Etch-a-Sketching a Future and a Hope

Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7

These are the words of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the remaining elders among the exiles and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.

Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

Sermon

The prophets of the Hebrew Bible had a big, big responsibility on their shoulders. They were to speak on behalf of God, and they were also to serve as checks and balances to the monarchy. Those two things typically didn’t play well together — we see again and again that kings have a habit of disregarding both God and people. Beyond the inherent danger of truth-telling, prophets were saddled with a message that had to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. That is, prophets were given the responsibility for a message that was sweet as honey and sour as vinegar.

Oftentimes, their oracles had clear boundaries between the honey and the vinegar. There would be “woes,” followed by opportunities for blessings, or there would be oracles of hope for those who were impoverished and destitute; sometimes, the message was only vinegar, typically as a result of a king’s profanity and the callousness of a people.

Jeremiah is unlike many of the prophets, and his message is unlike many others. Jeremiah is illiterate, making him reliant on the scribe Baruch. Jeremiah is from a backwater town, without an exquisite pedigree, and he didn’t come from the highest ranks of the temple. He was an outsider in every sense. And so, because of this peculiarity, the prophecies delivered by Jeremiah have a certain outsider perspective. 

We hear in today’s passage that this odd message is written in Jerusalem as a letter, which was then sent far away to its intended audience. The Babylonian Empire descended upon Judah—the very last stronghold of the Hebrew people—desecrated its temple, entered into its homes, and then forcibly removed them to a far-off, foreign land. Jeremiah, though—always an outsider—was spared. But once again, on his own. Now he was prophesying to a people he could not see or know.

That leads us to a word of the Lord that is unexpectedly, simultaneously honey and vinegar. It leads us to the hope that even in the exile of our lives—when life no longer looks like our expectations—God calls us to shake the etch-a-sketch of our lives and start again.

Just as it is both honey and vinegar, it is also a word to the exiles and Jeremiah. We sometimes think of the prophets as objective, super-human characters. But here today, Jeremiah and Baruch are given a word of the Lord that might be their last. It might be a bit of a goodbye, at least for now, while the story of their lives diverges from the story of their people. This word, which is honey and vinegar, is a pastoral epistle of sorts.

“[There is] hope that even in the exile of our lives—when life no longer looks like our expectations—God calls us to shake the etch-a-sketch of our lives and start again.”

Let’s start with the vinegar. This divine message is probably not what the exiles wanted. After the trauma of their forced removal, after being taken to a foreign land, and after witnessing their homes and temple razed, the exiles probably wanted a message that assured them that it was temporary and ephemeral. They probably wanted assurance that this evil in their lives, and this seemingly-insurmountable grief was only for a moment. They wanted to know they could just hang on a little longer, and things would work out.

What they receive instead is a message confirming their fears: this was not a situation they could wait out. It would be generations before help would be on the way. God wasn’t asking them to hang on, to expectantly wait like the Advent season; God was telling them it’s time to let go of the dreams you had. Let go of what you expected for your life, or your children’s lives, or your grandchildren’s lives. Clear the board and start over.

God, in short, tells the exiles what type of challenge is ahead of them. For us, when we face challenges—whether it’s the death of a loved one or selling a house—I think there are at least three categories:

• There are challenges that we must outlast — that in time, will resolve.

• There are challenges that we must act on — that won’t resolve unless we do something.

• There are challenges that we must manage — that might not ever resolve.

For example, grief is often a “wait out the clock situation,” one of those challenges that in time, will resolve. Finding a leak in your roof is a challenge that requires us to act. And chronic illness—or progressing diseases—are challenges that we must manage, that might not ever resolve.

God tells the exiles that in their lifetimes, this isn’t a challenge they can wait out, and this isn’t a challenge they can escape out of their own doing. It’s vinegar — the taste of a long, unavoidable challenge they have to manage, not escape. God breaks the news that their present circumstances won’t resolve in their lifetimes. It’s time to focus on managing.

“They probably wanted assurance that this evil in their lives, and this seemingly-insurmountable grief was only for a moment... What they receive instead is a message confirming their fears.”

That’s where the honey comes in.

We work ourselves into quite a few predicaments when we misjudge the type of challenge before us. If we foolishly think the leak in our roof will resolve on its own, or a rodent problem will resolve on its own, we’re going to end up with soggy walls and tiny presents in our kitchen. Or if we think that we can fix our grief, we might exhaust ourselves to the point of collapse.

God tells them that it’s time to manage rather than fix or wait out; God tells them to see the blank screen in front of them and start drawing a line ahead. And in doing so, the exiles find freedom. No longer do they have to try and “fix” the situation, work themselves to exhaustion, or pursue the impossible. No longer do they have to white-knuckle their dreams of the future, thinking that if they believe hard enough, they will wait out the storm.

Now, God says, they can shake the etch-a-sketch and start drawing a new life.

In this congregation, there are so many of us who have had to start all over. Sometimes, we have to start over because a career ended, or a business failed. Maybe it was after a divorce, the death of a spouse or child, or a secret being exposed. But for many people, sometimes the first life runs out, and we find ourselves in a foreign place.

If we hold onto that first life and all our dreams and expectations for it, we might find ourselves with an etch-a-sketch that’s broken. The wheels don’t turn, the black line doesn’t show up, and we’re afraid that if we shake it up, we’ll lose everything.

But ironically, to fix the etch-a-sketch of our lives, we have to shake it, and let go of the image on it. It is scary, it is emotional, and it is intimidating when we have a blank screen. It’s scary when we realize that a certain career path is no longer feasible. It’s intimidating when we have to learn how to walk again, or talk again, or think again. It’s emotional when we have to request another copy of a death certificate.

But when we see the image of yesteryear that we’ve drawn into the etch-a-sketch of our hearts, and decide to shake it until it’s blank, we realize that the knobs still work. We come realize, though, that when we shake the etch-a-sketch of our hearts, and let go of those expectations and images we imagined, that the knobs still work. We can still draw lines, and learn how to make circles, and fill in the white space.

So from this vinegar prophesied by Jeremiah, there is still honey that pours out. The exiles might not be able to wait it out, and they might not be able to fix it, but they can still draw a line forward.

God gives them a few hints, almost all of which involve celebrations, and almost all of which involve joy: build houses, unpack your moving boxes, grow a vegetable garden. Tell your children to go on a few dates; plan an engagement party; throw wedding feasts and then throw baby showers.

Once we shake up the etch-a-sketch, and we accept the reality of our circumstances, that’s when we get to have fun. Try drawing a new image, in a new style, with a different story. You can use that image you drew to give inspiration to the next; our dreaming was practice for the new dreams ahead of us.

That’s easier said than done, of course, and there will always be a twinge of vinegar mixed in. But God asks us to let go of our expectations of the past, not for the sake of punishing us, but for the sake of love. God asks us to shake the etch-a-sketch and start turning the knobs, because there is surely a future and a hope.