about to disappear. “Let the Lord your God show us where we should go and what we should do,” they ask because it mattered enormously. “The book of Jeremiah is framed,” says Brueggemann, “to recognize that after 587 the carriers of Jewish faithfulness are a small, vulnerable community. What that small, vulnerable community does matters enormously, for it carries the future of Jewishness.” Without overstating our situation, I tell you that what this small, vulnerable community does matters enormously, for we carry the future of the Reformed contribution to the Christian witness. We are, in fact, a remnant within a remnant: a people set apart to love God with our minds in a time when intelligence on a Sunday morning is not only hard to come by but mocked; a people set apart to sing the Lord’s song with excellence and daring in a strange land gone soft with sentiment; a people set apart to listen critically for God’s word in Scripture among a church literally blinded and bound by five verses concerning homosexuality; a people set apart to do business with the common order when that order confuses allegiance to a nation with our singular allegiance to the living God; a people set apart to seek Christ not in narcissistic spirituality but in the faces of the hungry we are sent to feed, the homeless we are sent to shelter, the prisoner we are sent to visit, the outcast we include without condition. But the temptation from Johanan’s time until today is rather to head toward safety and so to become a community where little is demanded of our hearts and minds and souls and strength; to become a community where small things are asked of us; to become a remnant in the second sense of Webster’s New World, the sense of being “a trace…amount of something such as a feeling or an emotion.” “Here are these causes—can you spare a dollar? Or, here are these tasks—will you not try to help out a little? Or, here are these services—will you not at least attend a few?” The caricature is that of Old Testament theologian John Bright as he imagines Jeremiah’s word received meagerly by the church of his day. Nevertheless like Johanan and all the people, from the least to the greatest, God’s people desire God’s blessing before setting out on the prudent way. So Jeremiah takes his leave and does not reappear for ten days. I imagine the remnant speculating much like a defendant and council do while the jury is out: is a quick verdict likely to be in our favor? Is this long deliberation a sign we will be freed to go on our merry way? What could Jeremiah have been doing for ten days? We know, given an earlier chapter, that Jeremiah had a text. Listening through the text and on behalf of the remnant for God’s word, Jeremiah likely was wrestling with its complexity, abiding before its silence. Finally he emerges to speak the same word that had landed him, once before, in prison. The word, contrary to the remnant’s wishes, was this: “If you will only remain in this land, then I will build you up and not pull you down; I will plant you, and not pluck you up…Do not be afraid of the King of Babylon…says the Lord, for I am with you.” Johanan and all the other insolent men said flat out to Jeremiah, “You are telling a lie.” “From the perspective of the Egyptian remnant,” says Brueggemann, “the verdict against going to Egypt is not God’s word, but is the self-serving ideology of a countercommunity for which the prophet has no [Godly] authority. Of course! How could it be otherwise? Each side in this deep conflict argues that the other side is acting autonomously and claiming its own perspective as God’s will.” So goes the church today! How could it be otherwise? In the meantime, there comes a time when God’s remnant must decide where to stand and with whom. “Remain in the land,” the Lord had said, “and I will be with you.” I cannot help but wonder what witness we might have been given had God’s word been heeded, had the remnant remained in the city “present both to the trouble and to the possibility.” There is, of course, no word of them worth recording from Egypt. Instead Jesus’ words to another small band under occupation come to mind: “They will hand you over to councils; you will be beaten in synagogues; you will stand before governors.” That is to say, the theologians of the day, the institutional church, the politicians in power, even your own family can be counted on in every age to oppose the witness of this remnant, this countercommunity. The pressure to live Caesar’s lie, says Jesus in so many words, will be overwhelming. Yet again, what this small, vulnerable community of twelve did mattered enormously for they carried the future of the Christian witness. I say again, what this small, vulnerable community called The Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill matters enormously as we seek to carry the future of the Reformed witness to Christ in our time. So we attend to the third meaning of remnant on this Reformation Sunday 2007: a “small surviving group of people…surviving from a culture.” Jeremiah and Jesus would add “surviving against a culture!” We are to be a demonstration, said the Reformers, of God’s new reality, a beachhead for the Kingdom. It matters enormously that we tell our children the story that alone will hold the disparate pieces of their lives together, tell it as we rise up and sit down and walk along the way; it matters enormously that the questions of meaning and purpose are raised from this pulpit and in the classroom lest we miss what is worth our lives; it matters enormously that we sing the Lord’ song with excellence in this strange land lest we forget the sound of praise; it matters enormously that we live counter to a culture bent on consuming rather than conserving the gifts of God’s good creation; it matters enormously that we embody the ethic of him who lived for others and gave himself for the least of these; it matters enormously that this hour sends us out into the world with word that God lives and that death has no dominion. But in a community such as this, it also matters enormously that we put our money where our heart is destined to be. I will be blunt. There is a remnant within this remnant. Following on the word of Bob Greer last week Sunday, this remnant within the remnant is made up of those members who tithe or who clearly are growing toward a tithe. Lest you think I am talking about the big givers, God knows it is the widow’s mite that risks the most. But mostly I know this tithing remnant by the lives that follow the treasure freely given. These are the few who have staked a great deal on the witness of Christ’s church. They are a remnant within the remnant to the new reality of God’s redeeming grace. They are, in a word, exiles scattered among the rest of us who seem to be generous given outward appearances, but who in fact are going our merry way toward Egypt. “Exiles” says Jeremiah scholar Thomas Raitt, “are stripped of facades. They are forced to be mobile, to travel light, to stand naked before God. They have no enduring worldly roots, no enduring worldly security. They are vulnerable….They are a good risk. God gives them the transforming power of the Spirit; God heals their broken and depleted humanity.” We stand as a remnant at the crossroads that must decide. “Remain in the land” says God. “Do not fear the powers and principalities. I will be with you.” “To Egypt and safety” say saner voices. Who will we be for such a time as this: a small part of something that remains after the rest has gone; a trace, a small amount of something such as a feeling or an emotion that is never heard from again? Or dare we become, by the grace of God, a small surviving countercommunity, a band of exiles who trust God for the future and try to follow Jesus? There is a story told about Clarence Jordan, farmer, founder of Koinonia Farm and Habitat for Humanity, author of the Cotton Patch Bible, who wandered into an integrated church in the Deep South. Jordan was surprised by the diversity—black and white, rich and poor—and so asked the old hillbilly preacher, “How did you get the church this way?” “‘What way?’ the preacher asked.” A church so integrated and in the South, Jordan explained. “‘Well, when our preacher left our small church, I went to the Deacons and said, ‘I’ll be the preacher.’ The first Sunday as preacher, I opened the book and read, ‘As many of you as has been baptized into Jesus has put on Jesus and there is no longer any Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, males or females, because you is all one in Jesus.’ Then I closed the book and said, ‘If you one with Jesus, you one with all kind of folks. And if you ain’t you ain’t.’ Jordan asked what happened after that. ‘Well,’ the preacher said, ‘the Deacons took me into the back room and told me they didn’t want to hear that kind of preaching no more.’ Jordan asked what he did. ‘I fired them Deacons,” the preacher roared. ‘Then what happened?’…‘Well,’ said the old hillbilly preacher, ‘I preached that church down to four. Not long after that, it grew and grew and grew. And I found out that revival sometimes don’t mean bringin’ people in but getting’ people out that don’t love Jesus.’” I may yet preach this church down to four but I pray, before that day, the God who has promised to be with us in Jesus Christ will enter our hearts, empty our pockets and save us from life in Egypt without him. |