Investing in Hope
Presbyterians Sharing Sunday
Text: Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15
A mentor of mine once described the Presbyterian Church in Canada as a “Congregationalist church with a Presbyterian system of government.” He said it with a sense of irony, but with a hope that individual congregations would be able to overcome that tendency and look beyond their own walls. I was a student at the time, so I don’t think I fully got what he was talking about. More than thirteen years later, I’ve learned that there is a certain degree of truth to what he said. The Presbyterian Church in Canada at its ideal is an organization that collectively thinks on a regional level. When the reformers first started developing the idea of a Presbyterian-style way of doing things, the focus was very much an over-arching, big-picture kind of approach. Have a central court or council of ministers and elders from the congregation who would be able to oversee a vision for the city or the region that they were in. Think regionally was the vision…
Yet when put into practice, there always seemed to be this pull towards the local congregation. Maybe it’s just a natural tendency that we pay the most amount of attention to our immediate, local concerns. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but when we are a part of a church that also has a regional, national, and international scope, every once in a while we need to remind ourselves of that. Presbyterians Sharing Sunday is one of those reminders of how we as an individual congregation and individual members participate in that big picture. Yet, let’s be honest, it is harder to make a commitment to something that doesn’t have either an immediate or local effect.
Normally, I think, I’ve come to understand that it’s not really a good idea to invest in something that one will not see or benefit from in our own lifetime. We usually like a rate of return that will ensure us a healthy retirement, or maybe even a way to bring that date a little closer. Even when we think long term, we are still thinking about something that we will personally see or experience. There are tremendous repercussions when investment is seen as leaving the community, and the political pressure to keep things local is virtually a given. An MP will lose their public office if they are not seen to be working for local interests. It’s difficult for any community to look beyond its walls, and I think it’s part of human nature that we are focused on our local concerns, and wanting to see a return on our investments… but in so doing we can really miss the big picture.
Injected into this discussion this morning is the story from Jeremiah.
Jeremiah was a prophet who preached in Judah around one of the most devastating events in Israel’s history. Up until now they had lived in relative peace for almost two hundred years… but it didn’t last. Another empire from the East had arisen and was beginning to flex their military muscles, and under the expansionist eye of King Nebuchadnezzar, the Empire of Babylon began to spread out and conquer the lands around them. Judah and Jerusalem were in their sights, and Jeremiah knew the horror that was coming. He proclaimed that Israel would fall, but nobody believed him. Just like Assyria had flattened the northern kingdom two centuries earlier, Babylon would come like the searing wind of a sandstorm… sweeping everything away in its path. Yet when everyone realized that Jeremiah was right… that doom was indeed coming… Jeremiah did something incredible. He goes to the king, and asks to buy land...
He was buying land on the verge of an invasion… he was about to invest money at a time where everyone knew that the property values were going to plummet. It seemed so completely counter-intuitive that the king and everybody else thought he was nuts.
It seems a bit weird, to be honest. In that in the face of an invasion from the east, in the face of the destruction of Jerusalem and the obliteration of the Temple, the prophet actually goes out property… Doing so at the very moment when all seems to be lost… that Israel’s hope for the future has been wiped off the map. But Jeremiah was buying land, redeeming it, even though its monetary value would be almost worthless when the Babylonians invaded. Yet it was an investment in hope in his people’s future… that with God, they would return one day, and would no longer be exiles. Jeremiah’s actions are more than an act of defiance, but also an investment in hope. He’s willing to look beyond his own immediate circumstance, and see the bigger picture of what God is doing in our midst.
When everyone else thought that he was crazy to invest in such a distant prospect, Jeremiah saw this as an investment of hope… that there was still a future, still a big picture that they would be part of. Jeremiah and the people of his day would not see it, but ultimately he was right. It would take almost one hundred years before people returned, and Israel was restored… but Jeremiah was still right to invest in hope.
As part of the conversation today, a passage like this encourages us to take the long view, to look at the bigger picture. Specifically, it’s the one day out of the year where we take a little bit of time and look at the very concrete ways that we are part of the bigger picture. How we are a part of a national church that also has an international connection with all of Christ’s church around the world.
Today we celebrate Presbyterians Sharing Sunday, as a reminder of that connection and investment that goes beyond our own walls. We give to and we participate in Presbyterians Sharing as a genuine investment that we may not see in concrete ways, and yet in being part of the long view, we are indeed investing in hope.
For clarification, Presbyterians Sharing… is the overall national budget for the Presbyterian Church in Canada. It is different from Presbyterian World Service and Development, which is the development aid and crisis fund that the national church administers. I think many of us get the two of them confused, because they are both associated with the national church. Presbyterians Sharing is what Presbyterian Churches in Canada contribute to in order to pool our collective resources and have a national vision for the work that we do as a denomination.
With it, we support the work of the broader vision of the church. There are mission personnel –clergy, doctors, educators, veterinarians, church workers, musicologists, nutritionists – working with church partners in many countries around the world. In Canada, there are mission personnel working in inner-city, native, refugee, urban, remote, and ethnic ministries. There are new church developments, youth ministries, justice work, ecumenical partnerships, as well as the training and support of new ministers… I would not be standing in this pulpit if it wasn’t for Presbyterians Sharing...! So maybe that’s one concrete thing that we do see as a direct result of our investment. Additionally, our investing in hope do genuinely help congregations all across the countries as we together seek renewal and growth in faith education, worship, evangelism, resources, mission education, and ministry with children and youth.
Jeremiah calls the people of Israel to a genuinely long-range, big picture vision. He reminds them of God’s call to them to invest in hope even if they know that they will never see the fruits of it… because that really long-range vision is a reminder that God is ultimately the one who is in control. Presbyterians Sharing happens to be a good example, because we contribute to it and are a part of it as a congregation in the Presbyterian Church in Canada… even if we don’t see the impact of it on a local level. Yet Jeremiah’s investment in hope is all about looking beyond the horizon… both the physical horizon, and the horizon of time. His proclamation is a reminder that God often calls us to invest in the faith that God will be there long after we ourselves are gone… working in ways that are far beyond our ability to imagine… and that alone makes it all worthwhile. Maybe we can look beyond the walls of our own time and space, and trusting in God, invest in hope.
Amen.
Text: Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15
A mentor of mine once described the Presbyterian Church in Canada as a “Congregationalist church with a Presbyterian system of government.” He said it with a sense of irony, but with a hope that individual congregations would be able to overcome that tendency and look beyond their own walls. I was a student at the time, so I don’t think I fully got what he was talking about. More than thirteen years later, I’ve learned that there is a certain degree of truth to what he said. The Presbyterian Church in Canada at its ideal is an organization that collectively thinks on a regional level. When the reformers first started developing the idea of a Presbyterian-style way of doing things, the focus was very much an over-arching, big-picture kind of approach. Have a central court or council of ministers and elders from the congregation who would be able to oversee a vision for the city or the region that they were in. Think regionally was the vision…
Yet when put into practice, there always seemed to be this pull towards the local congregation. Maybe it’s just a natural tendency that we pay the most amount of attention to our immediate, local concerns. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but when we are a part of a church that also has a regional, national, and international scope, every once in a while we need to remind ourselves of that. Presbyterians Sharing Sunday is one of those reminders of how we as an individual congregation and individual members participate in that big picture. Yet, let’s be honest, it is harder to make a commitment to something that doesn’t have either an immediate or local effect.
Normally, I think, I’ve come to understand that it’s not really a good idea to invest in something that one will not see or benefit from in our own lifetime. We usually like a rate of return that will ensure us a healthy retirement, or maybe even a way to bring that date a little closer. Even when we think long term, we are still thinking about something that we will personally see or experience. There are tremendous repercussions when investment is seen as leaving the community, and the political pressure to keep things local is virtually a given. An MP will lose their public office if they are not seen to be working for local interests. It’s difficult for any community to look beyond its walls, and I think it’s part of human nature that we are focused on our local concerns, and wanting to see a return on our investments… but in so doing we can really miss the big picture.
Injected into this discussion this morning is the story from Jeremiah.
Jeremiah was a prophet who preached in Judah around one of the most devastating events in Israel’s history. Up until now they had lived in relative peace for almost two hundred years… but it didn’t last. Another empire from the East had arisen and was beginning to flex their military muscles, and under the expansionist eye of King Nebuchadnezzar, the Empire of Babylon began to spread out and conquer the lands around them. Judah and Jerusalem were in their sights, and Jeremiah knew the horror that was coming. He proclaimed that Israel would fall, but nobody believed him. Just like Assyria had flattened the northern kingdom two centuries earlier, Babylon would come like the searing wind of a sandstorm… sweeping everything away in its path. Yet when everyone realized that Jeremiah was right… that doom was indeed coming… Jeremiah did something incredible. He goes to the king, and asks to buy land...
He was buying land on the verge of an invasion… he was about to invest money at a time where everyone knew that the property values were going to plummet. It seemed so completely counter-intuitive that the king and everybody else thought he was nuts.
It seems a bit weird, to be honest. In that in the face of an invasion from the east, in the face of the destruction of Jerusalem and the obliteration of the Temple, the prophet actually goes out property… Doing so at the very moment when all seems to be lost… that Israel’s hope for the future has been wiped off the map. But Jeremiah was buying land, redeeming it, even though its monetary value would be almost worthless when the Babylonians invaded. Yet it was an investment in hope in his people’s future… that with God, they would return one day, and would no longer be exiles. Jeremiah’s actions are more than an act of defiance, but also an investment in hope. He’s willing to look beyond his own immediate circumstance, and see the bigger picture of what God is doing in our midst.
When everyone else thought that he was crazy to invest in such a distant prospect, Jeremiah saw this as an investment of hope… that there was still a future, still a big picture that they would be part of. Jeremiah and the people of his day would not see it, but ultimately he was right. It would take almost one hundred years before people returned, and Israel was restored… but Jeremiah was still right to invest in hope.
As part of the conversation today, a passage like this encourages us to take the long view, to look at the bigger picture. Specifically, it’s the one day out of the year where we take a little bit of time and look at the very concrete ways that we are part of the bigger picture. How we are a part of a national church that also has an international connection with all of Christ’s church around the world.
Today we celebrate Presbyterians Sharing Sunday, as a reminder of that connection and investment that goes beyond our own walls. We give to and we participate in Presbyterians Sharing as a genuine investment that we may not see in concrete ways, and yet in being part of the long view, we are indeed investing in hope.
For clarification, Presbyterians Sharing… is the overall national budget for the Presbyterian Church in Canada. It is different from Presbyterian World Service and Development, which is the development aid and crisis fund that the national church administers. I think many of us get the two of them confused, because they are both associated with the national church. Presbyterians Sharing is what Presbyterian Churches in Canada contribute to in order to pool our collective resources and have a national vision for the work that we do as a denomination.
With it, we support the work of the broader vision of the church. There are mission personnel –clergy, doctors, educators, veterinarians, church workers, musicologists, nutritionists – working with church partners in many countries around the world. In Canada, there are mission personnel working in inner-city, native, refugee, urban, remote, and ethnic ministries. There are new church developments, youth ministries, justice work, ecumenical partnerships, as well as the training and support of new ministers… I would not be standing in this pulpit if it wasn’t for Presbyterians Sharing...! So maybe that’s one concrete thing that we do see as a direct result of our investment. Additionally, our investing in hope do genuinely help congregations all across the countries as we together seek renewal and growth in faith education, worship, evangelism, resources, mission education, and ministry with children and youth.
Jeremiah calls the people of Israel to a genuinely long-range, big picture vision. He reminds them of God’s call to them to invest in hope even if they know that they will never see the fruits of it… because that really long-range vision is a reminder that God is ultimately the one who is in control. Presbyterians Sharing happens to be a good example, because we contribute to it and are a part of it as a congregation in the Presbyterian Church in Canada… even if we don’t see the impact of it on a local level. Yet Jeremiah’s investment in hope is all about looking beyond the horizon… both the physical horizon, and the horizon of time. His proclamation is a reminder that God often calls us to invest in the faith that God will be there long after we ourselves are gone… working in ways that are far beyond our ability to imagine… and that alone makes it all worthwhile. Maybe we can look beyond the walls of our own time and space, and trusting in God, invest in hope.
Amen.
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