Do the Work and Sing the Songs (Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15)

The prophet Jeremiah ministered during a season of war and rebellion that ended with the kingdom of Judah in ruins and many of its people in exile, so it’s not surprising that the Bible’s books that focus on Judah’s story have a lot to say about his timeline.

Here are some of the important highlights from that history.

King Josiah was the first of five kings to rule Judah during Jeremiah’s ministry, and the last good one. After a time of relative peace in the surrounding region, Josiah’s reign came to an end when Egypt’s army marched against his kingdom and he was killed.

The next king was Josiah’s second oldest son, a man Jehoahaz, who reigned for just a few months until Egypt carried him away and his older brother Judah’s ruler.

Egypt wanted Jeremiah’s third king, Jehoiakim, to be their stooge, but he was so bad he proved why it might’ve been a good idea to give his younger brother first dibs on the throne.

Jehoiakim was a horrible human being and a godless tyrant.

When Babylon superseded Egypt as the regional superpower, he switched his allegiance to them, but then tried to switch back again, and ended up dead for his troubles.

His son ruled for three months and then Babylon hauled him away and made Zedekiah Judah’s last king.

This is how Second Kings introduces him;

Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he began to reign; he reigned for eleven years in Jerusalem…. He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, just as Jehoiakim had done. Indeed, Jerusalem and Judah so angered the Lord that he expelled them from his presence.

Quite an endorsement, right? Zedekiah did such a poor job as king that God threw him and everyone that followed him out of the room.

Zedekiah was also Jeremiah’s nemesis, stooping so low as to order Jeremiah to only say nice things about him.

Can you imagine? What kind of thin-skinned leader would do something like that?

Jeremiah, of course, refused and ended up beaten and imprisoned more than once, telling the king, in one stinging rebuke, “You’re so bad at this that even if Babylon only sent their wounded soldiers into the fight, they’d still beat you, and God would help them do it.”

That’s the kind of leadership and politics that shaped Jeremiah’s ministry–a ministry often associated with things like judgement, weeping, and doom.

And then today, we encounter this strange evidence of the prophet’s hope.

With Babylon’s conquest of the land imminent, Jeremiah bought a piece of land in his hometown.

The biblical account of this transaction is incredibly detailed. “I”s were dotted, “T”s were crossed, witnesses were gathered, and all the proper paperwork was completed, in duplicate, the Bible tells us.

It all seems so absurd. With all Hell breaking loose all around him, Jeremiah not only bought a plot of land at ground zero, but he also made sure that everything about the purchase was done strictly by the book.

“Seriously, Jeremiah,” a friend must’ve asked him, “aren’t there more important things to worry about than getting this signed right now?”

But the prophet explained,

Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Take these deeds, both this sealed deed of purchase and this open deed, and put them in an earthenware jar, in order that they may last for a long time. For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.

Defeated, the people of Judah were a mess. They were going through some things, and would continue to go through some things, but all wasn’t lost.

Buying the field was a way for Jeremiah to demonstrate his hope in the God whose steadfast love endures forever even as it adapts and evolves to reach, hold, and heal listless and wayward hearts.

Buying the field was Jeremiah’s declaration of faith that God would bring the people back to this place, but buying the field was also about Jeremiah’s hope and investment in his people. It was his way of saying that people and families who have lived through this would have a chance to lead good and peaceful lives again.

That’s why it was so important to him that he did his paperwork correctly.

After almost an entire career of watching God’s people lurch after empty alliances, and watching them forsake God and one another, and seeing them disrespect holy traditions and dishonor the poor, Jeremiah still believed that a hopeful future was possible, one in which the violent whims of kings no longer had the power to trump truth and where the honest ways of righteous people would bring order to their lives again.

After years of living under siege, of being under attack, of being tempted to believe that might-made-right and that invading armies possessed the only power that really mattered, Jeremiah imagined a scenario in which some future dispute might be peacefully settled by a bureaucrat or magistrate opening that sealed deed and declaring, “Whadda know? Jeremiah really does own that field. He bought it fair and square, so you can’t just take it from him–no matter how much money you have or how big a fuss you want to make”

That’s why the details of Jeremiah’s transaction are so important. They point to a time, beyond war and exile, when people commit themselves to, and blessed by, the ways that make for a peaceful society.

Like the prophet Isaiah who famously saw a future in which swords would be turned to plowshares and pruning hooks, Jeremiah saw a future where contracts and the testimony of witnesses were honored.

In other words, the prophetic hope was that a people who had only known and were still being shaped by violent surroundings would come to know, and embrace, and reap the benefits of real, and just, and transformational peace.

Take a look at the image on the cover of your bulletin. That’s Dreseden, Germany at the end of World War II, a city in ruin.

Now if that picture can be our stand in for Jeremiah’s Jerusalem for a moment, we can clearly see what an audacious thing it would be to preach hope in that setting and to say that those piles of rubble will be built into a thriving city again.

Jeremiah preached that message, but he also said that the people who lived through war and who had their lives impacted so deeply, would know what it’s like to live in peace again.

Buildings would be rebuilt, but so, too, would hearts and spirits.

And that’s still an important message for us, because we are a people and a nation that continues to be shaped by divisive and destructive forces that run counter to God’s desires for us.

We know violence and hate.

We know racism and arrogance.

We know self-righteousness and elitism.

We’re experienced with being sinned against and sinning, but God is calling us to reap the benefits of a life centered on and committed to sharing God’s mercy and love in all that we do.

God calls us to be the kind of people who care that Jeremiah had his paperwork in order because that’s a people who are willing to invest in each other’s wellbeing, trusting that God hasn’t given up on any of us.

Let me close with another example that I think illustrates the kind of hope for people that Jeremiah had.

This is a story told by Scott Alarik about Pete Seeger, the folk music legend and famed protest singer.

Seeger was invited to sing in Barcelona, Spain in 1971. Francisco Franco's fascist government, the last of the dictatorships that started World War II, was still in power but declining. A pro-democracy movement was gaining strength and to prove it, they invited America's best-known freedom singer to Spain. More than a hundred thousand people were in the stadium, where rock bands had played all day. But the crowd had come for Seeger. As Pete prepared to go on, government officials handed him a list of songs he was not allowed to sing. Pete studied it mournfully, saying it looked an awful lot like his set list. But they insisted: he must not sing any of these songs.

Pete took the government's list of banned songs and strolled on stage. He held up the paper and said, “I've been told that I'm not allowed to sing these songs.” He grinned at the crowd and said, “So I'll just play the chords; maybe you know the words. They didn't say anything about *you* singing them.”

He strummed his banjo to one song after another, and they all sang. A hundred thousand defiant freedom singers breaking the law with Pete Seeger, filling the stadium with words their government did not want them to hear, words they all knew and had sung together, in secret circles, for years.

Pete Seeger believed that even people who had known 35 years of fascist repression could sing freedom songs again.

Wounded hearts could be made whole again.

“Chords that were broken would vibrate once more.”

Buying a field was Jeremiah’s declaration of faith that God would bring Jeremiah’s people back home again to not only rebuild their houses, but their hearts, their minds, and their lives, too.

That’s why it was so important to Jeremiah to do his paperwork correctly.

It was his way of testifying that God had not given up on the people.

Jeremiah and Pete Seeger show us we shouldn’t give up on each other either.

May we, then, do the work and sing the songs that lead to peace.

Amen.