JEREMIAH 18:1-11
In the name + of Jesus.
The prophet Jeremiah preached in Jerusalem in the years leading up to its destruction by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. That destruction had been threatened already back in the days of Moses, some 900 years prior. Moses had warned, “If you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you. …The Lord will bring you and your king whom you set over you to a nation that neither you nor your fathers have known. And there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone. And you shall become a horror, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples where the Lord will lead you away” (Deuteronomy 28:15,36-37). The warning Moses issued is much longer, taking up most of Deuteronomy 28. God’s warning was stern, vivid, and disturbing.
Jeremiah was called to proclaim that
warning and that curse against a nation who had turned away from the Lord. The people of Jerusalem were convinced that
they were fine. They even had prophets
who told them so. But Jeremiah was
charged to tell the people that their status as God’s chosen nation would not save
them from judgment. Calling themselves
God’s chosen people did not excuse their sin.
Walking into God’s temple would not deliver them or their temple from
destruction. If your confession is one
thing and your actions are another, you dishonor God’s name and despise his
word. Even the world mocks you for that. But this is the way it was for most of the people
in Judah and Jerusalem. God’s patience had run out. Moses’ warning was soon to become reality.
Jeremiah was given a visual illustration
for the people of Jerusalem. The Lord
told him to go to the potter and watch him make a vessel on a spinning wheel. As he spun the wheel and shaped the clay, it
fell apart in his hand. Rather than wad
up the clay and throw it out, “he reworked it into another
vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do” (Jeremiah 18:4). Now, if a potter has the
right to do this with his clay, the Lord has the right to re-form his Church
when it has been corrupted too.
Therefore, Jeremiah
spoke to the people of Judah and Jerusalem the word of the Lord: “If at any
time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and
plant it, and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I
will relent of the good that I had intended to do to it. Now, therefore, say to the men of Judah and
the inhabitants of Jerusalem: ‘Thus says the Lord, Behold, I am shaping disaster against
you and devising a plan against you. Return, every one from his evil way,
and amend your ways and your deeds’” (Jeremiah 18:9-11). Sadly, these
Israelites were so ensnared by their sins that they refused to repent. They did not amend their ways. Therefore, the judgment came, and the nation was
uprooted.
There was some good news, however. The Lord would re-form his Church. Through judgment and captivity, God would
refine his Church. It would be re-formed
into a remnant of people who would listen to the word of the Lord and who would
order their lives according to it. In
this way, the Lord preserved the nation and, more importantly, the promise that
the Messiah would come through them.
On Reformation Sunday, we rejoice that the
Lord re-forms his Church when it becomes corrupt. The corruption which invades the Church is
always the result of the same thing—people stop taking the word of the Lord to
heart. The problem may rest with the
preachers or the people. St. Paul warned
Timothy, “The time is
coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching
ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will
turn away from listening to the truth” (2 Timothy 4:3-4). The people will want preachers who do not
expose sins and call them to repent. And
they will find preachers who are willing to tell them what they want to
hear. This is all hidden under the
veneer that a loving and gracious God would not condemn anyone. To preach that and to believe that is to
ignore large portions of the Bible. But
even if we would not take God’s Law seriously, he surely does! His Commandments are not negotiable, and his threats
are not empty.
In the days of Martin Luther, God was not portrayed
as a loving and gracious God who poses no real threat. He was portrayed as an angry judge before whom
you had better do the works he demands or be damned. The only hope given to the faithful was to run
to the Church who would supply you with just enough grace to do a little
better. This was done for a price. You could pay to have a special Mass spoken
in your name to gain favor with God. You
didn’t even have to be there, as long as the money was given and the priest did
the work. If you wanted to be spared
suffering after death, you could purchase an indulgence which excused you from
years of torment in purgatory. Eventually,
the question was asked, “If the Pope has the authority to release people from
purgatory, why doesn’t he do it for free?”[1] Now, God’s word does not speak of purgatory. Much less does God’s word tie salvation to
monetary donations.
So, God re-formed his Church. Rather
than crumple the whole thing up and start over, the Lord was pleased to raise
up people who did read the Scriptures and preach them. Over the years, some of them were condemned
for this—men such as John Wycliffe (1320’s–1384) from England and Jan Hus (1372–1415) from Bohemia. God raised up more preachers like them, most
notably Martin Luther (1483–1546). What resulted from
their Scriptural preaching was people turning to the Scriptures instead of the
traditions of men. It meant trusting in
a Savior who paid for their sins instead of their own payments for Masses,
pilgrimages, and indulgences. It meant
that troubled souls found peace. But it also
meant a loss of funding for the Pope’s projects. That’s when the persecution really
began.
After a few years, Martin Luther was one of the preachers who was brought
before governors and kings to make the good confession. For his confession, he was declared an
outlaw. But through preachers who read
the word of God, took it seriously, and preached it faithfully, the Lord
reformed a remnant of his Church who rejoiced in salvation freely given. To them, Jesus was finally revealed as a
loving Savior who accomplished everything for our forgiveness and salvation. To them, comfort was given to fearful hearts
and assurance was given for the day of Judgment. And you, dear Christians, are the beneficiaries
of such Reformers. God, who was pleased
to re-form his Church, has also been pleased to preserve that Gospel among us.
I suppose this could become a cause for pride, but it should not. Remember, the Church was corrupted from
within—from people who craved a different message and from pastors who were
willing to give it. Although Jeremiah
had been a faithful prophet, he was not popular. Jeremiah proclaimed, “Return, every one from his evil way, and amend your
ways and your deeds” (Jeremiah 18:11); the
people responded, “That is hopeless! So we will walk
according to our own plans”
(Jeremiah 18:12),
and they found the preachers who emboldened them to do this.
While it is true
God re-forms his Church, it always begins with each of us individually. We are grieved by every scandal which rocks
the church and by every teacher who points people to themselves instead of to
Jesus. You may wish you could fix
that. But you can’t. It is like people who want to change the
world. They can’t. For example, you can’t make the whole world recycle,
but you can make sure you do. In the same
way, many Christians are abandoning God’s word. They take their direction from science, from popular
ideas, or from their own feelings. You
can’t prevent that. But you can be sure
that you are listening to God’s word and applying it to your own life. After all, you will not be judged for anyone
but yourself.
God’s word shows
us the corruption and the warping of our own feelings, thoughts, and life. Just as the clay could not fix itself,
neither can we fix our sinful condition.
God must re-form us according to his good pleasure. He does.
Jesus has rescued us from our corrupt and warped condition. He has taken our sin and so was cursed for
us. He credits us with his innocence so
that we are pleasing to God. He puts to
death the sinner in baptism, and he raises us up a new creation. He takes those who were unwilling to listen
and to do his will and converts us into those who are willing. He changes us into noble vessels into whom he
has poured his Holy Spirit. The Holy
Spirit transforms our minds and hearts.
He teaches us to love God’s word and guides us to reform our lives
according to it. St. Paul wrote, “It is God who works in you, both to will
and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13). This
is how God re-forms you, and it is how God re-forms his Church.
This re-forming is a continual process.
We are never done. As long as we
are in this world, we will battle against temptations. We can still be deceived by smooth-sounding
words, especially when those words excuse us and our loved ones when we are straying
from God’s word. We are still vessels of
clay on the potter’s wheel. God must continue
to work on us so that we do not revert to being warped and corrupted.
God re-forms his Church. The work
is always done by God’s word being rightly taught and confessed. The Church that is faithful does not demonstrate
it by how moral the people are, by how happy the people are, or by how successful
the people are. The Church that is faithful
is the one who rightly teaches God’s word and rightly administers the
sacraments. If that is done, it may well
produce people who are moral and happy.
God’s people may prosper, or they may not. Jeremiah didn’t. But morality, happiness, and prosperity don’t
save anyone. Only the word of God produces
saving faith. This is how God re-forms
and reshapes us for our own good. This
is how God refines his Church so that it will never perish.
Rather than boast about retaining God’s pure word, as if we by our strength
have done it, let us offer up our humble prayer instead: God, grant us to keep
your word pure so that you may keep your people pure.
[1] "Why does not the pope empty purgatory, for the sake of holy love and of the dire need of the souls that are there, if he redeems an infinite number of souls for the sake of miserable money with which to build a Church? The former reasons would be most just; the latter is most trivial." (Thesis #82 of Martin Luther’s 95 Theses, posted on October 31, 1517)
