Delivered Sunday, March 18, 2018, at Trinity Presbyterian Church, Arlington, Virginia.
Texts: Jeremiah 31:27-34, Hebrews 5:1-10, John 12:20-36
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A few months ago, when I first met with Judith to talk about serving as an intern here at Trinity, I told her that one of my goals was discernment. I had spent two years in mission service, through the YAV program, and had spent a summer with our denominations advocacy arm, the Office of Public Witness. After seminary, I did more academic work focusing on faith-based peacebuilding, and as a result was primarily looking for jobs in the Christian NGO world, including advocacy positions in this area and more direct engagement positions in other countries. I was also considering a third option, getting a Ph.D. and going into academia. But, before I did any of that, I felt called to spend some time-serving a congregation. In all honesty, it’s a role I never really saw for myself, even one that I have, at times, actively resisted. Even in seminary, I always imagined myself serving as a missionary somewhere far away, possibly doing relief or development work, or possibly involved in some way with peacebuilding.
Peacebuilding work has been a recurring theme through the past several years as I have been engaged, in a variety of ways, in what Presbyterians like to call “preparation for ministry.” I have, time and time again, talked about reading James Michener’s novel, The Source, majoring in Religious Studies, and my first taste of Christian peace work when I was serving as a Young Adult Volunteer, or YAV, in Northern Ireland my first year out of undergrad. This was the narrative I had sold myself, and it is one that had carried me for more than 15 years, but before committing to it for another 15, or perhaps even longer, I felt something, something that I really hope was the Holy Spirit, pulling me into this building, demanding I take a look at serving in a congregational setting.
I’m very glad that I listened. I’ve only really seen a small slice of this work so far, and pieces of it are hard. I’m so glad I only have to write about one sermon a month…but I’m starting to look forward to a time when I’ll have to write more, and not just because unlike many missionaries and others serving in the international development/humanitarian aid world, Pastors don’t talk about working themselves out of a job.
Now, this is Arlington, so I imagine there are a fair number of you who are familiar with that concept.
I first heard it when I was serving as a YAV in Northern Ireland. The idea is you should be either solving a specific problem or training a local to replace you. At the time, I heard the phrase primarily applied to long-term missionaries, or in PC(USA) speak, mission co-workers
A few years later, when I was serving in Kenya, I heard much the same, but with application to international development and humanitarian relief work more generally.
As popular, at least in some circles, as it is, I’m not sure how seriously anyone takes it. I do know that most of the people I’ve heard express some variation on that phrase still have their jobs. One did retire, but he was, shall we say, at that life stage.
I think most people think about working themselves out of a job in the minimalist interpretation: I will strive to work myself out of a job in this particular place…so that I can go on and do the same thing in the next village, or in response to the next crisis. I know that when I was engaged in that work, we would often identify the next program or project site from the last, steadily moving from village to village…and there was always another village.
Peacebuilding is much the same way. Many conflicts are generational. In one of my classes at George Mason, a classmate quipped “The good thing about our field is job security…of course, the bad thing about our field is job security.” Just as there is always another village, there is always another conflict.
Now, I want to be clear, I’m not at all criticizing the people who do that work. 4 months ago, I wanted to be one of them. I remain grateful for the opportunity to have done that work and have great respect for those who do it, even as I am thankful that, at least for the moment, I’m not among that number. I’m happy to find myself here, with Trinity, where once a month or so, I get to stand up in front of all of you and hopefully draw a connection between ancient texts and a vision of a better future.
Except that, today, we’re talking about a passage from Jeremiah in which there are no pastors. The New Covenant which Jeremiah promises is one in which everyone has such perfect, inherent knowledge of God that there is no need for pastors, priests, prophets, or kings. This is a world in which, when God brings it about, to borrow a British phrase, there will be some redundancies. More plainly: I will be out of a job.
And not just me. in this world which Jeremiah imagines, no longer will there be another village, or another conflict to move on to. There will be no more structural problems extending conflict and poverty. This New Covenant is a stunning promise.
Now, there are those who have attempted to link the New Covenant of Jeremiah to Jesus and the New Testament. I disagree. I think Jeremiah’s New Covenant remains a promise for the future, in no small part because we still have pastors, presidents, and kings, though we don’t have priests, at least not in the way Jeremiah would have meant.
I think Jesus was doing something rather more complicated.
There are, of course, many links between all of the Biblical texts, and I am certain that the people involved in creating the Revised Common Lectionary, which suggests these texts for today, the 5th Sunday of Lent had many reasons for placing these texts together, but the link between the two that has stood out to me is this: Jeremiah imagines a world without priests. Paul’s letter to the Hebrews explains the way in which Jesus is a priest. In John, Jesus talks about the coming end of his priestly presence.
Or, because I like to think in terms of teaching, in Jeremiah, we imagine a world with no need for teachers. In John, Jesus prompts us to prepare for a world without the greatest teacher.
It is, after all, still Lent. I’m wearing purple. Liturgically, we are still talking of time in the wilderness, of the upcoming crucifixion. We are close to Easter, where we will talk of the Resurrection and its duality as both past and future, but we aren’t there yet. 2 more weeks.
Without this, John’s text would be truly confounding.
We open with the arrival of Jesus first non-Jewish disciples. In interpreting these ancient texts, there is always a need to go back and look for the pieces that have been lost over the centuries of translation and interpretation for those things that would have once been obvious but are no longer. We know from the text that these Greeks who came to the festival are not diaspora or Greek Jews, but are Gentiles. We can more easily see the link being formed between them Andrew and Philip, the first and third disciples named in John’s Gospel. There is even an echo of language in the verb “to see” because, in John’s telling of the calling of the Andrew and Simon, Jesus invited them to “Come and see.” And then, Jesus starts talking about planting and growing seeds. This is an incredible moment in Jesus’ ministry: he’s gone interfaith, as it were, with the arrival of his first Gentile disciples.
But then, a paragraph later, after talking about walking with the light while you have the light (Jesus clearly using the light as a metaphor for himself), Jesus goes and hides. It’s baffling. Walk with the light while you have the light, but for right now, you stay here, and the light is going over there.
This is in no way expected behavior. No teacher, at any level, walks into the room on the first day of class, talks about how important the subject matter is, then simply walks away leaving the students to teach themselves.
But Jesus knows this is not the first day of class. This is why he doesn’t talk about planting seeds and sowing in the way we are used to, with crops increasing hundred-fold, or the growth of the mustard seed, but instead talks about how, in becoming a plant, the grain dies. These new Greek disciples may have just arrived, it might be day one for them, but Jesus knows it’s time for Andrew, Philip, and the others who have been there from the beginning or close to it to start taking over the work.
This is why I don’t think Jesus death and resurrection brought about the New Covenant spoken of by Jeremiah. This is why I think Jesus did something more complicated, and more interesting. Jeremiah imagined a world with no need for teachers, prophets, priests, or kings, and Jesus does speak of that as well, but that’s something for the next Resurrection. Right now, we are in something different. Jeremiah imagines a world in which we no longer have to depend upon a limited number of human, and therefore flawed, teachers. Jesus sought to equip all of us to be effective teachers until such time as we no longer need instruction.
Jeremiah promises us a world with no need for development or relief officers, no need for missionaries, or pastors, but Jesus is preparing us all to fill those roles. The promise of Lent is not the imminent end of pain, suffering, or structural violence. The promise of Lent is that we shall have the strength, not only to endure but to serve one another.
We all have different ways of serving, and many of us will serve in different ways over the course of our lives, but the promise of Lent is that we all have the ability and the opportunity, even if, like me a few months ago, we aren’t quite sure how or where that will be.
The promise of Lent is that space exists for us.
Amen.