Jeremiah 30:1-9

I believe that God is the God of abundance. How about you? Believing in God’s abundance is easy here in Marin at the foot of Mt. Tam. All we have to do is step outside and look at the amazing landscapes that surround us and we see God’s abundance on display in creation.

The abundance of God is expressed eloquently in two images that stick with me from my time in Dr. Love’s Theology class. The first is the image offered by John Calvin of God as the fountain of all good things. A fountain can come in many different shapes – from the overly ornate with spouts shooting from many different directions to the stripped-down, utilitarian type meant to offer water to one who is thirsty. The central feature of all fountains is that they are meant to offer moving water – whether solely to the eye as a thing of beauty to behold or to the dry mouth as a beauty to taste. This water is not stagnant or stale, but constantly refreshing – like the fountains that allow the water to spill over to be recollected underground and shot back out through the spouts. This is how Calvin understood God and God’s goodness. God, who is all good, does not keep that goodness to God’s self. Rather, God sends that goodness shooting out, arcing elegantly through the air, so that it can fill to overflowing all of creation. God wants this love to spill over, to work its way deep below the surface. God’s abundant love flows like the water in a fountain reaching all who will draw near.

The second image of God’s abundance is one offered by Daniel Migliore as he explores the social analogy of the Trinity put forth by Jürgen Moltmann, David Brown, Cornelius Plantiga, Jr. and others. As Migliore explains it, the three persons of the godhead are in a perichoretic dance – giving and taking equally from each other in love. We get the picture of God dancing with God’s self slowly back and forth in the natural rhythm of give and take. And then comes the amazing piece – that circle of God’s being doesn’t just stay turned in on itself. No! It opens and invites us, God’s creation, to join in. God’s love is so abundant that God does not want to keep it all for God’s self. Instead, God calls to us to join in that eternal ebb and flow of give and take of love that is the very essence of God. We are called from sitting in the hard folding chair on the side of the high school gym to come and participate in the joyous dance of our creator. Does your heart jump a little when you think about that invitation? Mine does.

This is the God in whom we believe: God, the abundant fountain of all good things who wants to fill us to overflowing; God, the eternal being of love who invites us to join in the dance. Doesn’t it make you want to shout, “Hallelujah! Thank you God.”?

I believe that God is the God of abundance. I just have a problem trusting; trusting that God’s abundance is meant for me; trusting that I don’t need to do it all for myself; trusting that God will provide.

From today’s text, I’d say that I’m not unique in this regard.

God comes to Jeremiah and tells him to write down what God is about to say. God wants a written record of the promises to provide fortunes and lands for God’s people. These are not new promises. God has made them to God’s people throughout their history. But apparently the chosen people needed to be reminded that God had made these promises to their ancestors. They seemed to have forgotten the many examples of God keeping God’s promise for the ancestors of Israel and Judah.

How many times had the people heard or retold the story of Abraham and Sarah? What an amazing story to demonstrate God’s abundance. Two people, well past their prime, who finally have the long-promised child and in this child see the beginning of the multiplication of their line as God promised.

Or how many times had the people retold the story of the Exodus in which God provided time and time again the food and the water that the people needed as they made their way through the desert. And God didn’t just provide them with the bare amount; God provided so much that they had food left over.

In our passage from today, can you hear the disappointment in God’s words? [read vv. 5-6] Given God’s track record with God’s people it seems like they should have a little more faith that God will continue to provide for their needs. But when hard times befall them, they turn to crying in fear and terror, ignoring God’s call for shalom: peace, justice, and wholeness for all.

God acknowledges the difficulties that the people are facing. [read v. 7] Trusting in God’s goodness and promises to provide doesn’t mean that there will never be hard times. But God is right there with the people; telling them to trust in God’s promises, to use that trust to get them through the hard times. God will reverse the bad situation in which the people find themselves. They will be returned to the land that God gave to their ancestors. They will no longer be slaves to foreigners. They will instead be free to serve God and God’s servant – that king from the line of David whom God will raise up. God has done this in the past. God will do it again in the future. This is God’s promise to God’s people.

Trust the abundant goodness of God. That’s what God wanted Jeremiah to tell the people; that’s what God calls us to do as well.

I don’t see a lot of that happening in our world today. I’m more inclined to say that I see what God saw when God looked at the people in Jeremiah’s time: men acting as if they were in the throws of child labor; people walking around with pale faces as if death were on their doorsteps; people crying out in fear and terror – using that as an excuse to ignore God’s call – the call for peace, justice, and wholeness for all of creation.

We are living in hard times. While our lands haven’t been taken away, the security we feel in them has. We have many factions of leaders trying to tell us which way our government should be run. We are a people divided against itself (much like the people of Jeremiah’s time). The prosperous days of the late-90s have given way to the uncertain days of the new millennium. We act as slaves to the fear and terror that surrounds us instead of being servants of the abundantly loving God. There are understandable reasons for us to run around with cries of fear and panic. But we’re called to trust in God’s abundant goodness in spite of these seemingly overwhelming reasons to do the opposite.

This is the point of the book of Jeremiah according to Walter Brueggemann in “To Pluck up, To Tear Down.” He says: The book of Jeremiah uses the power of language to propose an imaginative world that is an alternative to the one that seems to be at hand – it places the listener in crisis, but also presents the listener with a new zone for fresh hope, changed conduct, and fresh historical possibility.

What would it mean for us to truly trust in God’s abundant goodness? How would our lives be different? How would the world be different than what we see around us right now? Can you even imagine?

Trusting God requires us to give up the tight grip of control that we like to think we have over our lives. When we fight to keep this control we close ourselves off from seeing the amazing ways in which God is working in our lives. When we close our fists to hold on to what we have we cannot accept anything from another. Our hands must be opened if we are to receive something.

Trusting God calls us to trust that God will provide all that we need. For those of us who have more than we need, this trust compels us to give freely, working to bring shalom – justice, recompense, wholeness – for all of God’s creation. For those of us who struggle to make ends meet, who have systematically been denied the tools or means of having our needs met, this trust calls us to believe that God doesn’t want us to live in this way. Knowing this, we are compelled to speak up about the injustice that we see. We are not to resign ourselves to accepting our situation as our place in life. We must speak of the abundance of our God that is meant not just for some, but for all of God’s creation.

The next time you see someone in need and can help them out by giving them a few dollars, do it. Don’t close your fist around that money hoping in the process to stave off some future drought in your resources. If you have the opportunity to share a meal with someone else, do it. Don’t stash away your extra food fearing that you will go hungry yourself if you give to someone else. If you see an opportunity to use your gifts or talents to help another, do it. Don’t run to your next appointment or say that you have too much to do to spend this time helping another. Give freely of yourself as God gives freely of God’s self and God will richly bless you.

If you are the one in need of a dollar, a meal, or of gifts and talents of others, open yourself to receiving this help. Don’t tell yourself that you must provide for yourself. Don’t shut out other people who want to help you through a tough time. By turning away their offers you could be turning away God’s attempts to provide for you.

God has acted in ordinary and miraculous ways to provide for people throughout all of history. God calls us to believe that God is the God of abundance. And God calls us not just to believe, but to trust that God’s abundance is meant for us.

Don’t go around with a long face, believing that terror, fear, and injustice will have the last word. Dare to trust that God will provide and provide abundantly. Imagine a world that is different, a world that revels in God’s abundant love. Go forth rejoicing in the goodness of God. Amen.

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