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Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7; Psalm 66:1-12; 2 Timothy 2:8-15; Luke 17:11-19

October 14, 2007

If we are faithless, God remains faithful – for God cannot deny himself.

I’m going to have a little fun to begin with here.

I got a little punchy while reflecting on exile – where life as you know it is put on hold.

But I promise this is going somewhere.

Just bear with me and we’ll get to a point

that I think the three readings today hold out to us.

There once was a woman who lived in a house.

The house was a beautiful house, filled with sunlight and color.

It was a sturdy house, well built with ‘hardy board’ and brick and insulated windows.

It was a welcoming house with a fireplace to sit by,

a back yard to play in, a cheery kitchen to prepare wonderful meals.

It was a cozy house, with bookshelves to hold favorite books

and comfy or studious places to read them, depending on the content.

One day, something happened to the woman

and she realized that as lovely as the house was,

its well-being and her well-being were not suited for each other.

When the mountains or the city would beckon her to hike or to explore museums

her large fenced backyard would say, “But you haven’t mowed me yet.”

When she wanted to spend her money on houses for the homeless or food for the hungry,

her house would say, “Oh, but you haven’t paid for all my bricks yet.”

And when she went out to visit people and in their homes

her kitchen would wonder when it would be

that pots would rattle and aromas would rise

when candles would flicker and glasses would sparkle.

But the kitchen remained quiet for days on end.

There were wonderful nooks and crannies where chairs and lamps waited

for her to settle in and read in the evenings,

But many times when she got home she had already read books and thought thoughts.

So she would come in, walk past the bookshelves,

settle in front of the only TV in the house and watch another episode of Law and Order.

It came to the woman that if she sold the house

to someone who would enjoy the yard and kitchen and nooks and crannies,

the house would be happier and she would be less conflicted about her priorities.

And so, up went the ‘for sale’ sign.

She packed up all her cookbooks and tablecloths and napkins.

She sold her lawn mower and wheelbarrow and fireplace set.

She disconnected her cable TV – and packed up the books.

And she waited for the house to sell.

And she waited….and waited….and waited.

Until one day the prophet Jeremiah sent her a letter from Jerusalem.

It simply said, “Bloom where thou art planted.”

She wrote the prophet back and asked in prophet-speak,

“Wast I mistaken? Dost God not want me to sell my house?”

“Dost not God desireth that I go hither to his lovely mountains,

and that I deliver his hungry children from famine,

and visit his beloved people in the situation of their abodes?”

The prophet wrote back,

“Bloom where thou art planted.

That which thou wouldst depart,

though thou wouldst leave it to seek the Holy One in high places,

The place thou wouldst depart is not a place uninhabited by the Lord God.

It is very meet, right, and thy bounden duty to bloom where thou are planted.

And so, for many generations,

the woman dwelt in the house in the company of God.

She unboxed her cookbooks, baked cookies to send to loved ones,

slid a few new books onto the bookshelves and reconnected her TV,

just in case there was a special on Public Television

that would be educational and informative.

She accepted a new fireplace set from a friend’s garage,

Just in time for the cool weather of fall.

And she grew flowers in a small flower bed and hired a lawn service.

All this silliness is to hear what the prophet Jeremiah actually did write from Jerusalem

to the people who were at the beginning of a long exile

far away from the place they believed God had intended for them.

Jeremiah wrote to them, in essence,

Don’t cease to live, just because you are far away from

the place you believe God intends for you. Build houses to live in.

Plant gardens and eat what they produce.

Marry. Have children and grandchildren.

Even if, God willing, your exile ends one day

and you have to lug them all back to your own land.

Multiply. Live. Thrive!...as Kaiser Permanente would say.

You may believe, and have deep faith, that God has other intentions for you.

And you may be right!

But, while answers and solutions may be yet forthcoming,

Where you are, God is. And where God is,…life goes on.

Meaning and purpose and hope are present where God is,

wherever you are, along the way,

no matter how long you move toward a goal,

God remains ever present to tend and care for you and prepare you for your future.

God does this one day at a time. So, bloom where you are planted!

Now, while Jeremiah had to urge the exiles to keep on living,

to get those seeds to bloom and multiply even if they would one day be transplanted,

the story in Luke is just the opposite.

Jesus is walking along and ten lepers call upon him to heal them.

He sees them, and he speaks to them.

And before they hardly turn around, they are healed!

As they are walking along, their disease disappears.

It’s like booking your house with a real estate agent

and as the agent is walking out to the curb to put the for sale sign in place,

someone drives up and makes an offer on the house.

2 Timothy is a letter Paul has written to his devoted disciple, Timothy.

Paul is writing it when he is near death.

He wants to pass on to Timothy the wisdom and experience he has

accumulated during a lifetime of ministry and mission.

Paul writes that he has suffered hardship,

even to the point of being chained like a criminal.

But, he writes, ‘the word of God is not chained!’

And Paul describes the constant abiding presence of God

that he has known in Jesus Christ:

If we have died with him, we will also live with him.

If we endure, we will also reign with him.

If we deny him, he will also deny us –

God will not force a relationship with us that is not mutual.

But even if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.

God’s nature is to give us the capacity to be alive, even to thrive,

whether it takes a long time – or an instant – for our prayers to be answered.

God is present, nurturing us, weeding us, fertilizing us, watering us,

wherever we are, no matter how long.

Even if he has to use water collected from sinks and showers during a drought.

God’s desire is that we bloom – and that we bless where we are

simply because if for no other reason, we are in the presence of God.

In any case,

whether our prayers are answered almost before we finish asking them,

or whether we pray generation after generation

for what we believe is God’s will,

Jesus reminds us of the most important part for each of us.

There was one leper, in fact the only foreigner in the group

who turned back to Jesus as soon as he saw the sores on his skin diminishing

and bowed down with praise to God and gratitude.

You can’t live with God, you can’t be near Jesus,

without having something to be grateful for.

For us who pray generation after generation for houses to sell and wars to end

and freedom to reign, our gratitude to God helps us to bloom where we are planted.

For us who experience immediate blessings, even miracles,

it is taking that moment to return to God with praise in our hearts

that we can hear him say,

Go on your way, your faith has saved you. Your faith has made you well.