We've Been Gathered Together

Jeremiah 31: 7-14
This is what the Lord says:
“Sing with joy for Jacob; shout for the foremost of the nations.
Make your praises heard, and say, ‘O Lord, save your people, the remnant of Israel.’
See, I will bring them from the land of the north and gather them from the ends of the earth.
Among them will be the blind and the lame, expectant mothers and women in labor; a great throng will return.
They will come with weeping; they will pray as I bring them back.
I will lead them beside streams of water on a level path where they will not stumble, because I am Israel’s father, and Ephraim is my firstborn son.
“Hear the word of the Lord, O nations; proclaim it in distant coastlands: ‘He who scattered Israel will gather them and will watch over his flock like a shepherd.’
For the Lord will ransom Jacob and redeem them from the hand of those stronger than they. They will come and shout for joy on the heights of Zion; they will rejoice in the bounty of the Lord-
The grain, the new wine and the oil, the young of the flocks and herds.
They will be like a well watered garden, and they will sorrow no more. Then maidens will dance and be glad, young men and old as well.
I will turn their mourning into gladness; I will give them comfort and joy instead of sorrow. I will satisfy the priests with abundance, and my people will be filled with my bounty,” declares the Lord.
Sermon
Why is it that we only appreciate things once they’ve been taken away?
That’s what’s so interesting to me about Henry Ford, the figure most responsible for the mass production of the automobile, which he produced at a cost so many could afford. His Model As and Model Ts, as well as his tractors, not only eased travel, but replaced the horse, donkey, and mule with the more reliable, never had to be fed or watered, automobile.
Some would say that, more than anyone else, Ford is responsible for closing one age and beginning another – closing the door on the time of small towns, dirt roads, slow work, and horse-drawn carriages – to invite us all in to the 20th Century – the age of speed, efficiency, electricity, and comfort.
But what is not widely known about Ford is that he spent the later years of his life spending his piles of money, not just on upscale living, but on antique collecting. He amassed so many signs of the age he helped replace that he was able to create a town time left behind – a town without electricity, no paved roads, and where no automobile could be seen or heard.
It was there that he sat, and when he was needed to guide the company he created and maintained, they knew where to find him, sitting on an old bench under a big tree, listening to the wind blow, not an automobile in site, and enjoying this small piece of “the world that was” before returning to the world he helped create.
Like the Israelites in Exile, he longed for what he once had now that it was gone.
The Israelites longed to be like the powerful nations they were surrounded by – to be like the great Assyrians or Egyptians – to be powerful and mighty – and so they adopted gods that were not their own, practiced the idolatry of abandoning the God who liberated them from the Egyptians’ oppression.
They turned away, and the God who they turned away from allowed the Babylonian armies to sack the cities and take so many people back to live in that foreign land.
You might say they finally got what they wanted – the opportunity to live as Babylonians and not Israelites – but we know that once they lost their homeland, once they were separated from their friends and families, plucked up from the land to live as foreigners, they longed to return to Israel.
While we have not lost our homeland – I’m confident that this notion of Exile is not completely unknown to us.
Those of us old enough to remember hot nights when we would have given anything for a cool breeze; and long, quiet, bored summer afternoons when nothing was on TV, now miss so badly that time – that time when we were forced outside, neighbors congregating on porches and kids playing together on the moonlit street.
Most of that way of life we have lost – and in many ways we have given it all away willingly – traded that community for air-conditioning, cable-TV, and privacy.
Besides the fortunate and the brave, we so often don’t know our neighbors; have never been in their homes and never them in ours. We are isolated, though surrounded by people, lonely, though the opportunity for community is barely a few steps away.
Gone, it would seem, are the days of kick the can in the street, neighbors at your door, ready to lend a hand or a meal during times of illness, to celebrate the birth of a new baby, to assemble, share memories, and help shoulder the burden of mourning a loss.
Gone are those days, left to memory, longed for by so many, but to return what was hardly seems possible, as our way of life has changed.
Those Israelites in Babylon must have felt the same way, their children growing up not knowing the old ways, adopting new ways of life, speaking a new language, replacing stories of the homeland in favor of the ways of the empire.
But hear the word of the Lord: “Sing with joy; shout for the foremost of the nations… See, I will bring them from the land of the north and gather them from the ends of the earth…they will pray as I bring them back.”
While our world still values being entertained over contributing, meeting your needs as individuals over fostering community, here, in this place, I have not only heard counter-cultural stories, I have myself been buried by casseroles in times of illness, been surrounded by celebration at a new baby’s birth, have prayed and prayed for those who are not blood but who are most certainly family.
It is so tempting not only to mirror our culture, but to judge ourselves according to it – to base our success or failure on our ability to entertain and meet ideological needs, rather than to judge our success on something that truly matters – our ability to embrace, comfort, and rally around each other – our capacity to gather together, forging friendships, bound together as one people in the midst of a world so prone to isolation.
How often have I been out to visit you in the hospital, only to be met by some other friend of this church just stopping by to say hello.
How many Sundays have we prayed together, even wept together?
I have watched as you have lifted each other up, nurtured each others’ children, and embraced as though you were but one family.
How many times have I been amazed by your capacity to serve those in this congregation during some time of need – filling up freezers, lending a hand, organizing a support network?
While the world seems to make it so easy to stay inside, convincing us, not of our strength but our weakness as only one person, here, in this church, God has called us out of Exile, brought us together to make us one body, one people, tied together again with bonds of love.
In a world so confused about what really matters – know that what you have here is all that really counts – here in this church you have each other.
While it is tempting to think that what we have is nothing so special, as we all know someone who has walked away in favor of something else, I tell you, it is most certainly a gift to be gathered here together.
Amen.