The Intrusive Word

Scripture: Jeremiah 1: 1-19

Sermon: The Intrusive Word

Topics: repentance, prophet, unwelcome, visitor, confrontation

Preached: February 29, 2004

Rev. Mike Abma

The words of Jeremiah son of Hilkiah, of the priests who were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, ²to whom the word of the Lord came in the days of King Josiah son of Amon of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign. ³It came also in the days of King Jehoiakim son of Josiah of Judah, and until the end of the eleventh year of King Zedekiah son of Josiah of Judah, until the captivity of Jerusalem in the fifth month.

4 Now the word of the Lord came to me saying,

⁵ ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,

and before you were born I consecrated you;

I appointed you a prophet to the nations.’

⁶Then I said, ‘Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.’ ⁷But the Lord said to me,

‘Do not say, “I am only a boy”;

for you shall go to all to whom I send you,

and you shall speak whatever I command you.

⁸ Do not be afraid of them,

for I am with you to deliver you,

says the Lord.’

⁹Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the Lord said to me,

‘Now I have put my words in your mouth.

¹⁰ See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms,

to pluck up and to pull down,

to destroy and to overthrow,

to build and to plant.’

11 The word of the Lord came to me, saying, ‘Jeremiah, what do you see?’ And I said, ‘I see a branch of an almond tree.’ ¹²Then the Lord said to me, ‘You have seen well, for I am watching over my word to perform it.’ ¹³The word of the Lord came to me a second time, saying, ‘What do you see?’ And I said, ‘I see a boiling pot, tilted away from the north.’

14 Then the Lord said to me: Out of the north disaster shall break out on all the inhabitants of the land. ¹⁵For now I am calling all the tribes of the kingdoms of the north, says the Lord; and they shall come and all of them shall set their thrones at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, against all its surrounding walls and against all the cities of Judah. ¹⁶And I will utter my judgements against them, for all their wickedness in forsaking me; they have made offerings to other gods, and worshipped the works of their own hands. ¹⁷But you, gird up your loins; stand up and tell them everything that I command you. Do not break down before them, or I will break you before them. ¹⁸And I for my part have made you today a fortified city, an iron pillar, and a bronze wall, against the whole land—against the kings of Judah, its princes, its priests, and the people of the land. ¹⁹They will fight against you; but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, says the Lord, to deliver you.

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

INTRODUCTION — UNEXPECTED VISITORS

Few things can throw us off like unexpected visitors. But a lot depends on what kind of visitor arrives unexpectedly. Uncle Nino, the delightful movie that has been debuting here in Grand Rapids, tells the story of the unexpected visit of Uncle Nino. Uncle Nino suddenly arrives from Italy to visit his nephew and his family in Chicago. But, for an unexpected visitor, Uncle Nino is pretty fun to have around. Even though many things are less than perfect in his nephew’s family – in fact, many things are downright dysfunctional — Uncle Nino is always smiling and everything is Bella, Bella. A visit is a lot easier to take if the visitor is always upbeat, positive, smiling. You can’t help but love Uncle Nino.

While watching the movie, Uncle Nino, I couldn’t help but compare Uncle Nino to some of my own European uncles from the Netherlands. One uncle in particular, my Frisian Uncle Lolle, is about the exact opposite to Uncle Nino. Where for Uncle Nino everything in America is Bella Bella, for my Uncle Lolle, nothing in America is Bella Bella:

The coffee is too weak.

The cheese is too orange.

The summers are too hot.

The cars are too big.

And it takes forever to travel anywhere.

But the worst thing, for Uncle Lolle, is that everyone here speaks English. That is the biggest problem with America – they all speak the wrong language. But Uncle Lolle had a solution for that. In his native Frisian language, he said to me, “Mike, I don’t need to learn any English. No, all I need to do is speak Frisian loudly and slowly enough, and eventually everybody understands what I’m saying.”

JEREMIAH’S UNEXPECTED VISITOR

In the 13^th year of King Josiah, Jeremiah received an unexpected visitor.

The word of the Lord came to him.

And that word of the Lord kept coming — in verse 1, in verse 2, in verse 4, in verse 11, in verse 13, and throughout this book of Jeremiah, the longest book of the Bible.

The disturbing thing about these visits from the Word of the Lord is that they were more like the visit of Uncle Lolle than Uncle Nino. The word of the Lord does not come saying Bella Bella. The word of the Lord comes to Jeremiah telling him that very little is Bella Bella:

Judah’s faith was too weak,

her worship too artificial,

her love for idols too hot,

her assumption that God would always save them, too big,

for one day soon, Jerusalem was going to be destroyed and taken captive.

But the hardest thing, the hardest thing about these visits was that Jeremiah was given the job of speaking this hard message to Jerusalem loudly and slowly enough until everybody understood.

RELUCTANT PROPHET

It is clear that Jeremiah didn’t want the job.

It is clear that Jeremiah wanted the word of the Lord to visit someone else.

“I’m not a very good public speaker” Jeremiah protested.

“And I’m way too young,” he added.

“I haven’t got the skills or the status for this job.”

But God refused to take NO for an answer.

The fact that the word of the Lord intrudes upon Jeremiah four times in this chapter alone shows the persistence of God

The word of the Lord also doesn’t negotiate with Jeremiah.

There is no watering down of the message.

In a string of 6 verbs, the word of the Lord summarizes Jeremiah’s job as

uprooting and tearing down;

destroying and overthrowing;

building and planting.

4 out of the 6 tasks are about judgment, destruction, and death.

Then, to confirm this call, to confirm that Jeremiah was on the same wave-length, the word of the Lord asks Jeremiah

What do you see?

“An almond tree”, Jeremiah responds.

“Good”, says the Lord, “for I am watching to see that my message is delivered.”

Why an almond tree?

Because the word for almond tree in Hebrew is shaqued.

And the word for watching is shoqued.

This is a little poetic play on words.

It would be like Jeremiah saying, “I see a pear tree.”

“Good” says the Lord, “For I am peering down on you making sure my

message is delivered.”

Again the word of the Lord comes to Jeremiah.

What do you see?

Jeremiah answers, “A boiling pot tilting from the north.

“Good”, says the Lord, “you have the content of the message correct

because the destruction of Jerusalem will be coming from the north, from Babylon.

Now, don’t just sit there, get up, get ready, tighten your belt, tie your shoes, get ready to follow me, and do not be afraid.”

THE WORD OF THE LORD — THE CROSS WE CARRY

The Word of the Lord comes to Jeremiah in the 13^th year of King Josiah and it is not the gentle whisper that the prophet Elijah heard years before on the mountain. The Word of the Lord Jeremiah hears is louder, harsher, more shrill. It is almost a bark meant to wake people up from their spiritual sleepiness; meant to cause them to turn around in repentance before the impending doom.

And Jeremiah is to do this shouting, this barking.

Jeremiah is called to be a bulldog.

Jeremiah has received this intrusive word,

and he is called to go out and become an intrusive prophet,

to people who do not want to see him

and to people who do not want to hear him.

COST

There is good reason Jeremiah does not want to answer this call.

There is good reason Jeremiah does not want to carry this message.

It is going to mean sacrifice and suffering.

He will not be allowed to marry or have children in his role as a prophet (16:1)

He will have very few friends – only 4 people in this whole book treat Jeremiah with any degree of kindness.

He will be persecuted.

He will be rejected.

He will be despised.

Sound like someone else you know?

Carrying the word of the Lord always comes at a cost.

That reminds me of something Jesus said:

If anyone would come after me, they must deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow me.

The cross we carry is the word of the Lord.

The word of the Lord is both the worst news and best news to carry.

It is the bad news of sin and the good news of salvation.

It is the hard news of God’s anger and the gentle news of God’s mercy.

It is the tough news of uprooting and the hopeful news of planting

It is the dark news of death and the welcome news of life

It is the painful news of crucifixion and the surprising news of the resurrection.

It is the difficult news about dying to our old self and redemptive news of rising to our new self.

JEREMIAH AS OUR LENTEN COMPANION

This season of Lent, we will have Jeremiah as our companion as we journey to Jerusalem and the cross. This is a warning: Jeremiah will not be the easiest traveling companion.

Where we think we are doing just fine, Jeremiah is going to tell us to drop the façade that we can manage our life just fine.

Where we think that our deepest spiritual need is for a friend to affirm our choices,

Jeremiah is going to tell us our greatest need is for a Savior to rescue us from our sin.

Where we think the garden of our life looks pretty good, pretty healthy,

Jeremiah is going to tell us that a lot of weeds need to be uprooted and a lot of soil needs to be overturned before the seed of the kingdom can be planted and the fruit of the Spirit can fully ripen in our lives.

That is the work of the intrusive word.

The word intrudes into homes that do not want to hear it,

and into lives that do not want to receive it.

It is a surgeon’s scalpel that slices away the cancer so that healthy tissue can

thrive.

It is the pruning hook that cuts away the dead wood so that new life can

come.

The intrusive word always has a sharp edge.

THE INTRUSIVE WORD

This was made all too clear to me early on in my ministry.

I had just finished Seminary. I was serving my first church in Ontario.

I was young. I was inexperienced. I was terrified — by everything.

Then I received a visit from neighbors of a young family in our church.

They came with a burden.

They loved their neighbors, members of the church I was serving, but they knew something was terribly wrong.

When the husband was at work and children were at school, another man kept visiting this wife and mother. These neighbors were worried and afraid.

Now I was worried and afraid.

The last thing I wanted to do was visit this woman.

How does one nonchalantly say, “Yes, I’d like to visit because I believe you are having an affair.”

I wanted to tell these neighbors – I’m just out of seminary, I can’t do this.

I wanted to suggest finding some other minister to do the job.

But this word, this intrusive word, had visited me.

I telephoned an elder I could trust with confidentiality.

We visited the woman.

We said we knew about the other man who made regular, too regular visits.

We said we were worried for her, for her husband, for her children.

We said this needed to stop.

We asked if she was able to stop it.

We asked if she needed help stopping it, counseling, support.

We prayed with her.

I was sweating buckets the whole time. I hate confrontation.

That night I could hardly fall asleep.

When I finally fell asleep, the phone rang.

It was about 1:00 in the morning.

I got up, answered it.

The voice on the other end was the woman we had visited.

“Thanks for ruining my life” she said, and hung up.

I went back to bed, but not back to sleep.

CONCLUSION

The word of the Lord is not always a welcome visitor.

The word comes to uproot and tear down,

to destroy and overthrow.

But there is no way to the restoration of Jerusalem but through its destruction.

There is no way to the resurrection but through the cross.

There is no way to salvation, but through repentance.

There is no way of living, except that we deny ourselves, pick up our cross and follow Christ

There are no short-cuts, no detours, no other more scenic routes.

Are you ready for a visit from the word of the Lord?