Purchase
Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15
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It has often been said that the three most important factors to consider when purchasing real estate are location, location, location. Although location can mean different things to different people. Nine years ago, when we knew that we were moving to Albuquerque, we researched the area schools. Then we based our search for a house on which areas would feed into the schools that might be the best fit for our kids. A friend of ours who lived in San Diego wanted to open a store selling all kinds of funky clothes, hats and jewelry. He knew it needed to be near the beach. So, he scouted several locations often spending a whole day in front of a particular spot with a clicker in his hand to estimate the kind of foot traffic he could expect to pass by. The first store he opened was just 100 feet down the street from the main drag that ran along the beach. Business wasn’t what he had hoped for. Then a storefront opened up just 100 feet closer to all those beachgoers. He moved the store and business boomed. Where to live, where to work, or start a business, the locations that we choose say a lot about what it is that we hope for. We hoped our kids would get a good education, our friend hoped for a thriving business. Location, location, location.
Our reading this morning opens with the prophet Jeremiah located in the courtyard of the guard within the King’s Palace in Jerusalem. Which is just an elaborate way of saying that he is under arrest and being confined by the King’s guard behind the palace walls where no one can hear his prophetic cries urging the people of Jerusalem to save their own lives and surrender to the Babylonians. Babylon was the ancient world’s regional superpower, and their army had laid siege to Jerusalem because the nation had openly revolted against King Nebuchadnezzar’s control and influence. Nothing went into the city, and no one came out. Conditions were appalling. There was little food or fresh water, and as the siege dragged on people became so desperate some resorted to cannibalism. Disease soon spread through the weakened and crowded population. Sadly, Jeremiah has seen it all coming and had been warning the people, had wept at the word that came to him from God and spoke of Judah’s destruction. It was a devastating word of judgment that Jeremiah shared with a people who had abandoned their God. Now those words had come to fruition. Jerusalem, which had been the nation’s stronghold; Jerusalem, home to the temple where the very presence of God was believed to dwell; Jerusalem had become a veritable hell on earth as the people suffered the desperate consequences of a city under siege.
In the midst of this dire situation, amid the drama of a city held captive by a foreign army, amid the denial of a King who refuses to hear how bad things are going and how much worse they are going to get;, amid the despair of a prophet who raised his voice in alarm only to be labeled a traitor and thrown in jail, amid all that comes this seemingly inconsequential real estate transaction between the prophet Jeremiah and his cousin Hanamel. God tells Jeremiah that Hanamel is on his way to the palace, and sure enough his cousin shows up and asks the prophet to buy a piece of property, ostensibly to keep it in the family. The request is more than unusual considering the circumstances of the city and the siege. And it sounds like the desperate move of someone who thinks they’re beat, who has given up and is looking to cut their losses. Hanamel comes to Jeremiah because according to the laws in the book of Leviticus, he has the right of redemption. As the closest relative, Jeremiah has the right to save the family farm if he can by securing the deed. He can keep it from being sold to someone else and falling out of the family name. It’s a practice that recognized the land as something bigger than a momentary individual investment. Land was held in trust for the sake of the generations to come. If for whatever reason a person couldn’t hold on to a particular piece of land, if there were no heirs to inherit it, then it was offered to the nearest relative. Under ordinary circumstances, such a transaction would be no big deal. It certainly wouldn’t get recorded in the book of the prophet. But these are obviously no ordinary circumstances. The field in question lies beyond the city walls, which means it is already in the enemy’s hands. Location, location, location. What exactly is the point of keeping it in the family, paying good money- seventeen precious pieces of silver- for a now worthless piece of land overrun by an invading army? That sounds like madness. No one in their right mind would, on the brink of almost certain annihilation, spend the time or the money to execute such a transaction so painstakingly. Just cut your losses already. When we’re under siege, whether it is a foreign army barricading the front door or simply the everyday forces of this world that hold us down and hold us back and threaten to destroy life as we’ve known it, simply surviving is a big enough challenge. Who goes looking to invest in a lost cause? It turns out that hope, like real estate, is also all about location, location, location. Because where our hope lies can make all the difference when we are under siege.
Admiral James Stockdale was a Vietnam prisoner of war for seven-and-a-half years. In recounting his experience and how he made it through he says that he never lost faith in the end of the story. Likewise, he observed that those he was imprisoned with who did not fare so well were the optimists; the ones who said, ‘We’re going to be out by Christmas.’ And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they’d say, ‘We’re going to be out by Easter.’ And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart. The King of Judah was an optimist, pinning his hopes on a rescue from his neighbor to the west, Egypt. The last time Babylon made trouble for Judah, the threat of an Egyptian retaliation had been enough to get them to back off. The whole reason the king had Jeremiah locked up was because he thought the prophet’s words were undermining his optimistic narrative. Jeremiah didn’t waste time on the King’s optimism because the word of judgement that he’d received from God declared that the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the kingdom of Judah were assured. Their destruction was assured because the people and their King believed that optimism would save them, that a positive outlook would carry the day. But optimism, or the power of positive thinking are ultimately a false hope. The location of their hope is nothing more than a dressed up dive bar in the wrong part of town. Because there is nothing they can do; not the King or the prophet, or the prophet’s cousin, or anyone else in Jerusalem to suspend God’s judgment on this people and on this nation. The prophet knows what the king refuses to see, because the King is afraid that destruction is the end of the story. The prophet knows the whole promise of God. And the whole promise of God never ends in destruction. When you know that, then what you come to see is that hope is located far closer to home than anyone imagined. In this particular case, hope lies just on the other side of the wall of a city under siege. Because just as surely as kingdoms rise, they also fall. Empires come and go. Armies and monarchs and rulers of every kind are only a breath. But God’s promise, God’s covenant is forever. It is from everlasting to everlasting. And God had promised this land to God’s people. Just as Jeremiah redeemed the land of his cousin- a field lost to the invading army of Babylon- so too, God could be trusted to redeem God’s people and restore them to the land once more. Judgment is never the end of the story. Destruction is never the end of the story. God’s final word on the matter is always redemption, restoration, you might even say resurrection. Which means that the way things are are never the way they always will be. Jeremiah knows this, and so he shows them all in the most visible, tangible way possible where true hope is located. It is found in those things that God gives us as a sign of God’s promise. Simple things like a plot of land, a font of water, a loaf of bread, and a cup filled to the brim. Even in the darkest times when we may feel under siege by the force of this world- forces of in justice and unequal power, forces of economic hardship, forces of addiction, betrayal and unending demands-when we are facing the loss of everything we have known, it is these tangible signs that point us to where our true hope is located. Our true hope is located in the one whose promise is more steadfast than armies, or nations, or leaders, or even destruction and judgment itself. With that hope we know the end of story, and that the one who tells it can be trusted through it all.