Jeremiah 18:1-11 Psalm 139:1-5, 12-17 Philemon 1-21 Luke 14:25-33

            Beginning last Sunday and continuing through the month of September, our Old Testament lessons come to us from the prophet Jeremiah.  Last Sunday we heard the words of Jeremiah’s call from God, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.” [NRSV Jeremiah 1:5].

            Jeremiah was God’s mouthpiece at a time of great foreboding for the people of Israel.   This was a time three centuries after the United Monarchy under King Solomon had split into two kingdoms – North and South, the tribes to the North taking the name of Israel; the tribes of the South with their center the holy city of Jerusalem designated by the name of Judah – the major tribe of its composition.  By the time of Jeremiah’s call, the Israelites of the Northern Kingdom had long since been taken captive by the Assyrians.

            Judah, to the south, had been somewhat successful in turning back the Assyrians.  But, in doing so, her people had compromised themselves religiously and politically. They had chosen to worship the false gods of their adversaries and they had aligned themselves with dubious imperial powers whom the people of Judah hoped in vain would provide for their protection.  In their fear and frustration, they had turned their trust from God and, in their self-serving pride, had begun to believe that they could provide safety for themselves.

            Now, in the time period we read of today, Judah has become vulnerable to the Babylonians.   Jeremiah, in his scathing tirade, is laying the blame for Judah’s desperation at the feet of the people of Judah, imploring them to turn back to God, away from the enticing pagan practices of their aggressors.

            Through Jeremiah, in this morning’s Old Testament lesson, we hear the words of God, “Be appalled, O heavens, for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water.” [Jeremiah 2:13].

            The idea of a cracked cistern would serve as a compelling metaphor for the people of Judah.  Some of us from generations preceding municipal water systems in remote coastal areas can relate as well, though our cisterns would not have been carved out of solid bedrock, as ancient Israel’s would have been.

            And, rather than providing an alternative to unsatisfactory ground water, the purpose of the cisterns in the hill country of Israel was the collection and preservation of rainwater for use during the summer months when the climate in this area of the world is extremely dry.   These man-made reservoirs carved into the rock were lined with a sticky lime plaster that had been developed to cover the inner surface and prevent the water from seeping out.   A stone cover was fashioned to keep the reservoir free of varmints and debris and to prevent evaporation while allowing the collected rainwater to be accessed as needed.

            Particularly in areas some distance from rivers or streams, the existence of an efficiently operating cistern is necessary for wellbeing.  Its malfunction could threaten the lives of families and the production of crops.  A cracked cistern that allowed water to leak into the ground rather than be preserved for important uses would be the source of great peril.

            Nevertheless, Jeremiah quotes God saying, the people have “dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that hold no water.”  These chosen people of God had become hypocritical in their worship and had been enticed by the sinful pleasures of idols.  Their cisterns were not of God’s making.

            We do not read these words of Jeremiah for their historical significance only.  We read them because God speaks to us through Jeremiah just as he spoke to the people of Judah.  Jeremiah brings us God’s word because God knows that we, too, are guilty of building cisterns on our own terms rather than trusting God to direct the carving out of our cisterns.  Jeremiah warns us of the consequences of pushing God out of society, rendering God irrelevant.

            Like the people of Judah we have the tendency to make God into something more convenient for our worship and less bothersome to our earthly lives. And, like the people of Judah, we have sought alliances with powers – social or political – that provide us protection for our comfortable way of life and prevent our disaffection by more popularly accepted trends.  God’s a good thing as long as He stays in His place on our terms and doesn’t start pointing His finger at our hypocrisy and idolatry and faithlessness.   In this way, rather than cisterns created by God, we begin to be dependent upon these poorly designed cisterns that crack and leak.  We are left with only the stale slimy residue of rainy seasons past – the lack of fulfilling worship of the one true God, apathy and complacency in our sense of responsibility to our neighbor; we are left with angry, violent children and young people, and an empty misdirected existence for ourselves – cracked cisterns that can hold no water.

                        For forty years, being despised and rejected, Jeremiah would implore his people to turn from their wicked ways, return to the one God, and be saved from destruction.  But, if historians are somewhat accurate on their dates, the prophet Jeremiah would live to see the beginnings of the deportation of the people of Judah by foreign rulers.  And, in the decades following Jeremiah’s call, the whole of Jerusalem along with Solomon’s great temple of gold and stone would be destroyed or purloined and her people marched into exile in Babylon – modern day Iraq.

            Jeremiah fell short of convincing the people of Judah to mend their ways.  He gleaned no satisfaction from his accurate predictions of doom and gloom.  But, the message of hope for redemption did not die. It would be fully realized 600 years later with the Incarnation – God made flesh through the birth of Jesus Christ.

            Along with the people of Judah, we are called to turn from our hypocrisy and idolatry, to embrace the whole tragic sense of human history and see in it God’s one story of continued redemption of His people.[1]  In today’s epistle and Gospel lessons, both the writer of Hebrews and St. Luke give us guidance in building lives that turn from our own self-serving pride to receive and maintain God’s goodness through hospitality and humility.

            In this world of the metaphor of our cistern, water flows in – the free gift of God’s grace.  In hospitality and humility we open ourselves to this ever-flowing fountain of living water.  We need only to make ourselves a receptive reservoir for God’s free flowing grace – holders of the goodness of God. This reservoir of life-giving water provides for our sustenance; its life-giving properties are to be shared in communion with others; and with care its life-giving powers will remain available to us in times of crisis and drought.

            We look to God for guidance in being the kind of wholesome vessel we should be to receive and store up His goodness.  Jesus said, “all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” [Luke 14:11].  We are asked only to BE the vessel – the holder of God’s goodness that flows freely into us – the humble receiver of His unconditional grace – free-flowing never-ending grace to quench the thirst of all creation.