Help for Haitians (published in the Bennington Banner, 1/30/2010)

Interfaith Efforts to Help Haitians

The Rev. Jerrod H. Hugenot

            It can be unsettling to watch the 11 PM newscast, with the stories of Haiti’s struggle to deal with the after-effects of its recent earthquake.  The images flicker across the screen, drawing the world into age-old questions of suffering, the randomness of the world’s chaotic nature.  For some faith traditions, persons ponder questions of divine presence or absence when a major disaster strikes. 

            While we wrestle with the “why?” questions, the international efforts to coordinate disaster relief and humanitarian aid speak volumes to the good humanity can bring about in troubling times.  The same newscasts now turn to the stories of supplies and personnel being sent to coordinate care, admittedly with the inevitable concerns that not enough is getting where it is most critically needed.  Email and social networking sites bring stories otherwise unreported, sometimes of a loved one’s whereabouts, sometimes vignettes of the struggle at hand to find adequate food, medical help, and shelter.  The global village is pitching in right now, though I hear Newsweek editor Jon Meacham’s lament the U.S. has tended to care about Haiti, one of the world’s most economically challenged nations not that faraway from our mainland, only when “something really, really miserable happens there.”

            Locally, the stories of Haiti relief are remarkable. The Banner has covered a number of wonderful efforts by individuals and organizations in town. A Haitian living in the area remarked to me that the efforts are inspiring, a reflection of the human spirit at its best. 

            For local congregations, the Haitian earthquake has created a variety of responses.  I contacted fellow representatives of the Greater Bennington Area Interfaith Council to learn how their faith communities have gotten involved in the efforts.  For some congregations, Haiti is home to established programs and personnel underwritten by denominational and ecumenical agencies.  For others, this might be the first direct connection a local congregation has made with short or long-term aid and support efforts.

            Rabbi Joshua Boettiger notes Congregation Beth El is providing assistance through the American Jewish World Service (www.ajws.org).  The organization has established a Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund.  Direct donations to AJWS can be made online.

            Congregants of the First Baptist Church (ABC/USA) and the Second Congregational Church (UCC), both of Bennington, are sending funds through “One Great Hour of Sharing”, an ecumenical effort to support humanitarian aid, administered through their respective denominational offices and the ecumenical Church World Service.

The Rev. Mary Lee-Clark also notes the public is invited to help with creating “health and hygiene kits” for distribution by the Church World Service (www.churchworldservice.org).  The kits are simple to create.  In an one-gallon Ziploc bag, place one wide tooth comb, a hand towel, a washcloth, six band-aids, a toothbrush still in its packaging, a pair of nail clippers, and $2 for processing.  Persons can also donate money for kits.  Make any financial donations to “Second Congregational Church” with “Haiti relief” or “CWS Kit Postage” in the memo lines.

The Rev. Dr. Anita Schell-Lambert, rector of St. Peter's Episcopal Church, notes her parish, “has adopted a twofold response to the crisis in Haiti.  First, PRAY: Hold all of the people of Haiti, and all those with friends and loved ones in Haiti, in your prayers and secondly, GIVE: The most immediate thing Americans can do is give to the relief effort.”

Dr. Schell-Lambert notes, “Episcopal Relief & Development has disbursed emergency funding to the Diocese of Haiti to help meet critical needs such as food, water and shelter for those affected, and stands ready to support the country's ongoing recovery and rebuilding efforts in the days to come. For more information and ways to respond financially, including through the Episcopal Relief & Development, go to St.Peter's website, www.stpetersbennigntonvt.org and go to “Haiti suffers devastating earthquake.”

Many denominations receive donations throughout the year, creating a pool of money for domestic and international crisis situations.  The Bennington Friends Meeting (Quakers) notes the American Friends Service Committee has sent $100,000 already.  The Meeting’s representative Bain Davis notes the AFSC is already working on plans to help with long-term rebuilding initiatives.  Likewise, the American Baptist Churches/USA has distributed $65,000 out of its reserve funds for emergency humanitarian aid. 

Haiti is a place where U.S. religious organizations have had long established partnerships. (For example, American Baptists have worked in Haiti since 1823!)  The presence of dedicated personnel and cooperative U.S./Haitian partnerships has been quite helpful in this time of critical need.  Four long-term American Baptist missionaries assigned to Haiti for medical and educational work are coordinating medical care and humanitarian work in coordination with the Haitian Baptist Convention. Likewise, the United Church of Christ maintains ongoing efforts with Church World Service, the National Spiritual Council of Churches of Haiti, and the House of Hope.  Haitian churches across the United States, including the First French Speaking/Haitian Baptist Church of Manchester, NH, are becoming key places for Haitians to coordinate care.

The Bennington Unitarian Universalist Fellowship will be offering a Haitian dinner fundraiser.  The idea started with the UU Fellowship’s board wondering what they could do to make a difference.  On Saturday, February 6, the UU Fellowship will host the dinner, featuring a variety of Haitian foods ($15/at the door).  The proceeds will benefit Haiti Relief.  Call the UU Meetinghouse at (802) 440-9816 to reserve tickets. A Haitian Peace Quilt, handmade by a Haitian women's cooperative is also being raffled ($5/ticket) to raise additional funds. The drawing for the Peace Quilt will be held on June 15. Funds raised from the raffle will benefit both Haitian relief and UUFB social action work.

If you would like to help with donating funds or supplies via an area faith community, please do so! You will find religious organizations are often at their best when engaged in such important work. The generosity of local religious communities is well known through the common work of the Food & Fuel Fund and the support of the Bennington Free Clinic.  Likewise, when it comes to the rest of the world, our local interfaith community shares its love of neighbor with those near and far alike.

The Rev. Jerrod H. Hugenot serves as coordinating minister of the First Baptist Church of Bennington, Vermont.  To correspond:  fbpastor@sover.net

Remembering Baptism

Despite assurances to the contrary, the water was COLD! 

My family started attending church services when I was in elementary school. I was baptized in 1984 on the same day my father was baptized.  At the appropriate time in the service, we stepped out of service and headed to change for the baptism. We didn’t have white robes in the little Kansas church that baptized me.  They said to bring along an extra set of clothes and change in the men’s bathroom in the fellowship hall.

We stood there, taking off our dress clothes.  I was a bit nervous, taking my clothing off fairly quickly.  My father said, “Slow down, son.  They don’t baptize you naked!”

Years later in seminary, I read that some early Christians practiced baptizing persons naked and greeting the person as they rose out of the pool with new clothes, symbolizing the new life found in Christ.  I thought to myself, “Well, I guess I was technically correct….”

Over our four centuries, while keeping to a theology of baptism by immersion, Baptists have varied the ways in which such a baptism could take place.  For most of our 400 years, the idea of an “indoor” baptism is newer than we think.  Early Baptists in Philadelphia baptized persons using rocks out in the river as a place to stand.  Locally, First Baptist used Barber’s Pond until they decided baptism, even in the dead of winter, ought to be indoors.  (Talk about your “penguin plunge”!)  Baptists in the South might have used the sandbar out in the river as a place to have the baptismal candidates gather with the pastor.  As for the Baptists of Moline, Kansas, they put me on a cinder block, used only for baptizing children, so they could be seen a bit better by the congregation.  They used a heating coil to warm the waters, but as I said earlier, that water was cold!

Baptism…. We opt to drown sinners good in the Baptist church.  Baptism by immersion distinguishes the Anabaptist tradition among the Protestant movements.  Baptists, Mennonites, and a few others insist that baptism involves a high water bill.  In fact, in Amsterdam last summer, the Baptist World Alliance met at a Mennonite church for our 400^th anniversary celebration of the Baptist tradition’s origins in 1609.  The street sign said, “Doopsgezinden”, an old term, originally meant to be derogatory toward Mennonites.  If you want to understand us, call us “baptism minded” folks.

Despite the historical differences in the theology and ritual around baptism, the Church universal agrees baptism is part of being a Christian.  To follow Christ is to be caught up in the divine story of God and humanity, the brokenness brought about by human sin, and the strong desire of God to bring about humanity’s redemption.  We Baptists celebrate baptism as a personal act, as the individual affirms his or her belief in Christ as Lord and Savior. 

In our more ecumenically minded present day, most Baptist churches are welcoming of persons who were baptized otherwise.  Nonetheless, when you ask a Baptist about core beliefs, we will affirm who we are:  baptism by immersion, gathering around the table for communion, sparingly in comparison to the more Eucharistic traditions of the Church, and of course, we know how to throw a good potluck.

Each week, we gather together as the baptized people, celebrating and looking for signs of new life.  Though this particular day we have no persons to baptize, we display one of our baptismal robes as a reminder of our core belief in baptism by immersion. We will be on a journey through the winter and spring, learning more about our Baptist beliefs and heritage.  Most importantly, the older elementary students will be exploring Baptist beliefs through their religious education.  It is time to share with our children this story of our belief, now as they begin to reach the age where such decisions can be explored and made.  Such sharing is part of our calling:  to speak of our lives shaped by Christ.

Remembering the day of my baptism, I recollect the congregation had a practice of singing a number of hymns right after the baptisms took place.  Practically, this extended time of singing gave the minister a chance to get likewise out of the wet clothing and change.  I remember back to that day, and I believe this to be a good practice.  What better for a church to do than to sing of the faith gathering us together?

<WE SING>

Tomorrow, our nation gives thanks for the witness of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther, Jr.  Of the civic holidays, the King Holiday is becoming a time to celebrate King’s life and work, and many persons use the day not for “play” but for engaging in community service opportunities.  We’ll gather Monday evening at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship for the interfaith community King Celebration.  (They’ll have a potluck, so don’t worry, you’ll feel right at home!) 

Given the connections of today’s focus on baptism and the civic holiday celebrating a 20^th-century Baptist, I thought it appropriate to look for any stories related to King’s own baptism.  From Taylor Branch’s massive three volume biography of King’s life, I found a brief mention of King’s baptism, recalling:

In 1934, when a guest minister at Ebenezer [Baptist Church in Atlanta, GA] made a strong pitch for the salvation of young souls, [King] watched his [older] sister [Christine] rise to make the first profession of faith.  Impulsively, as he later confessed, “I decided that I would not let her get ahead of me, so I was the next.”  He wryly observed that he had no idea of what was going on during his subsequent baptism.  He knew the feeling of being special, and the intense pressure of churchly expectation, long before he had the slightest grasp of religion.  (Parting the Waters, America in the King Years, 1954-1963, p. 48).

The story chastens those looking for a bright beginning to King’s storied career and faith journey. King did not blossom without the upbringing in the context of a church community that embraced and helped him claim a sense of identity and voice.  That King became a national figure for Civil Rights and an enduring symbol for America at its best is well worth celebrating, but we cannot forget the formative influence of those waiting for him as he rose up in church and professed his belief or helped him towel off and change into fresh clothes when the day of his baptism occurred.  As King began his religious life a bit unsure and uncertain of what he was promising in his confession and baptism, it was the gathered people called “church” that helped him along his journey.

Along the way, our Baptist tradition has emphasized baptism as an individual and personal decision.  We have given less reflection to the communal implications.  We come to Christ each of our own choosing, however, it is the presence of other believers who help us grow in the faith.  The old proverb claims it takes a village to raise a child. In the Christian life, it takes a church to shape a believer.

After the waters of baptism, there is much work to do in shaping persons to grow in Christ. You see this in other traditions when catechism is offered.  Baptists likewise need a robust sense of religious education, and we are reclaiming this as we adjust our religious education to match our children as they are growing into middle school age.  We have to work hard to retain them as they become youth and demonstrate to them that the life of faith will help them as they grow up to be the next generation.  Who knows?  Perhaps we have a future King in our midst. 

In turn, the role of religious education for adults becomes important.  I am grateful we have restarted adult education at First Baptist, as we need to keep providing opportunities for believers to wrestle with the intersections of life and faith.  This month, the adult forum reflects on Jewish/Christian relations with Rabbi Cohen.  Beginning next month, we explore what it means to be a Baptist, and it ought to be a lively dialogue about our faith and the fruitfulness of exploring our heritage.  You’ll find it lively as the Baptist way is one of diversity.  In case you haven’t heard, Baptists don’t all think all alike!  Yet, we are all one in Christ.

The journey of faith begins with that decision which leads you to the pool of water.  What happens next is likewise up to you.  In Baptist history, much has been made what is meant by the Greek word for baptism, yet I am a bit curious by that word right beside it.  In the gospel of Luke, John preaches a baptism of metanoia, the Greek word typically translates as “repentance”.  More accurately, the word “literally means changing one’s mind or outlook” (Luke Timothy Johnson, The Gospel of Luke, Sacra Pagina, p. 64).  The change is not meant to be one-time.  Our baptism inaugurates an ongoing process of growth, adjustment and challenge.  We do not just “get saved”, as some Baptists traditionally say.  We are on a journey that begins with our yes and continues each time we keep saying “yes” to life in Christ.  

The Defense of Prayer (Ephesians 6:10-20)

The Defense of Prayer (Ephesians 6:10-20)

The story goes that Clarence Jordan, a mid-20^th century Baptist minister, Bible translator, and desegregationist, was given a tour of a church building just after a major building program had completed. One variant of this story claims the church could seat several hundred, just in the choir loft. Everything was made of the finest wood. The brass altar ware gleamed in the sun as light streamed into the sanctuary through stained glass windows. The building was honeycombed with classrooms, offices, and meeting parlors galore. At the end of the tour, while showing Jordan the fountains on the front law, with a grand wave up to the steeple, they pointed to the new gold cross high atop the building. “Dr. Jordan, that cross alone cost us $10,000.”

Jordan looked up at the cross, looked back at his hosts and said, “You know, there was a time when crosses were free”.

Go back to the New Testament era, and you will find Clarence Jordan was recalling a history of what happened to those early followers of Jesus. The early Church knew the cross less as a cherished symbol of faith and more a chilling sign of what Rome did to its detractors. The Palestine of the New Testament was under Roman occupation, and Rome kept its imperial might constantly on display. Until Constantine declared Christianity the empire’s religion in the fourth century (and that was not necessarily the best thing that happened to Christianity either), the early centuries of the church were times lived in fear of reprisal, persecution, or uneasy periods of toleration. Rome lived by the sword and made sure anyone who posed a threat was reminded that if you could not live by Rome’s sword, it was not going to be Rome who died by the sword.

So why does the Epistle to the Ephesians outfit words of encouragement to the faithful at Ephesus in Roman military terms and dress? The early verses (10-13) sound like a call to arms, Paul serving as a general, marshalling the troops. Then he describes the Christian as one dressed ready for combat in the unmistakable outfit of the Roman solider at the ready. Ephesians 6:10-20 sounds a bit less under the influence of Jesus and more echo of Roman propaganda. He claims the same mission objective as Rome: to proclaim a gospel of peace.

Now, wait a second, Rome had a “gospel of peace”? Rome had a prevailing self-image of its imperial might: Pax Romana (peace to all Romans). The empire declared peace to all, whether its peoples liked it or not. Underneath the politics, there was a theology at work. Rome set for doctrine: the gods favor Rome, and indeed, its ruler is of the gods himself. With its belief in Christ as the Son of the God, Christianity was at immediate odds with Rome. As John Dominic Cross and Jonathan Reed, two New Testament scholars, observe, “Caesar and Jesus were both destined for divine Sonship”. Rome and the Christians had two stories directly in conflict, and the question is posed: Which story will early Christians follow? Casear or Christ?

The key to Paul’s seemingly curious appropriation of Roman militaristic imagery is found in the person who writes the epistle. The voice of the general calling to arms, the one describing the attire of the mission at hand, is trapped in captivity, weighed down by manacles. Paul calls himself “an ambassador in chains”. What sort of fool thinks he can take on Rome, especially while under lock and key?

Back in my college days, I performed in a number of university theatre productions. I particularly liked the years when the director, the late great Larry Peters, may he rest in peace, would select a musical as part of the production season. I arrived back for my junior year to discover the season included “The Man from LaMancha”, a musical based on the story of Don Quixote. In fact, I got cast in a supporting role: Sancho, the sidekick, a comic relief type character in the play.

The story of Don Quixote revolves around an old man’s delusion that he is a great knight with a fine steed and a mission to chase giants, rescue maidens, and other generally chivalrous duties. In reality, he rides a tired old horse, and wears rusty armor. He tilts at windmills, thinking them giants, and most others think him mad.

The university theatre rehearsed the production on a very tight schedule. The duress of trying to learn lines, lyrics, and staging was quite high. Our sets were not finished until dress rehearsal. Our orchestra of volunteer musicians was not ready until the final week of rehearsals. It was a recipe for disaster, yet each night, as the company grew frantic with increasingly more last minute details, I found myself looking forward to each night’s rehearsal. Playing Sancho, I spent a lot of time on the stage at the side of Don Quixote. As the actor grew more into the part, I began to lose myself in the play, becoming the faithful sidekick to the hero and admiring the charisma of Don Quixote as he picked himself up again and again, disaster after disaster on his errant knight’s quest. Sancho could not help but love and admire the old man and followed him along the way. What seemed a disaster was a bold story of uncommon hope and courage.

So, what are we to make of Paul’s bold claims and the competing claims to divine Sonship between Caesar and Jesus. Crossan and Reed observe, “Although Caesar accepted [the claim of divine Sonship] as domination, Jesus accepted it as crucifixion” (Excavating Paul, 230).

In the midst of the New Testament, a clash of worlds and words is underway. Who is the divine power of the universe? (Rome or the God of Jesus?) Which gospel of peace do you take as “gospel”? To which kingdom do you claim your citizenship? First century questions of Christ and empire likewise challenge us today. Are you a citizen of this kingdom (whatever kingdom/nation-state you are located in or possess residential rights) or the kingdom the New Testament claims at hand and yet to come? If you find these questions difficult to answer, welcome to the task of reading the New Testament and living in the “here and now”. The gospels, epistles, and other New Testament writings will ask you questions of “empire” not easily answered.

I find Ephesians remarkable reading. Paul writes under house arrest, enjoying some privilege as a Roman citizen, but not much more than that. The chains on him are a constant reminder of the “powers that be” and their authority. Why is he so optimistic? Isn’t it time to break out the harmonica and sing the jailhouse blues?

Just as Jordan slyly tweaks churches with $10,000 crosses to show off, just as Don Quixote steels himself for noble duty in rusty armor, Paul calls the Christian to arms with a gospel rooted in peace. Paul evokes Rome’s might with the intent to undermine that sort of might. Ched Meyers, a New Testament scholar and activist, claims Ephesians is “the nonviolent call to arms” (Ambassadors of Reconciliation, Vol. I., Orbis, 2009). How can you wage anything close to a victorious battle when you are carrying just concepts? How effective is a person dressed in words going to be? Listen again: Paul says, dress with a belt of truth, a breastplate of righteousness, sandals able to carry the bearer far with the gospel of peace, a shield of faith, a helmet of salvation, and a sword that is “the Spirit, the word of God”? If you were a Roman guard serving as a censor to whatever letters went out of the prisoner’s house, you probably laughed yourself silly reading this. Quotations probably were read at the annual guards’ dinner as comic relief. Who does Paul think he is?

Paul believed that there were greater battles for the Christian to engage with powers greater than Rome. Ephesians speaks of Christians being called at the ready for battles with the evils within Creation itself. Life under Rome was just the surface of the problems at hand. Underneath the human realm lurked the forces of evil. Interpreters differ about how to explain such things, but good Christian theology is aware that the world is messed up, and humans (individuals and empire alike) only pull some of the strings. The “powers that be” take on many forms, yet the result is the same: they challenge God and God’s faithful and cause no end of misery and brokenness.

Richard B. Hays observes,
The weapons that are to be employed against these cosmic powers are not to be forged with steel by any human technology; instead, the war is to be fought with prayer (Ephesians 6:18) and with the renewed character of the holy community. (The Moral Vision of the New Testament, HarperSF, p. 65).

Paul calls the Ephesians to arms, though not ways dependent on violence to do their duty. To take your beliefs and the call to prayer sounds flimsy. How can you win with prayer? It sounds more like wishful thinking, yet recall the stories of the faithful, especially Christians who we call “saints”. Over the years, those who have kept the church’s witness alive through preaching, leading, and prophetic action, often at great personal challenge or at the cost of their very lives, would say down to a person that their work could not have happened without their strong belief in Christ and their ongoing practice of prayer. As Richard Hays observes, if the community of Jesus’ followers wishes to be ready, we will have to make ourselves ready. To persevere, you cannot go into the hurting world without your faith. Otherwise, you will not be able to stand ready.

Consider Clarence Jordan, who after he visited the church with the $10,000 cross got in his pickup and headed back home to Americus, Georgia where he lived with others on the Koinonia Farm. Life was difficult: the KKK arrived in the middle of the night to harass. Few local businesses wanted to risk being seen doing business with Jordan. Local authorities (civic and sadly church alike) said or did little overly supportive of Koinonia’s effort to live out racial reconciliation. How did they survive? It took that early morning prayer to face the rest of the day. It took that time in the discipline of Bible study. It took the prayers of supporters across the nation.

In a day where some folks built grand shrines to the $10,000 cross, Koinonia Farm was a “demonstration plot” where the gospel of peace could take root and grow. It might have looked like a ragged bunch of simple farmhouse buildings, owned by folks who felt constantly under the foot of oppression. Actually, it was boot camp for people to learn how to herald the Empire of the Divine Son and the gospel of peace. In such places, one learns how to believe in the One for whom domineering power is curiously unattractive, the One whose authority has been always declared by the most seemingly vulnerable, foolish, and ill suited of people. 

What Happened at #137 Bakkerstraat? (Bennington Banner column, 8/22/2009)

What Happened at #137 Bakkerstraat? 

By the Rev. Jerrod H. Hugenot 

In late July 2009, Baptist leaders from around the world gathered in the Netherlands for the annual meeting of the Baptist World Alliance. The BWA serves as a global network of Baptist denominations, conventions, and organizations. It is a miracle that so many Baptists are represented in this international effort. If you have hung around Baptist congregations long enough, you will hear the old joke: “If there are three Baptists in a room, there are probably also four or five opinions as well.”  

Despite the contrary-minded nature of its adherents, the Baptist movement is filled with many wonderful people, who are convictionally and globally diverse. The face of the Baptist family is multi-hued and graced with a blessed variety. Baptists are known for their commitments to believer’s baptism, mission, humanitarian work, and the defense of religious freedom. In recent years, the BWA has created the platform for Baptists to respond to global issues such as human trafficking. The BWA serves as the “Baptist” voice in Christian/Muslim dialogue taking place in various parts of the world. In North America, American Baptist leaders have led the way creating Baptist/Muslim engagements. Together, we Baptists do more than we can apart or under our own auspices. We are different, yet through the BWA, we embrace the common belief in “one Lord, one faith, and one baptism”.

This year, the BWA assembled in the Netherlands to remember our roots. The Baptist movement started in Amsterdam, where in 1609, a pastor named John Smyth and his congregation began practicing baptism by immersion and articulating beliefs we now identify as the first “Baptist” congregation. Smyth’s congregation found safe haven in Amsterdam, which had become a place for religious toleration by the late 16^th century. The congregation would later immigrate back to England in 1612, under the leadership of Thomas Helwys, establishing a church in Spitalfields, an area then outside the city of London.

The BWA held a celebratory service on the Thursday portion of the official program. We worshiped at a Mennonite church in Amsterdam, among whom Smyth’s group found friendly and likeminded folk. Some Baptist historians claim Smyth’s group was influenced by the Mennonites, placing Baptists and Mennonites together in the Anabaptist family of Protestantism. Indeed, we felt quite welcome as delegates entered the front entrance where the church sign told passersby this place was a “doopsgezinde” church. This word was used to describe Mennonites as their movement began. The word means “baptism-minded”.

After the service, a walking tour of Amsterdam was offered, touring sites significant to early Baptists. At #137 Bakkerstraat, the BWA tour met two Dutch Baptists dressed in period clothing. The exact history of the early Baptists is a bit of a puzzle, however, from the best records, it is thought the early Baptists enjoyed the hospitality and friendship of the Mennonites, including permission to use space at a local bakery owned by a Mennonite. The re-enactors told of the Smyth congregation’s activities here, where the group is thought to have worshiped and perhaps had living quarters. In the modern day, the bakery is long gone, now a quiet residential side street.

Standing at #137 Bakkerstaat, I felt a kinship with the Catholic going to Rome and the Anglican pilgrim on the way to Canterbury. For my Baptist heart, the simple setting of #137 Bakkerstraat seems befitting for a place where my faith tradition began. Here at this place, the Baptists began as “church” (lowercase ‘c’). I was quite moved to stand at the place where the divergent, wide river of Baptist convictions and spirituality began its course.

I said a little prayer of thanksgiving there at #137 Bakerstraat. In 1609, a small group of English dissidents worried about what the future held, safe for now, but yearning to return home. Four hundred years later, Baptists are the largest Protestant movement. Standing at #137 Bakkerstraat on this side of history, I behold the Baptists of 2009 as the many gathered from around the world, saying together the Lord’s Prayer in dozens of languages, working together on common ground issues, and gathering for table fellowship. (We Baptists are “well rounded” from our meals together.) For that little congregation, lost in the midst of the anxiety of what the future held, they persevered. They believed in the Christ who supplied their needs and gave them spiritual strength. The many who gathered in 2009 serve as testimony to the witness and legacy of these early forbears. While estranged from comfort and societal acceptance, they labored not in vain. Indeed, Christ was with them all along the pilgrim way.

The Rev. Jerrod H. Hugenot serves as coordinating minister of the First Baptist Church of Bennington, Vermont. Correspond: fbpastor@sover.net

What God Really Wants from Us (Jeremiah 31:31-34)

Last Wednesday, I shared with Kerry my idea for this sermon. Sometimes, I find chatting with my wife about various biblical passages in the lectionary to be quite helpful. I told her I would be preaching this Sunday from the greatest passage in the book of Jeremiah. Her response: “You’re preaching about Jeremiah running around in his underwear then hiding it under a rock?”

Not exactly what I had in mind....

The prophet Jeremiah is a strange figure, even in the midst of the many prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures. Indeed, the bit with the linen underwear, or loincloth, did happen. Read the thirteenth chapter of Jeremiah, and you will discover one of the many symbolic actions God called Jeremiah to undertake. Just as underwear worn for days, buried under a rock down by the river, then dug up later, so likewise ruined is the people’s relationship with God. God tells Jeremiah,

For as the loincloth clings to one’s loins, so I made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to me, says the Lord, in order that they might be for me a people, a name, a praise, and a glory. But they would not listen. (13:11)

Though tongue-in-cheek, Kerry’s suggestion of “Jeremiah and the ruined underwear” makes a lot of sense. Read this strange little story, and you get a taste of the overall book of Jeremiah, as the prophet rails against a nation ever disinterested in the ways of God and yearns for his people to return to God. His prophetic calling casts him into the midst of the relationship between God and Israel, where God forges covenants that the people will break, where God provides and the people rebel.

How do we hear these words? Seeing the conflicted world around us, one might argue we are not that far removed since Jeremiah buried his underwear. We live in a sin-fractured world, bloated by its greed and thin in its grace. Just as ancient Israel in Jeremiah’s day, the commandments lie broken and discarded in our own day. Without a doubt, the prophetic denouncements of Jeremiah could be easily a word for our day, and likewise, “the people would not listen”.

For instance, read the book Losing Moses on the Freeway. New York Times reporter Christopher Hedges shares stories examining how the Ten Commandments play out in American culture. Idols and idolatry are alive and well as he interviews persons so caught up in following the band Phish around the country that they began losing touch with reality. Follow Hedges to a neighborhood in New York where two bitter business partners now run ruthlessly competitive and petty businesses across the street from one another, and the Ten Commandments’ admonishment not to covet or envy comes all too alive and relevant. Like it or not, we learn that we are the same people as those who danced around golden calves of their own making, prone to sin, formed by habits of exclusion, selfishness, and greed.

From time to time in this country, politicians and jurists suggest placement of the Ten Commandments on federal or state courtrooms. Jeremiah himself would laugh, for he saw firsthand how kings and kingdoms rarely are bothered with such things. Jeremiah operated in a time of national upheaval, where most everything was in flux, yet the Temple and the monarchy, two elements of ancient Israelite religion, were the least likely places to find authentic worship and attentiveness to God. This particular passage of Jeremiah asks for a deeper understanding of following God’s ways. Instead of tablets of stone, God shall write the law upon the hearts of the people.

Why does God choose the heart rather than yet another set of laws as God gave to Moses. God knows humanity sidetracks easily into legalism. The monarchy demanded by the people was like all other theocratic experiments in history: something that did not last, despite claims of being “God’s chosen people”. Add to this the reality of human existence, where like it or not, humans have a hit-and-miss approach resulting more in the day-to-day brokenness of the world. Whether long ago or today, a Far Side cartoon aptly describes humanity: God is in the kitchen pulling a planet out of the oven. The planet is quite obviously Earth, and God seems a bit frustrated. “Hmmm. It looks half-baked.”

Despite our failings, God does not fail us. Abraham Joshua Heschel claims that the book of Jeremiah reveals the deep love God has for these people, even though they disappoint and stray. In the book of Jeremiah, Heschel claims we learn “as great as God’s wrath is [God’s] anguish”. (The Prophets, Harper, 1964, 110) The story with the ruined underpants serves as a glimpse into the wounded heart of God. While broken by infidelity, God has compassion in abundance, offering redemptive opportunity to bring the beloved people back into the fold.

Now we turn to the text I suggest as the greatest text of Jeremiah. Hear it again, now with some of the background story of Jeremiah in your minds:

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

In these verses, we learn of God’s great love for the people. Despite their complaining and their rebellious indifference, God will have the last word, and it is not one of dismissal. God will reorder things and bring peace to the restless heart of God’s people. There will be peace where otherwise strife would arise. There will be abiding love where otherwise distrust and worry would arise. There will be love where otherwise heartache would arise.

God promises there is something greater. Jeremiah does not speak “Surely the days are coming” wistfully. In the midst of proclaiming God’s anger and God’s anguish, Jeremiah speaks with certain tenderness and tender certainty. There will come a time where we will not need to hear or teach God’s ways, for they will be planted deep within us. We will not merely know what God wants. We will be who God wants us to be. No need to ask, second guess, or even interpret what God’s ways will be like. Grounded in God, we shall no longer need or want, worry or grasp for anything. Our vanities and anxieties shall go away, and we will be in God’s good hands.

While we wait that glorious day, we should take a cue from Jeremiah for how to live in the meantime. Jeremiah lived in the midst of the world, often in ways the world found perplexing. Persons who dare to take Jeremiah at his word find themselves seeing the world through different eyes, skeptical of the status quo and partisan agendas.

Seeing God’s hope for the world, Jeremiah claims the rich and the poor, the great and the least, the powerful and the powerless will have the same words of God inscribed upon their hearts. The left and the right will no longer scrabble over their turf wars, claiming to speak for God. God will have spoken, and for once, everyone shall know and not worry about “being right” when the dust settles. Jeremiah prophecies a world no longer prone to tearing itself apart. This is indeed good news!