Sermon for February 28, 2021 Lent 2 B House of Prayer Lutheran Church

Mark 8:31-38; Jeremiah 29:1, 8-14 Rev. Karl-John N. Stone

Sermon Series: The Blessing of Adversity Today’s Theme: Trust God’s Plan

Today I’m on part two of our Lenten sermon series on “The Blessing of Adversity”, with the theme for this week being “Trust God’s Plan”. Maybe you’ve heard the saying: If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. Well, God must think I’m a regular comedian! As human beings, though, we like to make plans. We like to imagine the way life will be, and take the steps to try to make it happen. Sometimes things work out that way. But sometimes they don’t. And when your plans don’t go the way you think they should, does that mean you’ve failed? Or does it mean that maybe God was trying to nudge you in a different direction?

I don’t believe that everything that happens is because God willed it to happen, since God has created us with free will. But I do believe that God is an active influence in the world and in our lives, and that God has an ultimate plan for where he wants his creation to go--that is, God wants to redeem the world and the people in it, so that all creation can have the joy of knowing the God who loves us and made us. And sometimes this God is trying to nudge us in a certain direction, or God trying to open a pathway for us to follow. And when that happens, it very often can be hard to accept, because it’s different from the plans we made for ourselves.

Let me give you an example. When I was in seminary, my plan for after graduation was to be able to return home, to go back to New York and serve as a pastor there in the thick of the big city. I really had my heart set on it, I prayed and prayed for this to happen. Well, it was about this time of year when our class was being assigned to different synods, to interview for our first calls. And guess what? I was not assigned to New York.

I was disappointed, to say the least. But even though I knew where I was not going, Beth Ann and I still didn’t know which synod, specifically, we were assigned to. Well, a week or two goes by until I get a phone call. “Hello, this is Bishop Donald Main from the Upper Susquehanna Synod in Pennsylvania.” Where?? Now my heart really sank. I had no idea where this was. For as much as I knew about north central Pennsylvania, I might as well have been asked to go to Mars. Was this really God’s plan for me? If so, it was going to be very difficult to accept.

But God sent messages to me through some key people. One of them was my great-uncle Arnold. Uncle Arnold was a retired Methodist minister. Like me he had grown up in New York City, and he was always very proud that Brooklyn Dodger Blue ran through his veins. He also had been sent far away from home, to serve the gospel of Jesus in central Illinois. He heard that I was upset, so he gave me a call. “You know, Karl-John, you don’t have to accept this assignment. If you really feel that this is not going to work, you can say no. Another opportunity will come along, I promise you.” That was the first nudge: realizing that I could say no paradoxically opened my heart to the possibility that maybe Pennsylvania was where God needed me to go. Then the second nudge. Bishop Main called back and said, “I know this is not where you were expecting to go. But I’d like you to come out here for a visit and see what it’s like. After that, if you still don’t think this will work, I’ll be your number one advocate to find someplace else.”

Well, I couldn’t say no to that. And with God at work through these two people, I finally opened my heart to see the needs and the character of the congregation where I would interview, and how well they matched up with gifts and talents God had given me. A couple months later, I accepted the call to be pastor of Messiah Lutheran Church in Troxelville, PA. Rather than seeing this as being randomly exiled to a place I had never heard of before, I saw instead how God had a purpose for sending me to a new place.

God’s plans and purposes are often not obvious to us, and this is nothing new. In our first reading today, we hear about the Israelites who were exiled to Babylon. They had been defeated, and the elders, priests, and prophets--all the leaders--had been captured and forced to leave their homes in Jerusalem and move far away to another country. This exile was deeper than simply disappointment, this was traumatic. It was a traumatic experience. How could God possibly be at work in something so terrible, they wondered? They lamented. They mourned.

But God gave them a nudge through a key person--the prophet Jeremiah. He shared with them the Word of the Lord, and the plans God had for them. Yes, they would go through difficulties. They would have to spend 70 years in exile--and after that, God promised to bring their descendents home. But in the meantime, God had a purpose for them to fulfill. Rather than stew in resentment for the tragedy they had endured, God wanted them to build homes in Babylon. Plant gardens there, and eat the food. Marry and raise families in Babylon. Enjoy your grandchildren, in Babylon. And as for those people who captured you and brought you into exile? Pray for them! And put your prayers into action: Work for the peace and prosperity of the people and the new place where you live. Lend a hand for their wellbeing-- since you’ll be living right next to them for 70 years, their wellbeing and your wellbeing will be intertwined. You may not like each other, but you’ll still have to depend on each other!

In this story of exile, we find some of the keys of learning how to trust God’s plan--and these are summarized by Barry Black in the second chapter of his book. First, we need to surrender to God. God sometimes leads us to painful places and times, but God doesn’t leave us there all alone. Christ comes to meet us when we are in the middle of adversity, and he also leads us through those painful times and raises us to new life--when we stick with him in faith.

Second, is to believe in God’s kindness. Even though the Israelites would rather have been back in Jerusalem, God still wanted them to have good things in life. By learning to enjoy their homes, their gardens, their families in Babylon, God showed them how he wanted to save them, not destroy them, not to crush their spirits. Likewise for us, we know God’s kindness through Jesus Christ. If God’s own Son willingly gave his life on the cross for our salvation, is there anything that we truly need that he is not able to supply? We find true life by taking up our own cross and following Jesus.

Third, is to accept God’s chastisement. The Israelites in exile became painfully aware of the mistakes and sins they had committed. Having faith in God doesn’t mean that you never make mistakes. Wanting to share the love of Christ with others doesn’t mean that we don’t sin and suffer the consequences. But when we make mistakes; if we harm others; God wants to put us back on the right path. God wants to bring us home, forgive our sins when we turn to Christ, and to restore us.

And a fourth key is to pray for your enemies. This is a hard one. And it doesn’t mean that we should condone evil, or accept injustice. But it sure is easy to let negative emotions overwhelm you when you’ve been wronged. You can easily get to the point where it’s as if you are drinking poison, yet hoping the poison you are drinking kills your enemy--when all it’s really doing is hurting you. The exiles in Babylon learned how to have a magnanimous spirit towards their enemies. And for us, when we put our trust in Jesus (who, by the way, loves your enemies as much as he loves you); when we pray as Jesus taught us; then the Holy Spirit makes room for God’s grace in our hearts and re-wires our minds so we can put our energy toward being productive in the future, rather than holding on to a hurtful past.

Taken together, all of these keys help us to live with hope--hope that God’s goodness will ultimately prevail. 70 years was a long time for those exiles to wait, and there were times when they didn’t know how they were gonna make it. But they made it, with God’s help. And God is with us today, to help us through our faith in Jesus. When you are at your lowest and don’t know how you’re gonna make it, you can keep your heart and mind fixed on the cross of Christ. He is the fulfillment of God’s plan, so that with Christ, eternal love and forgiveness will always be available in unlimited supply. Amen.