Have you ever met Jeremiah? He was one of those reluctant Old Testament prophets picked to take the bad news to God’s people. Those old testament prophets really told it like it was, blood, gore, and all. The messages were usually pretty much the same – threats of destruction because the people had strayed from following God.
Jeremiah had some pretty hard times, but he kept on warning the people and being ignored. Then, when the disaster was clearly upon them and they were about to be sent in captivity in Babylon, God tells Jeremiah to go buy a field just outside of town. Buy a field? There will come a time, God says, when the people can come back. You go buy this field as a demonstration that you believe in the future, no matter how dismal things look right now. Jeremiah, the good steward, buys the field and a couple of generations later, God makes good on his promise.
There are some parallels here with our modern situation. Things are pretty chaotic and it’s hard to know where to stand. What does a good steward do in these times? Loren Mead in her book Transforming Congregations for the Future suggests our call may be as prosaic as buying a field. “Our task is to go on holding on, studying and teaching the story of the faith, acting in service to the world, trusting God in the middle of ambiguity, refusing to back away from God’s claim on us. If we hold steady, God will provide the vision when the time is right…The first step in transformation has to do with attitude… [Like Jeremiah] our commitment must be large enough to acknowledge the winds of the storm we are in and go through the storm, not pretend it is unreal…we have new pages to write about what church is and how we serve.”
Jeremiah had some pretty hard times, but he kept on warning the people and being ignored. Then, when the disaster was clearly upon them and they were about to be sent in captivity in Babylon, God tells Jeremiah to go buy a field just outside of town. Buy a field? There will come a time, God says, when the people can come back. You go buy this field as a demonstration that you believe in the future, no matter how dismal things look right now. Jeremiah, the good steward, buys the field and a couple of generations later, God makes good on his promise. There are some parallels here with our modern situation. Things are pretty chaotic and it’s hard to know where to stand. What does a good steward do in these times? Loren Mead in her book Transforming Congregations for the Future suggests our call may be as prosaic as buying a field. “Our task is to go on holding on, studying and teaching the story of the faith, acting in service to the world, trusting God in the middle of ambiguity, refusing to back away from God’s claim on us. If we hold steady, God will provide the vision when the time is right…The first step in transformation has to do with attitude… [Like Jeremiah] our commitment must be large enough to acknowledge the winds of the storm we are in and go through the storm, not pretend it is unreal…we have new pages to write about what church is and how we serve.”
Jeremiah 32
This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD… The army of the king of Babylon was then besieging Jerusalem, and Jeremiah the prophet was confined in the courtyard of the guard in the royal palace of Judah…. Jeremiah said, “The word of the LORD came to me … your uncle is going to come to you and say, ‘Buy my field at Anathoth, because as nearest relative it is your right and duty to buy it.’ …I knew that this was the word of the LORD; 9 so I bought the field at Anathoth from my cousin …This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Take these documents, both the sealed and unsealed copies of the deed of purchase, and put them in a clay jar so they will last a long time. For this is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Houses, fields and vineyards will again be bought in this land.’
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